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In defence of internships

October 5, 2012 5:29 pm

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In writing this, I have to declare two interests – firstly I’ve been working with Inspiring Interns, a specialist recruitment agency for graduate internships. Secondly I am a lifelong supporter of Labour Students – their work in universities and colleges across the country has brought new members to the Party and their campaigning has rightly influenced policy.

Labour Students organised a lively and well attended Fringe Meeting in Manchester on internships – I’m sorry I couldn’t be there.  But if the Twitter feed was to be believed, I would have been in a minority in supporting internships and in arguing that it would be bad for graduates and bad for tackling unemployment to ban unpaid internships.  Nevertheless, let me make the case:

This year, record numbers graduated from university, one in five of them are unemployed and of those who found work, they are more likely to be working in jobs which don’t make the most of their skills and academic achievements.  It’s tough out there for graduates.

Only 4% of graduates are able to get on to leading graduate recruitment schemes, leaving the remaining 96% to explore work opportunities elsewhere.  Whilst academic qualifications are important when securing work, in the current marketplace a degree alone is not enough unless paired with evidence of its practical application in work. Internships are therefore becoming increasingly important – not just to enable graduates to get hands-on work experience but also to put themselves in the best possible position to actually convince employers that they should be given real jobs.

As well as providing individual graduates with a bridge into work, internships can increase the stock of graduate jobs particularly in new and developing economic sectors and for smaller employers.  Taking on an extra employee is often a significant decision for SMEs, and with minimal funds to direct towards recruitment, an intern who proves themselves as an indispensible member of the team can often find themselves with a job that did not exist previously.

The campaign should be to ensure that internships are of high quality, that they lead to permanent work and that they are open to graduates on the basis of merit rather than family links!

At Inspiring Interns we believe that interns should be recruited through an open process; they should have a clear task or set of tasks which aren’t just doing work which would otherwise be done by paid employees; they should have proper induction and supervision and if they’re not being paid, the internship should be limited to three months; travel and other expenses should be paid and there should be a realistic prospect of a permanent job afterwards.

On the knotty problem of unpaid internships, let’s just consider the real impact of banning people from undertaking short, focused, quality internships for less than the minimum wage.  Some employers would stop offering them at all; others would continue to offer them through the old ‘who you know’ back channels. If a graduate’s doing a ‘real’ job, they should be earning well above the minimum wage anyway.  A short period of internship – paid or unpaid – followed by a permanent job paid at the going rate strikes me as a better option for a graduate than a longer term minimum wage job or unemployment.

At Inspiring Interns, 66% of those who undertake internships find permanent work with the employer after about 3 months of interning.  The others have a boosted CV, a quality experience, new contacts and skills which make it far more likely that they’ll find permanent, well paid work elsewhere. Research conducted by Inspiring Interns, has revealed that graduates who secure an internship typically go on to secure jobs with a £19.4k starting salary, whereas graduates who gain an immediate full time role have an average starting salary of £17.9k.

300 graduates a day apply to Inspiring Interns.  I’m sure that in an ideal world, they would all have liked to walk into a well paid job that used their skills to the max.  But whilst we continue in a less than ideal world, I hope Labour Students don’t put themselves in a position of denying the positive reality for many of those interns.

Jacqui Smith is a former Home Secretary

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  5. Advertising unpaid internships should be banned
  • UKAzeri

    “..often
    find themselves with a job that did not exist previously..” often? really?

    if you would
    like to defend you particular track record on this issue and the use of this
    company that’s one thing.. but lets not pretend that internships result in jobs.
    The reality is that most young people find themselves slaving away, doing a
    full bodied job for free for months and sometimes years.

    Furthermore our
    core vote ( and increasingly middle england too)  can’t afford to work for free with soaring costs of living and
    absence of the ‘mum and dad’ bank ….

    ” A short
    period of internship – paid or unpaid – followed by a permanent job paid at the
    going rate strikes me as a better option for a graduate than a longer term
    minimum wage job or unemployment.” Now where is reality in this sentence?
    madam yuo were a minister for God sake!!! If we going to throw up utopian
    scenarios , I can think of many better ones!

    “..often
    find themselves with a job that did not exist previously..” often? really?

    if you would
    like to defend you particular track record on this issue and the use of this
    company that’s one thing.. but lets not pretend that internships result in jobs.
    The reality is that most young people find themselves slaving away, doing a
    full bodied job for free for months and sometimes years.

