The Wrath of Unpaid Interns
June 9, 2009
Last week the Daily Dish linked to a new blog called Spotted: DC Summer Interns, which essentially publishes anecdotes about the naivety and ignorance of Washington DC's summer interns. In fairness, though, it seems like most of the abuse is directed at Congressional interns, who of course are fully unpaid.
Now, I've always been skeptical of unpaid internships. Personally because I've never been able to afford them. In a city like Washington, DC, an unpaid internship could easily set you back thousands of dollars by the end of the summer. Plus, there are only so many minimum wage bar and restaurant part-time jobs to go around. But professionally, unpaid internships theoretically attract the lowest-quality talent for a few reasons. First, because it basically strong-arms anyone who can't afford the cost out of the picture. And second, because even for people who can afford to do an unpaid internship, it would have to be a spectacular experience for them to accept it over any paid position, even an internship that pays minimum wage.
A popular defense is that people should be paid based on the skill-level of the work and their willingness to do it at a low price. It seems fair that some entry level staffer should make $25k per year while her boss makes $50k; and even though it would be challenging, it is possible to live on $25k per year (even in Washington DC). It is literally impossible to live on a $0 salary (assuming there isn't some outside funding source).
I guess the question that needs to be asked is: what is the purpose of hiring interns? If the answer is to acquire free labor to do tedious work and mindless tasks then unpaid internships seem to be the way to go. If the answer is to recruit good talent to the organization, then unpaid internships seem to be a very poor tool for achieving that goal. The $8 per hour an organization pays to get good a good intern could easily pay for itself over the long term.
One last thought is that surely there are good interns that don't fit the stereotype built by the DC Interns blog. Perhaps these good interns saved their hard earned money for months in order to afford an internship. Maybe they work a painful number of hours at a part-time job to make enough to cover living expenses; or maybe they commute some disgustingly long distance twice a day in order to live with a relative or avoid the high rents in the District. Or perhaps they just have a sense of responsibility and want to do a good job. Whatever the case, I imagine that these people must be in the most frustrating position of all. Not only do they have to work right next to the jokers who seem less concerned about their internship than other things in life, but they get their good name ruined by the stereotypical inters' brainless behavior.
Now, I've always been skeptical of unpaid internships. Personally because I've never been able to afford them. In a city like Washington, DC, an unpaid internship could easily set you back thousands of dollars by the end of the summer. Plus, there are only so many minimum wage bar and restaurant part-time jobs to go around. But professionally, unpaid internships theoretically attract the lowest-quality talent for a few reasons. First, because it basically strong-arms anyone who can't afford the cost out of the picture. And second, because even for people who can afford to do an unpaid internship, it would have to be a spectacular experience for them to accept it over any paid position, even an internship that pays minimum wage.
A popular defense is that people should be paid based on the skill-level of the work and their willingness to do it at a low price. It seems fair that some entry level staffer should make $25k per year while her boss makes $50k; and even though it would be challenging, it is possible to live on $25k per year (even in Washington DC). It is literally impossible to live on a $0 salary (assuming there isn't some outside funding source).
I guess the question that needs to be asked is: what is the purpose of hiring interns? If the answer is to acquire free labor to do tedious work and mindless tasks then unpaid internships seem to be the way to go. If the answer is to recruit good talent to the organization, then unpaid internships seem to be a very poor tool for achieving that goal. The $8 per hour an organization pays to get good a good intern could easily pay for itself over the long term.
One last thought is that surely there are good interns that don't fit the stereotype built by the DC Interns blog. Perhaps these good interns saved their hard earned money for months in order to afford an internship. Maybe they work a painful number of hours at a part-time job to make enough to cover living expenses; or maybe they commute some disgustingly long distance twice a day in order to live with a relative or avoid the high rents in the District. Or perhaps they just have a sense of responsibility and want to do a good job. Whatever the case, I imagine that these people must be in the most frustrating position of all. Not only do they have to work right next to the jokers who seem less concerned about their internship than other things in life, but they get their good name ruined by the stereotypical inters' brainless behavior.
