Unpaid internships

Something that irks me in my work at the moment is confusion about internships and the assumption certain employers (or managers) have that just by calling something an ‘internship’ you can get someone to work for you for free.

Minimum wage rules in countries such as UK and US mean that work should be paid. An internship is only unpaid if it is for a structured educational experience or training, emphatically not work that you should actually be paying someone to do. Minimum wage applies when an employment relationship exists so employers should be aware of what constitutes an employment relationship – and it’s not just about whether the individual has signed an employment contract.

Workers themselves appear to be similarly unaware of these regulations, and maybe this is why so many unpaid internships blatantly abound. The US Department of Labour has criteria for what can constitute an internship that is unpaid, for example, it should be for the benefit of the intern, it should be a similar type of training as what is given in an educational environment, the intern is not entitled to a job at the end of it etc.

Reasons to enforce these regulations are quite obvious: work should pay, and young workers looking for experience in a difficult job market should not be exploited. Also, the use of interns should not displace paid employees. However, a lot of organisations in particular industries seem to rely on the use of interns to get work done (a look at the vacancy pages of certain smaller NGOs or organisations in creative industries will show you that).

But certain high-profile cases have been in the news recently around their mis-use of interns, so maybe the tide is turning, e.g. Sheryl Sandberg was criticised for advertising for an unpaid intern, and Alexander McQueen’s office came under fire from the president of University of Arts London (for which Alexander McQueen is an alumnus) for advertising a 6 to 11-month long unpaid internship for which they later apologised.

What can be done about this? I would argue that it’s for HR professionals to challenge managers’ incorrect assumptions and educate their organisations on the difference between a paid work placement, and an unpaid internship. Several organisations offer guidelines on work experience and internships, such as Creative Skillset and CIPD in the UK.

It hasn’t always been the case that internships should be paid, as Lucy Kellaway points out in her work on the history of the office. See also Herbert Pocket’s attempts to find work in Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations. But our minimum wage regulations are an important part of current employment legislation, and we need to work hard to uphold them.

We don’t need to eliminate unpaid internships entirely as they do provide important professional opportunities for young people starting out in work, gaining experience of different working environments and industries. But ultimately work should pay.

The Art of Hiring

Two big messages currently dominate the headlines around the labour market in the UK:

1. there are huge numbers of unemployed people, particularly young people, looking for work

and

2. there is also a skills gap and employers cannot find what they are looking for.

The CIPD points out in its ‘Employers are from Mars, young people are from Venus’ report that employers often complain that young people are not ‘work-ready’. The report also points out that there can be barriers to young people securing employment through the design of employers’ recruitment practices.

A big part of getting young people into employment – that is, an essential part of young people being ‘work-ready’- is preparing for interview. But interview coaching is essential for anyone, and not just the candidates. I was once told by a university careers adviser that interviewing is an art form, not a science. Some people are naturally good at being interviewed, and some of us have to practice. Similarly, on the interviewer side, some find it easy to pull out the information they want from a candidate, and others really need to work on this skill. Still others are sorely mistaken in thinking the onus is on the interviewee to do most of the work in the interview, but this is not the case. To run a successful recruitment you need to know what you’re looking for, and have several techniques at your disposal to find out if the candidate in front of you possesses those skills.

I would agree with the CIPD report in that recruitment processes should be examined to see if they really are open enough for employers to get what they need out of candidates, especially young ones, and also to enable different types of candidates to present themselves well and have an equal chance of getting hired. In a typical interview when all has gone very smoothly and a ‘fit’ stands out head and shoulders above the rest it’s usually because we’ve ended up recruiting someone broadly similar to the employee who has held the role before. The emphasis often seems to be on filling a role quickly and with as little risk as possible, but in taking that approach we’ve most likely missed out on a candidate who could be equally as good in the role but who would also offer something different to the organisation than the last person.

When that obvious hire doesn’t appear during the recruitment process, instead of employers getting frustrated at the quality of candidates, we should be thinking again about the process and about how to meet candidates in the middle, perhaps by being more transparent about our criteria. There’s no need to lambast your candidates on the internet as I have seen from some  recently. Employers need to ask: what is the real reason our candidates are not up to scratch? Could it be that we haven’t been completely clear about what we were looking for in the first place? Or maybe we weren’t clear with ourselves about our criteria and we ended up interviewing the wrong people?