    Furthermore our
    core vote ( and increasingly middle england too)  can’t afford to work for free with soaring costs of living and
    absence of the ‘mum and dad’ bank ….

    ” A short
    period of internship – paid or unpaid – followed by a permanent job paid at the
    going rate strikes me as a better option for a graduate than a longer term
    minimum wage job or unemployment.” Now where is reality in this sentence?
    madam yuo were a minister for God sake!!! If we going to throw up utopian
    scenarios , I can think of many better ones!

  • Quiet_Sceptic

    Many of the arguments being made about interns also apply equally to apprentices.

    Apprentices enter the workplace with little or no experience, they won’t be working at the same level or productivity as more experienced employees, will need more support and may require some time to see if they fit the industry and the employer. Yet of course we still have a minimum wage for apprentices.

    But then comparing interns in with the apprentices perhaps highlights the real issue; the falling value of the university degree.

    • telemachus

      Sadly we must move away from degrees for 50% to putting some of these into apprenticeships
      Better an apprenticeship at Tesco with prospects of getting to Terence Leahy than a third in media studies with prospects for nothing
      Meanwhile Jacqui and colleagues are giving a few of these folk hope

  • Hugh

    Since Inspiring Interns is a commercial recruitment agency this is basically an advertorial isn’t it?

  • Hugh

    Since Inspiring Interns is a commercial recruitment agency this is basically an advertorial isn’t it?

  • Hugh

    Since Inspiring Interns is a commercial recruitment agency this is basically an advertorial isn’t it?

  • Alexwilliamz

    Why not just pay them something. It’s called an apprenticeships if they are going to lead to proper work.

    “As well as providing individual graduates with a bridge into work, internships can increase the stock of graduate jobs particularly in new and developing economic sectors and for smaller employers.”

    And the evidence or even rationale for this statement please, in what way do they lead to an increase in the stock of graduate jobs?

    Since you talk of Inspiring Interns in the context of ‘we’ I presume we can now put you in the category of Ed’s gang masters exploiting the low paid and desperate and thus undercutting and costing jobs in the wider employment market.

    Sorry but I find this a pretty shameless article, with little actual content to back up the case. Just saying people who work for free end up getting a job begs the question as to whether those jobs would have been filled by someone bright and able anyway. Internships seem to be an opportunity for organisations to avoid paying someone during the ‘training’ phase of any employment.

  • http://twitter.com/RedfishUK Mark Reilly

    Yes but how ever you dress it up, unless the parents of these adults (all of whom will be at least 21) can subsidise them they won’t be able to do unpaid work…so students from poorer backgrounds are excluded.

    In the far off dark days of the 1980s when I was at Polytechnic we did three periods of “industrial training” and the participating companies were able to give us a very basic wage, roughly equivalent to the weekly grant at the time. 

    What has changed except that employers have become more greedy???

  • AlanGiles

    Jacqui, Even if you can’t pay the poor mutts, couldn’t they get expenses or fringe benefits?. You know, – the odd DVD to watch while eating the celeriac whatnots, perhaps a bathplug or two to take home to mum and dad?

    • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

      There may be enough dosh sloshing around for a bathplug or two. Here’s what Inspiring Interns charge employers:

      FROM INSPIRING INTERNS WEBSITE:

      Should you take on an intern for up to 3 months, we charge £500 + VAT per month.

      If you decide to hire your intern on a permanent basis following a successful internship period we charge an additional 10% of their starting salary.

      Should you wish to take on your intern on a part-time or short fixed-term basis immediately after the initial placement we charge £300 + VAT per month.

      If you prefer to forego the internship period and hire a graduate on a permanent basis we charge 15% of their starting salary.

      http://www.inspiringinterns.com/employers/how-it-works/

      • AlanGiles

        Hopefully the money mad Ms Smith will stick to the purple of commerce in future, and not try to crawl her way back to Westminster in 2015. Like Lady Hewitt with Boots, her self importance and hoity toity ways will be better employed that way, and she won’t get the opportunity to meddle in public life again

      • AlanGiles

        Hopefully the money mad Ms Smith will stick to the purple of commerce in future, and not try to crawl her way back to Westminster in 2015. Like Lady Hewitt with Boots, her self importance and hoity toity ways will be better employed that way, and she won’t get the opportunity to meddle in public life again

