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Sold Short: Stop Selling Your Talent For Less Than it’s Worth
Unpaid internships are becoming a thing of the past as
college graduates look for employment.

By Megan Berberich

 
Never in a million years did I think I’d be digging through a bag of trash in 100-degree heat looking for the missing dentures of a highly distraught woman. While completing this less-than-glamorous task, I started asking myself some existential life questions. What am I doing here? Isn’t there more to life than serving burgers and fries?

At least I was getting paid to do this. I was working for one of the largest companies in the world. Wasn’t this supposed to be worth the trouble? Being an intern for the Disney College Program wasn’t exactly the magical experience I expected.

There were many days when I was on the brink of breaking down — from dealing with too many Brazilian tour groups to smelling like I’d been dumped into the deep fryer with the onion rings. Yet when those paychecks rolled in at the end of every week, the idea of making Caesar salads for a few more hours didn’t seem so bad.

As Millennials we were taught in order to situate ourselves in a lucrative career path after college, we had to pursue internships as early and as often as we could. If we have a lot of them, that should reciprocate into a job eventually.

Right? Maybe not.

I’ve had three unpaid internships over the course of my college career. I spent many nights at one job asking constituents for money as a finance intern for a former Iowa congressman. I encountered many annoyed people and found myself listening to many political rants over the phone. All it taught me was that I never wanted to pursue a career in politics.

The common defense of unpaid internships is that they give interns skills that are beneficial in the long run. Plus, the company can be a great place to network But, to many people’s dismay (including mine), unpaid internships aren’t as beneficial as we think. The unsettling truth is that unpaid internships are becoming increasingly irrelevant. In recent years, numbers are showing that they aren’t helping grads get jobs.

A recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers questioned the correlation between internships and full-time employment after graduation. Hiring rates for those who had chosen to complete an unpaid internship (37percent) were almost the same for those who had not completed any internship at all (35percent). Students who had a history of a paid internship were far more likely to secure employment (63 percent).

The numbers speak for themselves — you are twice as likely to be hired into a company having had a previous paid internship under your belt, than you are with a previous unpaid internship.

Intern Bridge, a widely cited consulting firm specializing in college recruiting, runs an annual survey of intern salaries.

In 2012, its findings showed college students were about twice as likely to receive a job offer at the conclusion of a paid internship than at the end of an unpaid internship. Not only that, 36 percent of students received a job offer after their paid internship, while only 17 percent of unpaid interns did. Sure, some internships are valuable learning experiences for future careers, but should you give away your talent and skills for free?

Derek Thompson, senior editor at The Atlantic, points out in his article, “In the broadcast industry, internships are concentrated in New York, Atlanta and Los Angeles. The costs to move there and work for no money eliminates thousands of low-income students from what is essentially required to gain future employment after graduation.”

I had always considered applying for internships in New York City, but found it laughable, imagining myself trying to scrape up enough cash to pay for housing while working for free. And that’s before I even took the cost-of-living into account.

According to CNNMoney’s cost-of-living calculator moving from my place in Des Moines to New York City would jack up my monthly grocery costs 60 percent, and rent more than 400 percent. Some students will pay thousands of dollars in rent and living expenses just to get “valuable experience” at an internship. Like Thompson wrote, the cost of interning for free creates an achievement gap. Only the rich can afford to get the experience.Don’t be fooled by that selling point of “experience.”

How does printing off copies or alphabetizing records translate into a tangible “real-world” job? And just to be considered for an internship, companies expect students to already be well versed in certain skills outside of the classroom. Students may end up paying for software programs like Photoshop, or for a web domain name (because in today’s digital world,an online portfolio is just as important as a resume.)

I wish I had known how little unpaid internships benefited my chances at obtaining a job after graduation. In hindsight, I would have been pickier with the internships I chose and looked for a gig that paid. Don’t fall into the trap of unpaid internships. Stop being a chronic volunteer, and find companies that respect your value as an employee.

I reluctantly chalk up all of my unpaid internships as good ol’ character building. But next time someone asks me to stuff an envelope or answer phones, you can be sure I won’t lift a finger unless I get my hands on that hard-earned dough.

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Photo courtesy of Megan Berberich

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