My Virgin
Ears!
After months of not seeing a close colleague of mine I finally
ran into her last week at the local coffee shop. We started chit chatting as girls are known
to do, she mentioned to me that she has been completing an unpaid internship
for a PR firm in the city, and her employer told her this was a good way to get
her “foot in the door” UNPAID
INTERNSHIP!!! REALLY!! MY VIRGIN EARS! The words kept swirling around in my
head, as this is something I have never heard or done before. I was beyond shocked to know a smart girl who
obtained stellar grades throughout her post-secondary career was working for
the price of nothing. Furthermore, I was baffled by the fact that her employer
told her such rubbish! So to my fellow graduates who feel that an internship (especially
unpaid) is the best way to get your “foot in the door”, please erase that
thought in your head and take a big spoonful of reality!
If this is the route your are currently in or you are
considering in note that it is far much better to accept no internship at all.
As one of my mentors once told me: “money is a sign of respect” and you being
someone who just graduated definitely deserves respect! DO NOT let your hard
work, endless hours of studying and mostly your pride go out the door! You are
worth something; you did not spend four years of your life to be a volunteer. You
have talents and skills that can easily surpass others. Personally, I think any job (intern or not) where you
are working in over 20 hours a week should be paid. My Virgin ears ring of
outrage to this naive and degrading concept. Almost as if someone was ran over
by a train! I mean how convenient for organizations
to hire "interns" under the guise of learning and hopefully
establishing themselves within a company as a future employee, then pulling the
rug out by not offering them a job and not paying them for hours of labor.
Why do employers
feel hiring young adults and graduates to participate in free labor have right
to bash them by treating them with such little to no disrespect? Do employers
today feel that today’s graduates have nothing to bring to the table that has
no value? If this is how they truly feel the last laugh is on them, little do
these business executives and veterans realize that it’s young people and
graduates who have been contributing towards society for the past few years,
such as : Mark Zuckerberg who developed one today’s leading social network
sites Facebook at the tender age of 23.
Matthew Mullenweg who developed the well known blog site Wordpress at
the age of 25. Need I go on? There are so many young people under the age of 30
who have made a great impact towards the world, yet employers still feel that
the forbidden idea of an “unpaid internship” should be something young adults
should embrace.
The thing these
“Savvy executives” are oblivious to notice is graduates today not only are
educated with the latest education, trends and facts. They are also part of Gen
Y, which means they are the generation of social network and technology. This
stuff comes natural to them, so without any schooling at all they already have
an advantage over some of the biggest CEO’s and business Savvy’s throughout the
globe who had to go through the “adapting” stage and learn how to use a smart
phone, tablet or the various social network sites that are now available. Yet
with all the skills, education and natural smarts that graduates of today can
provide, employers view them in a lower grade and in result pay them no
fraction of what they are worth!
Too many employers
are cutting corners and creating 'internship' positions. More needs to be done to protect these
graduates. They have no one to go too when they are being treated unfairly,
employees think they are too superior when they were once in the exact position
once upon a time. Little do they realize
that a little respect can go a far way and produce abundances of opportunities towards the companies favor.
