Internships – Career Opportunity or Exploitation Opportunity?

Andrew Scherer, Inspiring Interns, Marketing Manager

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Internships have been all over the press lately.  Chelsea defender Ashley Cole recently shot one (by accident).  Is this a metaphor?  Are they little more than proverbial cannon fodder?  Or do they represent the modern fast-track route to a great career?  At OpinionPanel we’re fans of the internship.  The last four we’ve worked with are now permanent members of staff.  But we know it’s not all peaches and cream out there.  We asked Andrew Scherer, Marketing Manager at Inspiring Interns (a company who’ve worked for us number of times) to write this month’s article.  He’s obviously very much in favour of internships…  But what are your views?

With graduates and students facing a barrage of warnings about their employment prospects after university, many are left pondering where, and how, they are going to find their first job. Employers who are inundated with applications are resorting to crude methods to trim down the piles of CVs they receive, including culling anyone with less than a 2.1 and ignoring applicants who did not attend a top ten university. All in all, it is a fairly bleak picture.

With traditional paths to employment narrowing so significantly, the pertinent question for young jobseekers is how can they get a foot on the career ladder in such a competitive market place? The route many are turning to is an internship.

Internships are a relatively new concept for the UK, where more informal periods of work experience have, until recently, been the norm. Compared to other countries such as France, Germany and the US we appear to be lagging behind in the development of a system that gives HE students skills and experience that employers genuinely value.

Internships are not without their share of controversy. There have been claims that they are both exploitative and entrench class divisions by restricting social mobility. The question of where interns should fit into current employment law also remains unanswered.

So the big questions that need addressing: are internships a force for good, and where will they fit into the future career path of thousands of graduates (if at all)?

As you may have already guessed, I have a vested interest in the subject. My company, Inspiring Interns, matches graduates with employers offering internship opportunities which lead to permanent, full-time jobs. So you may not be surprised to hear that I believe internships, when run properly, are hugely beneficial to young jobseekers.

Graduates are currently being forced to compete not just with each other, but also with candidates who possess one or two years’ experience. Naturally this puts them at a significant disadvantage and has lead to a situation where even entry-level jobs are demanding a certain level of relevant experience. An internship goes some way to levelling the playing field by building a candidate’s knowledge of a role and also allowing them to develop key contacts within a company. That initial foot in the door, combined with the additional skills to complement their academic qualifications, can be the key to securing a first job.

Furthermore, and contrary to what many people are saying, I would argue internships can be a positive force for social mobility. As I have already alluded to, work experience has previously been relatively informal in nature and thus often secured through family connections. Naturally, this system has put those from well-off backgrounds at a real advantage in the job market. By opening up periods of experience to the normal rigours of recruitment it has become a far more meritocratic process.

Finally, internships do help to create jobs. There have been suggestions that internships are replacing entry level positions and exacerbating the youth unemployment issue. My experience entirely contradicts this claim. Around 65% of the candidates we help place become permanent employees at their host company after their internship, and the majority of the remainder go on to secure a full-time job elsewhere within a month of their placement.

There are undoubtedly companies who exploit the internship mantle to take advantage of young workers, and I heavily condemn any practice that seeks to exploit increasingly desperate graduates. However a well-run programme that provides the intern with training, experience and contacts is of huge value and must be supported by both private companies and the Government. Ultimately, an internship should be a path to gainful employment, not a delaying thereof. At a time when there are precious few alternatives for unemployed graduates, internships must be held up as a solution, not a problem.