A great example of an organisation meeting candidates in the middle are the ‘Work with us‘ pages on CAFOD’s website. CAFOD, like a lot of NGOs, has quite a convoluted recruitment process, but it’s a good approach for them to try and explain the process to prospective employees. We can’t always assume that the best candidates are the ones who’ve managed to fill out the application form in the best manner, or we’ll only end up hiring people who are good at application forms (or good at producing killer CVs).

We also need to accept and get over the fact that what should be obvious to job applicants is seemingly not obvious anymore. It’s true that blatant job-hunting no-nos (don’t be late for the interview, do some research on the organisation you’re applying to, don’t lie on your CV…) seem to be lost on a few candidates. But it also could be said that what should be obvious to recruiters can also get lost in the panic to get a new employee into an empty desk (don’t answer your mobile during the interview, don’t describe the role in an completely negative way, don’t keep the candidate waiting because your schedule is disorganised…).

Problems in the recruitment process are not always on the candidate side. Just because there are lots of people out there looking for work doesn’t make it any easier to set the correct criteria and identify the best one for you to hire.  And I wouldn’t move to criticise candidates unless you’ve done all you can as an employer to make the process as clear and open as possible.

The best way to leave your job

At various times in my HR career colleagues have approached me to ask: “What can the company do if I don’t give my full notice when I leave?”. If you’re considering leaving your job, this is completely the wrong question to be asking. To me, this question sounds like: “I’ve decided to get out of here. How can I leave as quickly as possible?”

If you’re thinking about how to resign from your job, firstly you need to be clear with yourself about your reasons for leaving. Having done that you need to deny the urge to blurt these out to your unwitting co-workers. Instead, decide how you are going to communicate those reasons that are most constructive to your current employer: firstly your manager, then your immediate colleagues, and finally to the company at large before your final day.

Handing in your notice is undoubtedly an awkward and painful experience. But it doesn’t have to feel like you are finally giving up the charade of loving to work somewhere you don’t. You don’t need to let the mask drop that much, but be honest about your reasons for moving on: you don’t see yourself working there for X more years, you need to progress financially, you don’t see any development where you are, you want greater flexibility.

If your employer offers you an exit interview, take the opportunity and be honest and constructive in your feedback. It never ceases to amaze me how managers can often not see problems that are right in front of them or managers who are unwilling to really confront the reasons why staff are leaving. Often it is rationalised as ‘they didn’t fit’, ‘they are clearly not one of us’, ‘they didn’t have what it takes’, rather than ‘there is no development opportunity for them here’, ‘I never really found out what they were looking for from this job’, ‘I have no idea what would have made them stay’. My last manager thanked me for my exit interview; she said it was different seeing the issues I’d experienced written down in an interview report. I was astonished she hadn’t been aware of the issues I was facing, but she quite simply had a totally different perspective on the matter.

And this is important: your manager in all likelihood will not have seen your resignation coming. So even if you’ve been feeling at your wits’ end for a long period and you couldn’t be more jubilant to move on, you should treat your last employer with respect. Or at least remember that they will be writing you references in future. Speaking as someone who was once called ‘Judas’ by a previous manager upon handing in my notice and then having to work out the best part of 3 months’ notice, you want to find a way to move on with minimal guilt. And try whatever you can to make the job a better experience for your replacement.

Incidentally, the answer to the first question is: the company can’t really do a lot to you, except feel completely disappointed to see you so eager to leave. It will also leave big questions over your integrity and your colleagues may feel ‘ditched’ by your sudden departure. My colleague who is a lawyer describes the employment relationship as a ‘marriage’. I really wouldn’t go that far, but it is a relationship nevertheless, and you need to find a way to leave well. Negotiate your notice period down if your new employer is adamant they want you to start as soon as possible, but whatever commitment you make to either party, be sure to see that through. And leave for better things with your head held high.