Is there any value in unpaid internships?

In a nutshell

I see unpaid internships as an education for free. Yes, you don't get any money but at least you don't have to pay for it. So when you're studying at school and your parents can support you, it's a great opportunity to learn something and gain more experience. When you're out of the school and/or you have to support yourself it could be difficult. But if you work on something you really love in the internship, you find another job along with the internship and don't make a big deal out of it. But I would never do that for an unpaid internship I wouldn't enjoy.

The whole coconut

And what about the fact that many people in unpaid internships are asked to do menial tasks or that they don't have any financial support from home?

Well, I think there are two crucial things. First, the reason why those young people want to engage particular internship. And second, the reason why the employers hire them. The perfect case would be: "the young people want to do the unpaid internship frankly because they wanna gain experience in the particular area they like, and the employers give them an opportunity to work on something interesting and challenging because they see the effort, enthusiasm and potential in them." The real question is whether the employers cannot see those things in the young people just because they don't care about them or because the young people engage the internships just to have something in their CV. It's even in description of the debate (check out the link down below): "...hoping that more work experience will increase their value on the job market." I think when people work on something they are really interested in (not because their only interest is their CV), those who hired them should see the effort and give them worthwhile opportunity.

For those who do not get any financial support from home and are still at school/college - I think for them it's really important just to earn some money for living (or survival if you will) while they're at school. So it really depends on how much money they need and if they want to work in a restaurant on evenings and weekends (for example) and do the unpaid internship on weekdays. I think no one can do job, school AND unpaid internship if they don't like the internship. And if the employers don't see any effort, they always ask them to do menial and non-challenging tasks. There are some companies that never ask new employees to do something, they just say to them "find something to work on by yourself" and if the employees find something and prove their effort then they get more challenging tasks. So, even if someone asked me to do something menial, I would do that but in an addition I would find something else to do, something I would enjoy, just to prove I really wanna do the job.

So, I think it depends on both employee's approach and employer's approach. Goal of the young people should be to gain some experience and get paid job in that same company later (as a thank for the opportunity and because they want to work there). And goal of the employers should be the same - train their employees, even if they are "just" in unpaid internship, and give them paid job as soon as they seem to manage well (as a thank for all their work and because they don't want to lose capable and experienced employee :))

The whole debate here: DEBATE: Unpaid internships

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