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| internship (Photo credit: Sean MacEntee) |
The best things in life are free, but you can give them to the birds and bees, I want money
It is almost 50 years since The Beatles recorded Money (That's What I Want). Fast forward to 2013 and it is a song that is very much in my thoughts with regards to the practice of unpaid internships. I received a placement advert last week that demonstrated in very clear terminology everything that is wrong with current legislation regarding sandwich placements. Placements undertaken as part of a university course are exempt from National Minimum Wage, meaning that employers don't have to pay their interns.
I'm pleased to say that the vast majority of the employers my students spend their placement year with do offer salaries. For those who don't, I offer very little support in terms of promoting their opportunities and shunt their adverts into a separate online folder clearly branded UNPAID PLACEMENTS. Personally I would prefer not to advertise these roles at all but given that they are not illegal, and in some instances, the industries my students want to work in offer no paid alternative, I duly upload these roles through gritted teeth.
For the most part, the companies offering these roles are charities or start-up companies looking for a bit of extra man-power. While I still think they should be paying employees for their work, I can recognise that resources may be stretched for these organisations. An extension of the SME Apprenticeship Grant for SME placement providers would be a welcome step forward to help these companies hire and recruit placement students into paid roles.
Where I get angry is when much larger companies who should be offering paid placements decide that they need not bother and go down the unpaid route. The job description I received last week falls very much into that category and frankly has left me feeling more than a little disgusted. And here is why. The job title does me a favour by marking up in big capital letters that this role in unpaid
Job Title - Marketing Administrator - UNPAID INTERNSHIP
However, just a couple of sentences down, the advertising company proudly boast that they are part of a larger plc which is a FTSE 100 company and has a £2 Billion turnover. So, to type that out, in a financial year their turnover is £2,000,000,000. Lots of zeroes don't you think? Surely within that, they can cobble together enough pennies to offer a student employee a reasonable placement salary, circa £14k? This role may be exempt from National Minimum Wage, but seriously. Pay your interns.
It could be a really fantastic role, a doorway into a successful career and no doubt the student who takes up the opportunity will benefit (non-financially). However, when a company that clearly has the resources to offer paid placements but decides that their interns can do without, my moral compass tells me to steer clear. I won't be advertising this placement. My students, and students in general, deserve better than this.
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