Paying to work for free

by Will Harmon

This week we ran a story about students paying third party companies to secure work experience placements. It’s a common practice in the US, where students with wealthy parents are conveniently guaranteed the oh-so sought after internship.

For university students there is immense pressure here in the UK to get work experience. This past summer, I myself tried to get a work experience placement. I didn’t pay a company to find it for me, I was actually lucky enough to have known the editor of the magazine I was trying to do an internship for.

But low and behold, the Friday before I was about to start the internship, I learned that the publisher had pulled the plug on the affromentioned magazine. The fate of the magazine was sealed like so many other contemporary forms of print media.

Work experience is almost essential now for students leaving university. It’s as if graduating with BA just isn’t enough in the current competitive job market. Often, graduates have trouble finding full-time work after uni and are forced to take on non-paying internships for extened perods of time.

I’ve heard horror stories of students working six months unpaid whilst being promised eventual full-time paid positions, which consequently never happen.

News of businesses taking advantage of unpaid interns seems all too common. I wonder if there should be some legislation about limiting the time unpaid interns are allowed to do work experience for a particular business. I think it would crucially help protect students and graduates.

The point is; it’s becoming increasingly harder to find internships, even if you have connections or know someone in the biz. So I can see why students would feel the need to have to pay to secure a proper work experience placement.

I hope this trend does not catch on here in the UK, I would hope businesses would accept applicants for work experience based on their proper credentials and skills, not from some third party company’s inside connections.