      • AlanGiles

        Hopefully the money mad Ms Smith will stick to the purple of commerce in future, and not try to crawl her way back to Westminster in 2015. Like Lady Hewitt with Boots, her self importance and hoity toity ways will be better employed that way, and she won’t get the opportunity to meddle in public life again

      • AlanGiles

        Hopefully the money mad Ms Smith will stick to the purple of commerce in future, and not try to crawl her way back to Westminster in 2015. Like Lady Hewitt with Boots, her self importance and hoity toity ways will be better employed that way, and she won’t get the opportunity to meddle in public life again

        • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

          Times have changed. The backward-looking scallops and celeriac purée contingent are struggling for relevance beyond personal ambition.

          As opportunities for them diminish within the LP we will need to be aware of the possibility of an SDP mark 2 initiative (it’ll be the usual stuff: ‘I didn’t leave the Labour Party, the Labour Party left me.’) And this is where Ed’s ruthlessness will be useful.

        • AlanGiles

          I notice my previous post, concerning the shortcomings of Smith has been removed.

          T S Eliot had it right, didn’t he Mark – “humankind cannot bear too much reality”

          Must protect discredited ex MPs who are hoping for a comeback…..

      • jaime taurosangastre candelas

        Those fees that they charge seem calculated to put off employers from actively paying an intern, as there is less administration on pay roll and employer’s NICs.

        Most of the advertisements for intern positions they advertise offer travel and lunch expenses only.  That may be (for the sake of argument) £20 a day.  Over a working month, that is £400.  £500 + VAT to the agency costs the employer £625.  

        £1025 paid instead to the intern is still hourly more than the minimum wage (effective hourly pay of £6.83), and establishes at least the principle of an honest day of pay for an honest day of work, so that employer and intern can look each other in the eye with self-respect.

        Perhaps this sort of vampire employment agency is what Ed also had in mind with last year’s conference speech, where he talked of predator companies?

        • http://twitter.com/waterwards dave stone

          Ed Miliband signed an Intern Aware* statement during the leadership election campaign: “I pledge that if I am elected leader of the Labour Party I will campaign for Labour’s Minimum Wage Act to be fully enforced so that employers must pay their interns what they are due.”

          *http://www.internaware.org/

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/JP42QNYATVR2UKDJIUXUEV6RNY Michael

    If the state was the largest employer paying people a living wage to be interns wouldn’t be a problem. We could find jobs for our young unemployed at a stroke.

  • Serbitar

    How the world has changed. Here we have an article by a former Labour Home Secretary advocating that wealthy, private sector companies should be encouraged to use graduates straight out of university, probably with tens of thousands of pounds of debt hanging over their head, as free labour. I suppose the next step will be for commercial organisations to begin demanding some kind of payment – a dowry if you like! – from the “intern” or from their family directly before offering the poor boy or girl a chance to be exploited and work unpaid, sometimes for many months, for the concern, without commonly agreed worker’s rights and protections.

    I never expected to live long enough to see this day.

    Incredible.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Mike-Homfray/510980099 Mike Homfray

    Quite simply, you can only be an intern if you:
    1. have a private source of income to enable you to live
    2. have a place to live in London

    Thus, if you are from a working class family without private means and do not live in London or have the resources to do so, you can’t be an intern

    This cannot be justified 

  • http://twitter.com/Ceilidhann Kayleigh Anne

    I’m currently doing an unpaid internship and have done others before but the only reason I can do so is because a) my first internship was during university so I could fit it around my studies whilst in Edinburgh, and b) I had expenses paid. Once my current internship is over I won’t be able to take on another one because I simply can’t afford to live full time unpaid, even for a short amount of time. My parents can’t afford it either. It’s a disappointing truth that certain industries are primarily populated with those who can afford to be there. This is a big issue of class and the balance needs to be addressed. As far as I can see, the best way forward is through paying interns. I’m working upwards of 10 hours  a day in my internship without pay and there’s no guarantee of a job afterwards due to the nature of the position. If we can’t grant full time security then we should at least give it for the time being. 

  • JoeDM

    Good sensible points that recognise internships as a valuable way into paid employment.

  • Monkey_Bach

    Has Jacqui Smith shares in or any commercial interest in Inspiring Interns? Based on the conduct of too many former New Labour MPs, especially ex-Ministers, you’ve always got to ask questions like this whenever such people advocate anything haven’t you? Eeek.

