I wish I could write all the posts I want in a much quicker succession than I have so far, but part of the reason I don’t is because I’m interning. I work as an intern in a public affairs company 3-4 days a week and ‘interning’ has certainly become a way of life for many recent graduates.. Love or loathe it.
I haven’t grown up with interning being a fact of life so I was quite surprised and disappointed, I must admit, when I realised I had to get on the intern wagon. If one is either just out of university with no prior work experience or changing careers to a field one doesn’t have practical experience in, becoming an intern for a few months is sadly becoming the way to go.
It all depends on individual circumstances, but I would hope that I do not need to do more than two internships before things start loosening up on the job front. Some people will probably disagree, however, this is where I would advice anyone to never go into an internship lightly. Really do your research and prepare questions for the interview about what you can actually expect to get out of the internship. Since you are offering your time for free, the company or organisation should really have something worthwhile to offer you in return! Read more here
My own interships so far
The first internship I did I could quickly see that there would never be any hope for a paid job at the end of it. Nonetheless, it was my first proper internship and I got a stable reference out of it which I can count on at any time. There was also quite a few other interns there and I made some great friends that I can count on in my times of unemployment exasperation.
However, I remember I had a moment of questioning the whole internship project when I found myself in a musty, old storage room supposedly organising it for one of the extremely dithering staff members. Other than testing my patience and compliance, I don’t see how that would add any value to my work experience besides gaining the understanding that interns are there to do the shit jobs for no pay..
The second internship, my current one, I was a bit more picky and looked around for what kind of specific experiences I was lacking on my CV that an internship could help with. At the interview I also asked what previous interns had gone on to do after completing their time with them. When they told me they had hired a few of them, I figured this might be a good place to be.
Internship controversy
There is a considerable amount of controversy surrounding internships and work experience, and rightly so. Not everyone can afford doing unpaid internships over several months and not everyone live in bigger cities where they are usually offered.
Deputy PM Nick Clegg has come out with his internship plan where he has called on companies to be transparent in the advertising of their internship, and move away from a ‘who you know’-type recruitment. That is fair enough, but I think it is equally important to turn attention to what companies are offering interns in terms of experience. If you are taking three months out to work for free, you should not have to be the tea-rounds bitch and do the data inputting that no one wants to do!
So from my own experience, I would advise anyone to do proper research around the company that is offering internship and really interview them as much as they do you about the opportunities that would available. An internship isn’t just about getting a good reference, but about getting specific experiences you can use to secure paid work afterwards! Internships can also be a great way to broaden your contact network and possibly also open up for in-house job opportunities, however, I would be careful about going into an internship expecting that because you might be disappointed.
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Intern Aware and interns anonymous are great sites to look at for more information about the campaigning that’s going on around the issue and read more about people’s experiences as interns, for good and for bad.
Picture from here
recession graduate 
