THE ECONOMIST INSULTS TENS OF THOUSANDS OF GRADUATES
The Economist has published an article which insults tens of thousands of graduates by insisting most interns have “only a vague notion of what work involves”. It also appears to be a direct endorsement of the highly controversial agency Inspiring Interns.
In a story entitled Finding good interns is hard. Agencies can help the magazine appears to praise the success of Inspiring Interns, a company which earns £500 from its clients for every month their interns work – while the interns themselves sometimes earn as little as £200 a month (well below the minimum wage). Apparently, Inspiring Interns grossed over £1m last year – after its founder Ben Rosen founded the company with just £20,000.
Frankly, the article makes Graduate Fog want to puke.
It also attacks those who campaign against unpaid internships – including Graduate Fog’s good friend Ross Perlin, author of the brilliant Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy. We are, apparently, ‘softies’ for believing young people should be paid a fair wage for their labour. The piece begins:
YOUNGSTERS enter the office of Inspiring Interns through what looks like a wardrobe door. The reference to C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is deliberate: the company wants them to feel transported into a magical new world where they might actually find a job.
With unemployment rife throughout the rich world, more and more young people are seeking internships. Many firms, nervous about the future, are reluctant to hire permanent staff until they have tested them. Intern-recruitment agencies are popping up to help.
Help whom? Young people? Or the tight-fisted employers who are clamouring to take advantage of record youth unemployment and get something for nothing?
The article goes on to claim that Inspiring Interns can provide clients with “competent” interns within three days, processes 300 applicants a day – and that 65% of the interns it has placed have been hired into permanent jobs when their internship ended. (Er, what about the other 35%? And all those who can’t afford to work for free?) When an intern is offered a permanent job with the company where they intern, Inspiring Interns receives a further one-off bonanza fee of 10% of that person’s starting salary (so £2,000 for a £20,000 role).
Other choice cuts from the Economist’s story include these quotes:
“Many intern candidates have no previous job experience and only a vague notion of what work involves.”
“A vague notion of what work involves”? Like the fact that in means contributing your labour to an organisation in exchange for actual money?
“Softies such as Ross Perlin, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy”, complain that unpaid internships are exploitative. They also fret that only well-heeled youngsters can afford to work for nothing.”
My, what “softies” we all are – “fretting” that young people should be paid a fair and legal wage for their labour. Presumably this includes our friends at Intern Aware, Internocracy, Interns Anonymous, the NUS, the TUC, authors Shiv Malik and Ed Howker, Sharon Elliot at BECTU, Michelle Stanistreet at the NUJ, etc etc…
“Ben Rosen, who founded Inspiring Interns with £20,000, says it grossed around £1m last year.”
*Graduate Fog runs off to vomit in the nearest bin*
“Most important, more than 60% of interns in America are eventually offered full-time jobs.”
After working for free for how long? What about the other 40%? And all those who can’t afford to work unpaid?
Staff who first work as interns are also more likely to stick around than those who do not.
Because their self-esteem has been so battered by the experience of working for free for so long, that they no longer believe they could find a better (or better-paid) job elsewhere?
*WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE ECONOMIST’S ARTICLE?
Should the magazine apologise for promoting an agency that pays its interns just £200 a month? Should the government investigate private companies that profit from setting up internships that pay less than the minimum wage? Have you worked as an Inspiring Interns intern? What sort of work did you do – and how much were you paid?
This is atrocious. The Economist is typically right-on in their values and thorough in their journalism … this is such a drastic departure.
I shall have a more thorough read of the core article and be posting in their comments section. This sort of brazen ignorance needs challenging, especially when it comes from what is typically a beacon for well-considered liberal views.
Usual tripe from someone who either a) has never had to work for free or b) has worked for free with someone else paying their way. When will these people wake up and realise that internships lock people out of the job market? They create impossibly unfair scenarios where certain industries are almost totally out of bounds to those who aren’t wealthy.
@Gareth “typically right-on in their values”, you can say that again! The Economist is a typically right-wing political and economic magazine whose values are firmly aligned to conservatism and corporations. The publication of an article defending firms who hire unpaid interns and attacking interns themselves, does not surprise me in the slightest. Just what you would expect from such a magazine in the Dickensian era we appear to be sliding into.