    • AlanGiles

      The trouble is, when you do pose such questions, you are in danger of having such posts edited out – as mine was yesterday when I suggested Jacqui Smith had a less than unblemished reputation regarding personal integrity – one of the reasons no doubt she became an ex-MP at the last election.

      She makes the occassional comback in hit and run articles on LL, no doubt to remind all those who matter that she is ready and willing to make a return to Westminster. Sad really. What is even sadder is the fact that such pathetic people hope we have all forgotten their previous conduct. cameron/Clegg didn’t win the last election, Labour lost it thanks to the antics of people like Smith.

      • Monkey_Bach

        Eeek. Monkeys don’t know how to lie and fib, Mr. Giles, and so I hope that the fact that I only ever tell the truth won’t be held against me on this site. Eeek. Being truthful I reckon if we had more monkey politicians and fewer non-monkeys in the House of Commons, spending their careers trying to make monkeys out of (and throwing their crap at) the rest of us the world would be a better place. Eeek.

        (Although at first glance it might look like it, Liam Byrne is not my brother.)

        • MonkeyBot5000

          We’d also be able to save money on the food and booze subsidies at Westminster as bananas are pretty cheap we get drunk on fermented fruit rather than 12yr old scotch and fine wine.

      • PaulHalsall

        Although Jacqui Smith comes over as quite jolly with Iain Dale on Sky’s news review, she seems completely unaware that it was her, and her New Labour predecessors as home secretary, that drove so many left voters away from Labour and (fatally) to the LibDems.

        She continued to push through authoritarian measures such as ID cards (thank God the Tories got rid of them), building more jails, dismissing sensible drug policy advice from David Nutt and co, and pressing ahead for longer detention without trial. Was she oblivious how odious all of this was to those on the left?

        Now she seems equally oblivious to social class.  If you cannot be supported (at age 21 or 22 remember) by your parents, then an unpaid internship is just not a possibility.

    • MonkeyBot5000

      I did a little digging in to this and Jaqui claims on her LinkIn profile that she’s been a consultant for Inspiring Interns since Jan 2012 and the company’s profile claims that they launched in 2009.

      Interestingly, Companies House records show that the company was only incorporated on 11/06/12 and that they have had no previous names. The registered office is 10 Carmenna Drive, Bramhall, Stockport, SK7 2HQ which is also the home address of the companies sole director, Ms Ayesha Khan.

      p.s. If the moderators have any concerns about this information being posted, it is publicly available information and information that companies are legally required to make available.

      • Monkey_Bach

        Eeek. Could Ms. Smith’s LabourList article be less a personal opinion supportive of unpaid work experience as a legitimate avenue into work than a devious, covert advertisement trying to drum up business for a company that the article’s author has herself a commercial interest in? I suspect so.  Eeek. Whenever I see the word “consultant” in connection with any former member of the New Labour hierarchy the word “fee” immediately springs unbidden into my head in a disturbingly Freudian manner. 

        I suspect some monkey business is going on here!

        • AlanGiles

          If Byers was a “taxi for hire”, I suppose Ms Smith is a mincab :-)

  • Monkey_Bach

    Has Jacqui Smith shares in or any commercial interest in Inspiring Interns? Based on the conduct of too many former New Labour MPs, especially ex-Ministers, you’ve always got to ask questions like this whenever such people advocate anything haven’t you? Eeek.

  • Monkey_Bach

    Has Jacqui Smith shares in or any commercial interest in Inspiring Interns? Based on the conduct of too many former New Labour MPs, especially ex-Ministers, you’ve always got to ask questions like this whenever such people advocate anything haven’t you? Eeek.

  • Monkey_Bach

    Has Jacqui Smith shares in or any commercial interest in Inspiring Interns? Based on the conduct of too many former New Labour MPs, especially ex-Ministers, you’ve always got to ask questions like this whenever such people advocate anything haven’t you? Eeek.

  • MonkeyBot5000

    The campaign should be to ensure that internships are of high quality,
    that they lead to permanent work and that they are open to graduates on
    the basis of merit rather than family links!

    If they are not paid, they will only ever go to those who have parents who can support them during the internships.

    It is completely irrelevant what percentage get a job with the company at the end or what starting salary they get. If you don’t have a pile of money to pay the rent and buy food for the period of the internship, you can’t do an internship. End of.

    Now stop making excuses and pay them!

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