Internships and Competition

Generation Debt: Take Control of Your Money - A How-to Guide
by Carmen Wong Ulrich

(Page 3 of 4)

Internships: Aka Indentured Servitude

Internships. They can be paid or unpaid, a genuine training and recruiting program, a glorified temp job, or, worst-case scenario, just another form of indentured servitude. For the most wanted, cool jobs and careers, the latter two types tend to be the norm.

According to the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), in 2004 internships were the top recruiting method used by employers to find new full-time employees. The Financial Times recently reported that half of U.S. college graduates hired have gone through internship programs. Some good news for those on the internship track comes from Business Week online, which says that as we're pulling ourselves out of an economic slump, the classes of '04 and '05 will get 25 to 35 percent more internship offers than in the past several years, and that the number of full-time job offers after completion of an internship will rise the same amount.

Here's the problem I - and a growing, vocal group of others - have with the practice of internships: They remain fairly unregulated, and many continue to be unpaid (especially in the more creative, hot fields such as publishing and music or film production design).

I had a couple of internships. One in my undergrad years did not pay, but I did get full course credit; a quasi-internship after graduate school barely paid a minimum salary. I'm very glad I had these experiences, and there is no doubt that my undergrad internship was a huge factor in getting my first job out of college. However, as the practice of not paying interns grows, and as it becomes more and more important to have an internship - well, let me relay an anecdote:

Several years ago, I caused quite a ruckus at my ridiculously low-paying post-graduate internship when I walked away from a prestigious offer from the top dog to return instead to the world of earning a fair wage. Thankfully my job switch was a good idea for many reasons, not just because I couldn't pay my rent where I was at, but also because as I walked out, looking behind me, what did I see?

At one of the most prestigious institutions in its field, I did not see behind me the crème de la crème of thinkers, healers, and researchers. No. What I saw was the mediocrity left over from the sieve that is formed by the need to survive at a job and profession that leave you with loans up the wazoo, then pay you near nothing for the internships and fellowships required to even officially enter the career. These folks weren't the best and brightest. They were simply the ones who had parents and/or family who could help them financially survive the process. What a shame.

Writer Laura Vanderkam recently agreed with this in her USA Today column on how unpaid or low-paying internships eliminate many of the best-qualified candidates from the hiring pool. The system doesn't get you the best candidates. What you get is the 20 percent or so of the total available candidates whose parents or family are able to bankroll their living expenses. She wrote, "If the interns who would make my life easier are working construction jobs because their parents can't bankroll their unpaid summers doing my research, then I have a problem." Right on, Ms. V.

The New York Times chimed in with a piece titled "Crucial Unpaid Internships Increasingly Separate the Haves from the Have-Nots." The article wondered: If it's becoming more and more important to join the workforce not only with an advanced degree, but with an internship in your industry as well, is there a discriminatory class system being created that undermines potential interns from less wealthy families - who have to turn down these unpaid posts for jobs that pay, but may not be where their career interests lie?

And according to the career information web site Vault.com, unpaid internships tend to be most common in the most competitive career slots, such as media and politics. Shoot, even the White House doesn't pay the hundred or more interns who work the halls every summer. And if the White House is basically discriminating in its choice of interns by siphoning out those who can't afford to work for free, where does that leave the other 80 percent of us? (And what kind of elitist roster of Capitol Hill clones does that perpetuate?)

The Fair Labor Standards Act says that employers must pay a minimum wage. However, there is a legal window in the law that says that it's okay not to pay someone who doesn't contribute directly to the company's operations. Now, we all know that that loophole gets stretched.

So employers have an already fairly well-trained pool of potential entry-level employees who are of minimal expense. Meantime a group of potential employees - who want to be there so bad they work for free - know that their chances of getting a full-time post are much higher because their foot was in the door first. Sound like a win-win situation?

That's the bittersweet joy of internships. There is no doubt how important they are, and they do give you invaluable experience (that is, if you use your time there wisely - my advice is, read everything you photocopy, treat everyone with respect, and make yourself indispensable - worked for me). The conundrum is that you may have to work harder to get one that pays, or have to work another job to pay the rent, or, like I did, end up in more debt in the short term.

The Competition Choke

Workplace competition has become fierce. Our economy has become more global, technologically advanced, and complex, ratcheting up contention in the American job market and workplace. All this fueled by our increasing levels of consumption - supersize me!

So we have to work more and harder to pay for the cars, bigger homes, better clothes, electronics, travel, and an upgraded American lifestyle. We have to look good because now more than ever, how you look communicates who you are and what you can deliver. As my mother always said, "Don' dress for de job ju haf. Dress for de job ju want!" Ma was ahead of her time. When you enter the job market and the workforce now, you are a brand - the brand of "me." It's time to sell yourself as the best man/woman for the job. And you must have e-mail access and a cell phone, printer, and Palm Pilot.

Our consumer society creates a battle for the best-paying jobs, and an education becomes just one facet in the package of "you." As the economist Pierre Bourdieu stated years ago, cultural capital - which consists of not just level of education but also family upbringing and economic resources - is indispensable in order to get ahead in the workplace. We live in a time when it's increasingly important not only to get the best education, but also to consume well. Levels of taste and consumption create distinctions in the workplace that add a very difficult and sometimes unfair measure of how far you'll go in life. We take our economic, cultural, and social capital and compete in the workplace.

For example, as we all know, if you have two job candidates equal on paper, but one is more likely to look, act, and speak smoothly and well at a client dinner - knowing which wine to choose, what branzino is, and how long it takes to fly to Shanghai - this guy or gal is probably going to be the one to get the job.

Writer Stuart Ewen noted back in 1988 that style has become a sort of "legal tender." Because we live in a land of marketing, packaging, advertising, and democracy, we've created a very real pressure to have an image, a personal brand. We don't distinguish ourselves just by our accomplishments but very prominently by our appearance. Nice packaging is the American way.

So you graduate from college in debt but then need to have the latest equipment - cell phone, laptop, BlackBerry - and look great while interviewing and on the job, and again, how does all this get paid for? Just one generation back, young adults were still using typewriters and everyone simply had a land line. Now it's a grand or so for a good computer, plus internet access, a cell phone, and an organizer. You're already in the hole for another $2,000 and you haven't even shopped for your interview outfit.

Getting a job is a form of competition, and the standards of this competition have only gotten higher and harder, with no signs of slowing down.

Copyright © 2006 by Carmen Wong Ulrich

About the Author

Carmen Wong Ulrich was most recently the special projects editor at Money magazine. She's also a guest lecturer at the annual NFL rookie camp and is a former contributing editor at KING.