I think a more balanced view is needed. Yes, there are companies who take advantage of newbie grads with internships and there are also companies who genuinely seek good people and use internships as a way of doing that. Back in the day, working for free for a short while was a normal and natural way of going about finding work – and even now in secondary school – the kids are sent away to work for free for two weeks by way of the National Curriculum – so its there in our culture. Newbies are considered more of a hindrance than a benefit to companies because they require a lot of attention, and most of the time, training – which all costs a company, and so the pay is absent. Its considered more of a gift than a job – as interns don’t really contribute as much as they get.
Having said that,if they were paid that would of course be better – but then many companies would simply stop taking interns altogether.
So…there has to be some balance.
@Robin – we’re going to have to agree to differ on this one … yes, The Economist is pro free market capitalism, but it’s also socially liberal and usually comes down on the “right” side of moral questions in my view (but then … that’s simply me saying “they usually agree with me, hence I think they’re right”).
It strikes me that you’re conflating free market views with being “conservative” – I just don’t think that’s correct.
Regardless of one’s views on their politics, the quality of their articles is usually a lot higher than this. I’ve never read such a one-sided and dismissive article, especially one which is an advertisement masquerading as an article.
@RealworldGrad
Re “Back in the day, working for free for a short while was a normal and natural way of going about finding work” … depends how far you look back, which job sectors you’re thinking about and what levels of job you’re considering.
As far as I’m aware, the idea of lowly workers working unpaid for a while proving their fitness for real jobs was a Thatcher government’s “bright idea” during the mega-slump of 1979 – 1981. The idea hung around and got trotted out each time we went into a bad recession.
I think the idea of making large numbers of new graduates work unpaid only came in around fairly recently, following the vast expansion in university places and the economic meltdown of 2008.
“companies who genuinely seek good people and use internships as a way of doing that.”
That’s what job interviews are for…
“even now in secondary school – the kids are sent away to work for free for two weeks by way of the National Curriculum – so its there in our culture”
The type of internships that graduates are expected to do are vastly different to the two weeks of work experience we did at school. There, you’d simply be shadowing someone and you’d essentially be a liability for the company, which is why many places didn’t want to take on schoolkids. Back then it was genuinely about providing experience for the pupil, now it’s about the graduate essentially working for the company for free while they decide whether or not to hire them.
“Newbies are considered more of a hindrance than a benefit to companies because they require a lot of attention…”
Unless you expect them to just work for free with no training and barely any supervision which many companies do. If they don’t have the funds to pay them (or they don’t WANT to pay them) are they likely to spend money and time on training them? From my experience, I can tell you the answer is no!
“So…there has to be some balance.”
I’m sorry, but there is no balance when it comes to internships. It is unacceptable practice to expect someone to work for free in order to secure a paid job. I have spent time volunteering which I would still recommend to anyone as it’s flexible, supportive and you don’t have to do it full time to gain experience. But internships are exploitative, and the shift towards them has meant that many will have unfair advantages because of their financial status. No matter which way you look at it, those who are able to do unpaid internships will be better placed to get the jobs (on the rare occasions they arise). Companies also now have next to no incentive to actually hire people because they can get the same labour for free. It’s ridiculous.
Would a book about the changing graduate employment experience (from baby boomers to present and foreseeable future) be a PAYING proposition? Tanya plus Shiv Malik have enough background knowledge and contacts (eg Joddle) to write one and get it published.
There should be a market for such a book amongst teenagers’ parents, the more thoughtful teenagers, the universities (careers advisors especially)and amongst the more freethinking members of the political classes.
Oh Tanya, I was just about to send you an enraged email about this article! I subscribe to The Economist (being a politics student and all…) and I find their nonchalance about the issue of unpaid internships absolutely ridiculous. I’m not sure if all of you can access this article: http://www.economist.com/node/21528449 but if you can, do have a look at it for an even finer example of how this magazine blatantly endorses unpaid internships using the tired old rationale of “getting paid in experience instead of money”. Regardless of the ideological leanings on The Economist, we should keep in mind that unpaid labour (in jurisdictions where this is illegal, such as the UK) is not an ideological issue, it is a legal issue and I find it outrageous that a magazine with such global impact sees nothing wrong with promoting illegal behaviours! I doubt they’d be advocating for manual workers to work unpaid (since they’re getting a free work-out, so they already benefit from their jobs!) or any other clearly illegal and unethical arrangement!
