It’s my work, he’d say, and I do it for pay…
There’s been a bit of debate recently on BBC etc on ‘Intern Abuse’. The discussion seems to focus on a) Job-hunting university leavers being warned against paying for services to help get them internships and b) Companies not paying their interns.
The BBC didn’t get round to publishing our feedback so here it is:
We operate on the basis of a ‘Freemium’ model where users can create profiles and search for opportunities for FREE but pay a one-off £10 membership fee which gives them a number of membership benefits (discounts, access to events etc) as well as the ability to identify the names of companies and make applications. In our view this does not constitute anything more than a very reasonable admin fee. Without some form of hurdle like this, companies would be inundated with speculative applications – one of the issues we seek to address. As it is, we find that there is a correlation between the quality (or relevance) of profiles/applications and those that are prepared to pay to join the network.
With advertising rates low, we have had to find ways to make our business model work – we are not yet profitable! To increase supply, companies can post opportunities for free on WEXO but pay us to help them find the right people.
With regard to unpaid internships, we encourage our companies to pay their graduate interns at least the national minimum wage (as legally required and as we have done ourselves) but we do not enforce it. This is a grey area though. I understand that a lot of the internships available on the Graduate Talent Pool are unpaid and that there are unpaid interns at both the BBC and in parliament! Exploitation is wrong but ultimately I would argue that market economics should dictate and if someone wants to work for free to gain valuable experience then they should be allowed to. We are however lobbying the government to subsidise paid internships to encourage companies to offer them.
Robin Kennedy
I am a paid up member of WEXO and I’ve always had good experiences with them and the companies I’ve worked for.
But I’m a serial intern, I’ve done internship after internship since I left Uni this year and so this is a debate I get passionate about. I have to disagree with you that ‘market economics should dictate’. That basically means people in stronger inherrited financial positions are able to do jobs for free whilst people who can’t afford to are denied a fair shot at their chosen careers. Surely it’s bad for the economy if a portion of the best candidates for jobs are excluded?
I agree with you that the government isn’t doing enough. They currently fund graduates for internships, but only after they’ve been on unemployment benefits for six months. What do you do to pay the rent before then? Sit around on benefits and wait to start your career? I, like most people did whatever I could to kickstart my career, I’m too anxious to sit around on unemployment benefits.
I think it’s very unfair that having graduated with thousands of pounds worth of debt and no job, we’re now the ones forced to shoulder the cost of the recession by not being paid for the work we do. That is not to say I don’t think internships are a great thing, but like you say, they MUST be paid.
Lukas. Fair points well argued. My concern is that many companies just can’t afford to take people on in any capacity at the moment. Even large and successful companies are having to reduce their costs in order to survive. Just last night I spoke to a famous entertainment company who are looking for someone to come in as an Admin Assistant but they can’t get access to any budget at the moment to pay them (as I’d like them to). They did concede that if the person did well (and made themselves indispensible) then there could be a job at the end of it… I agree with you that work should be apportioned on the basis of merit rather than wealth but the risk is that regulation reduces the pool of (or gateway to) opportunities all together. All things considered, I think that if you are adding value to a company then you should be paid. This might not include work experience per se or a stint at the BBC (where the experience itself will make you more employable) but otherwise I think you have a compelling argument. More encouragingly, we now have access to limited government funding that can subsidise paid internships for companies. As ever, there’s a lot of bureaucracy and only specific cases qualify but we are looking to make this work for both companies and interns.
BLOG UPDATE
Since this Blog was last commented on there’s been much more in the press about graduate unemployment and unpaid internships. Earlier this summer, WEXO worked hard to try and form an Internships Alliance with a number of other industry players. The principle aim was to lobby the government to try and incentivise companies to offer paid internships. Ultimately, there was too much difference of opinion between the potential members and sadly this didn’t work out.
As discussed in a recent BBC article, to some extent, “Internships have replaced entry-level jobs” and this is part of the problem. Internships have traditionally been seen by many companies (particularly in the creative industries) as a way of helping undergraduates get some valuable work experience during their school holidays. How often have we seen careers pages on company websites saying:
“We offer a great learning experience within an exciting company. Travel and lunch allowances paid.”
These companies are often unaware of their legal obligations. They haven’t had time to think about the social implications of offering unpaid roles. They get inundated with applications. I constantly come across business leaders who spent time, yesteryear, working in pubs and restaurants to afford themselves the opportunity of working (for free) with music or fashion companies that they aspired to one day run and now do. Today, more and more actual graduates are resorting to internships and in the brave new world, it is only right that if you are adding value to a company you should be paid at least the national minimum wage. Social mobility is key and unpaid internships discriminate against people who simply can’t afford to work for free. But in these dire economic times, with companies struggling to make ends meet, we must be careful not to scare companies away from opening their doors to young people all together. They need to be helped to understand their obligation to help the graduates of today; not named and shamed because they can’t.
So for the foreseeable future, our only alliance is with STEP and we are just concentrating our efforts on working to try and make paid internships and graduate endeavour a reality. A reality that we hope in time will lead to full time employment.
I understand that as a result of the economic downturn that companies cannot afford to take on paid staff, but what I find particularly disheartening is the fact that some Internship Companies (not wexo) are being paid thousands of pounds for each graduate they secure in an internship. How can a company say that they cannot afford to pay graduates for work but at the same time pay an agency thousands of pounds to find graduates aka free labour! That is exploitation at its finest. I think it’s disgusting. The other day I was actually about to join an Internship agency until I looked at the ‘prices’ section and couldn’t believe how much the agency gets paid.
Another thing I must add to this discussion is the issue of nepotism. Ultimately rich graduates who are funded by the bank of ‘momma and pappa’ can afford to work as unpaid interns and often obtain the best internships. Ultimately that leaves us poor graduates with the same qualifications from the same universities but poorer parents and no money, with virtually no ability to work unpaid. I myself graduated from a ‘top 10 university’ and have great credentials but cannot afford to work unpaid because it would mean having no money. The JobCentre even said that if you’re on an internship you’re not entitled to benefits- so where does that leave someone like me? I have no choice but to work in menial low paid jobs and save up till Lord knows when.