Gaining work experience

dearieme

"It is widespread because nearly everyone benefits from it." No, you miss the point; to a socialist it must be banned because some people don't benefit from it, namely those who do not participate. And, of course, because it is not regulated by Big Brother.

R

In finance and the City firms already pay interns way over minimum, or even average, wages, + expenses.

The most exploitative organisations in my experience are media companies and the BBC.

Sophie

What you fail to mention is that people are now expected to work for free for 6 months to a year. It only takes two weeks to assess whether you like the working environment and to be honest most employers decide within hours whether or not the intern has what it takes to work there.

The media especially are exploiting these interns. They have become an integral part of the industry doing tasks and hours that should be rewarded through pay not the faint hope that they might one day be employed.

Victor Southern

Umpteen youngsters who are doing business studies for their O levels and A levels are expected to get work experience in a commercial environment. This is usually only for couple of weeks and the host must then write a certifying letter that this has occurred.

It is are that the host gets any benefit from this arrangement and it is often a family friend, uncle or aunt who host the young person. Many of these young people have no relatives in senior positions and are reliant on some local small businessman who will take them in to his/her firm. the benefits lie entirely with the candidate - it is are for the temporary boss to gain any benefit. Ask them to pay as well and the scheme will fall to pieces.

So tell Mr Balls that, as usual, he is talking twaddle.

JR

I fail to see the arguement for why this works for graduates who come from low income backgrounds, already have large debts and limited choices therefore as to whether they incur future debt by doing work experience?

I didn't feel able to incur further debt beyond my student loans - the idea of doing work experience instead of working in a shop to earn money to support myself is somewhat fanciful. I imagine my choices and decision making were similar to others.

Yes of course it's developed organically but that this is function of the limits of signalling from educational and normal profit motives. That doesn't mean it works to the advantage of everyone. If it becomes more prevailent it will reduce social mobility. I see that as a bad things - others won't. Whether the state intervenes is another question but your argument is incomplete and unbalanced.

AngloWelshDragon

My son is 16 and doing unpaid work experience at a local 4x4 garage. He is going to start college doing motor mechanics in the Autumn and the experience is proving invaluable as well as keeping him out of mischief over the summer holidays. The garage owner bungs him the occasional tenner when he can afford it but he has only recently started the business so can't afford any more. If he had to pay him the minimum wage the opportunity would evaporate. We pay Josh's child benefit straight into his bank account so he has money for petrol for his moped to get to him to work.

ChrisH

Work experience and internships are two very different beasts and should be treated differently. Work experience is for a week or two and hardly gives the opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to the employer, it is a taster of the job and company. This shouldn't require pay because the company doesn't gain anything.

Internships are for longer and the intern actually does things. A 6 week + internship over a summer at a major company is generally paid these days, often with extra benefits e.g. London accomodation provided. Ironically it is only politicians and the media (and media relations) as employers who still expect unpaid internships to exist. The signal sent that a company cannot even afford a few weeks of the minimum wage in order to have an intern is frankly damning of that company and I wouldn't want to work there.
If viewed solely as part of the hiring process the costs are minimal but can dramatically improve the qualitity and ease of the later graduate intake. If viewed separately interns, if given the opportunity, can make a significant difference, often due to their willingness to ask the questions that don't occur to long term employees.

Put simply interns should be paid, and in industry it is the case that they are. Only those areas notorious for abusing graduates with low pay and long hours are interns not paid currently.

TomTom

Employers don't want the hassle of CRB checks and the paraphanelia of wet-nursing schoolchildren. Anyone who gets a decent "internship" needs family connections

Kevan

Work experience can be a very valuable tool for both potential employee and employer. I, myself, spent six months carrying out voluntary work experience after a short period of unemployment, after which I was offered a permanent position... that was seventeen years ago and I'm now part of the management team of that same company with whom I volunteered. Effectively I worked through a six month interview process, where I got to know my employees and they got to know me and what I could offer.

However, I have also witnessed some very bad treatment of work experience trainees, as well as some appaullingly poor, and lazy, trainees.