As a student, I am lucky enough to be doing a paid internship this summer and I absolutely agree with Tanya’s last point about the effect unpaid work has on one’s self-esteem. Even as a paid intern in a huge company, I feel that the people in graduate HR often go out of their way to make interns aware that they’re “just” interns and somehow unworthy of being treated as colleagues. I can’t imagine receiving such depressing treatment while also working for free – or rather, I can imagine how that would make me feel pretty worthless and insignificant. (On a separate point, I really don’t understand how the HR department can’t see that they’re damaging their brand by treating applicants and interns horribly).
Totally agree with Sarah’s point: not only do many internships offer no pay, they often offer no training either! I’ve been considering another unpaid internship after years unemployed (even though I don’t agree with them in principle) and have found I’m not qualified for many because I don’t know all the computer programmes! (and no I’m not looking in the I.T. sector.)I hoped that if I was working for free I’d actually get taught some new skills-but it seems not. So many organisations want a graduate who already knows how to do all the tasks the job requires, unsupervised to skivvy for them to free.
I have an impression that many top graduate employers demand a sacrifice from graduates before they put them on their payroll, just as they themselves had to make a sacrifice – and continue to make sacrifices as they climb the career ladder to director and managing director. Success in business is probably attained through working long-hours, working long after most have left work for the day. A 12 or 14 hour day is probably not uncommon. The financial rewards and company benefits are probably substantial and compensate somewhat for the sacrifices. So, The Economist is probably correct from the free market enterprise perspective, although it offends many graduates who often made sacrifices in order to meet deadlines for their final-year assignments and dissertation.
Personally, I wouldn’t accept an internship whether it is paid or unpaid, and the same applies to many of the graduate training programmes, simply because of the nature of the beast – both in the public sector and private sector. It seems that, from my own research into Civil Service Fast Stream Recruitment, and even in the case of the local Government graduate training programme, that you are being trained to be a “Jack of all trades and master of none”, that the biggest sacrifice you are expected to make is to lay yourself down on the organization’s altar and sacrifice yourself – to place your own ambitions, your own objectives and your own aspirations on the altar, and to willingly and gladly accept and internalise the values and ethos of the organization, as revealed by your immediate superior. Young graduates can be exploited more often that older graduates because they are more malleable.
However, I cannot be accused of wanting the graduate lifestyle and not being prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. Nor can I be accused of having a cosy time at university at the taxpayers’ expense and now avoiding repaying the full student loan by not seeking graduate employment. I cannot be accused because the fact is that since 2008, internships – paid or unpaid – have been all but stopped for the vast majority of graduates and graduates, and graduate opportunity choked off for me. As each year produces a new crop of graduates, so the previous year’s graduate who couldn’t get an internship, or graduate placement or a graduate job is thrown out and trodden underfoot in a cycle of low-paid non-graduate employment and unemployment. God, how depressing!
I have been following Graduate Fog for a while now, since graduating last year and looking for work. Currently in permanent employment (found through a combination of willpower and a tiny bit of luck i think); i have had some encounter (not much) with inspiring interns so i thought id share it with you.
Towards the end of my 3rd year i was starting to actively looking for work, after coming across their website i filled an enquiry form where i attached my CV and a video CV i made for uni. Very quickly ive got a reply they asked me my details when i finished etc i answered.That was it for now.
Couple of months later when i actually finished studying i still carried on working in retail. Their website doesnt state how much you would get paid during the internship so i naturally wanted to enquire (my thoughts: if im gonna get an internship full time,i would have to stop working so i wanted to know financially what situation i would be in). So i politely emailed them asking how much on average their interns get paid and how would i go about applying now since i still have a job etc…thinking about it now it was probably slightly naive to be asking that…long story short, i never got an email back, and for any ‘internships’ i applied since on their website i did not get a reply once.
now im not saying my CV is super amazing, but having the initial contact very enthusiastic and once asked about money stopped? thank you but no thank you.