Unpaid Interships: What's fair?

In the modern university landscape, internships are undoubtedly the most common way into your given industry. I speak from the experience of a Creative Industries background, which is where I completed my placements as a second-year university student. The internships described in this piece are extracurricular, rather than a nursing placement or Work Integrated Learning unit, which counts as a credit towards your degree. As more and more young people begin gaining higher education qualifications, a degree or double degree is not the only barrier to entry. Entry-level jobs are asking for at least a year of experience in a similar role these days; there seems to be no way more accessible for tertiary students to fill the criteria of the job market without an internship.

See how the above paragraph has no mention to the remuneration of any kind? Yeah, the internship EOI’s you’re viewing most likely won’t either.

In fact, the idea of an ‘unpaid internship’ is somewhat of a misnomer. In most modern Australian cases, it is, essentially, unpaid labour. The Fair Work Ombudsman outlines that internships should be paid if they include productive work, that furthers the productivity of the business without a set learning experience for the intern. My experience of interning was directly contributing to writing, design, marketing and event management skills in a competent capacity. My work was going out to followers and clients of the businesses I worked with, which fits the bill of a productive work internship. To me, I was gaining experience and contributing to the cause of where I worked. I did gain those things, and I am grateful for the chance I had to work on projects that people my age usually wouldn’t. However, what I didn’t realise I was gaining during those internships was a diminished savings account.

There is an inherent cost to working for free, and there is a level of privilege involved in affording to do it. If you are the primary income earner in your household, you cannot afford to work for free. If you care for someone full-time, you cannot afford to work for free. If you are studying full-time and not working, you cannot afford to work for free. You can only afford to work for free if you have the luxury of disposable income or someone supporting you, such as a parent or partner. You can only afford to work for free if you have the time do so. You can only afford to work for free if your weekly income is not the difference between eating or not. I couldn’t afford to intern for more than one day a week, especially not for an extended period. For many tertiary students, myself included, the barrier to entry for unpaid internships is far too high a vault to jump.

However, that’s not to say that unpaid internships don’t have any benefits. The problem with them is that they do.

Internships have a multitude of benefits. You get to be mentored by industry leaders, meet key players in your industry you usually wouldn’t meet, learn job-specific programs and software, receive experience beyond your years, get your work exposed to client after client after client and overall have a great time. Unpaid interns also appear to get a reputation for being the hardest working in their cohort, go-getters, if you will. All those things are great. No doubt about it.

The student who can afford to partake in these unpaid internships will inevitably enter the job market with much higher prospects for entry-level positions than the one that couldn’t. Because they had the luxury of time and money, they walk into a graduate interview with a year of experience, references, and valuable practical skills that the average university graduate without an internship under their belt cannot hope to keep up with. There is a rigid dichotomy between those with unpaid internships and those without, a class divide that only exacerbates the problem as the pattern continues.

There is no actual answer to how to fix the culture of not paying interns. The prospect of unpaid labour that talented students are happy to perform is far too tempting for employers, from advertising agencies to lawyer’s offices. Something we can do to begin to fix this culture is to begin a dialogue about unpaid internships versus paid internships and the expectations for each. More importantly, we need to make sure the dialogue is heard by employers who routinely use unpaid internships. Those who can afford to intern for free right now need to check their privilege and work to create accessible opportunities later in their careers. There will always be those who cannot entertain the idea of working for free, no matter how good a resume item it will be, and those who have the power to change the culture toward accessible career entry.