If this is ever to be pursued as a valid and broadly used, effective method by which to find employment, or good employees, then it must be regulated in order to ensure a level of consistency through which both employer and trainee mutually benefit.

Rhoda Klapp

Are we saying that an agreement between two willing parties is not the business of the government to interfere with? Seems entirely reasonable.

Now, why DO we have that minimum wage thing?

Andy

"The caricature has unpaid interns working photocopiers or being sent to collect sandwiches or laundry for management, without gaining any useful hands-on experience. "

It's not just experience in acquiring technical skills and accomplishments though is it? Knowing how to play the politics and dealing with office pricks is at least as vital. All experience counts.

Rhoda Klapp

So, does the Adam Smith Institute have interns? I think we should be told. If so, how does one get in?

(One of the littl Klapps is in the frame for such a position.)

Rivere

I graduated in July 2009 and started my first graduate job in September. This is of course no longer the normal smooth experience graduates experience and I am sad to say that now, approaching nearly a year later, I still only know of two friends in good graduate employment. In all three of our cases the secret to our success (or luck if one is cynical) was networking in companies long before we actually took our full time employment. I did three internships whilst at university and additional night courses in management run by RBS and HBOS (yes ironic I know). Did I learn a lot from my work experience and courses? No not really, but I did meet a lot of people and learn about their careers and motives.
My friend did an internship in 2008 at Lehman brothers, at the end of the summer he was offered a job to start the following autumn after he graduated. When Lehman’s collapsed he thought his golden opportunity was over. But later that year the MD who had hired him at Lehman (now employed at another bank) got him an interview for job which he started last month. I guess one could say that this just shows how lucky and perhaps unfair the system is. However, the few I know who have got good employment since last year got it all through similar methods of networking.
It is for that reason that I would say that work experience is invaluable. Not because one seriously develops new experiences by filing documents, entering spread sheet data and making cups of tea. The ultimate value of work experience at present is that if you decide what the people do in that particular organisation suits your career ambitions then you have the means to get employed if you perform well. Perhaps this is not very meritocratic but this is the reality at present and I don’t see it changing any time soon.

DAVID VINTER

I just wonder how small firms stand for insurance? And surely more than a month is not reasonable. Even then I hope food and help with travel is provided.

se1man

I started my own business last year, and I can't even afford to pay myself the minimum wage for the hours that I put in, let alone anyone else.

It so happens that a graduate is coming to see me tomorrow because she is interested in my business and she wants to learn more, and there may be an opportunity for her to get some work experience by doing a few things for the busines over the coming weeks - we shall see.

The point is that if I had to pay her minimum wage for her enthusiasm then I simply would not be able to offer her anything by way of work experience. It just won't happen, and both she and my business will be worse off as a result.

The State has no business sticking its fat beak into this sort of thing.

PayDirt

Getting a foot on the ladder has, I suspect, always been a tricky business. Who you know, right place, right time….. But it seems unnecessarily complicated these past few years. After I graduated ages ago I avoided the pettifogging crap and hired on with an American company whose attitude was very straightforward: hire and fire whenever. It worked a treat.

Robert Taggart

Work = a four letter word !
Experience ? No thankyou !

2trueblue

What value does a young student/granduate who has never been in the business lend to a company? It is very difficult to value, but then so is the experience that they gain from just being there. Some students think that it is beneath them to do filing; speaks volumes. No wonder a lot of people can neither do it or find anything for themselves in various systems. Graduates and students have a very high opinion of themselves. To babysit them costs a lot of time and money.

Not a toff

Not all work experience is found by parents and the old boys' network. When I wanted a change of job after retraining, I wrote to several prospective employers offering my services for a fortnight, free of charge, as work experience. I had two positive replies and one of them kept me on afterwards. All it took was a bit of gumption to write the letters.

David Bouvier

While we are at it, lets ban volunteer working in charity shops, letter writing for Amnesty international, all the other evil unpaid work that is going on.

Exactly what clear enforceable legal rule are they proposing to create? Or is it just some Labour moron shooting from the hip.