Want to Attract Good Interns? Pay Them Well

I have a few friends that interned at IBM and later got hired..i think it is just great to find a company that takes people seriously all the way from intern level. Many interns produce a lot for the company at that level already. I found Seth Godin's call for applications interesting and funny at the same time..he said he starts his review by throwing away the last 15 applications sent before deadline. Also no specific number, just as many as can fit around his boardroom table etc... But atleast for all that he pays 2000USD for 14 days of work. Not Bad.

I don't know about paying to work: You get college credits but you don't pay for them as you would pay for them like a classroom course. Some colleges require internships; To graduate with a journalism degree from my school, you had to have at least two internships to graduate. I took on the Rolling Stone internship because I wanted to see what it was like at that publication. Each internship was only two or three days a week, BTW. 

Although my internships didn't pay, both the Eastern Airlines and Rolling Stone internships were beneficial. (I hated the Working Woman internship. There were four of us, and one of our responsibilities was to cover for the receptionist, which meant staffing a big phone bank and transffering all employees' phones -- for no pay, of course.) 

At Eastern, my editor Madeline gave me real work: I read articles and summarized them, helping her select stories that might be appropriate to purchase for future issues of the in-flight magazine. She treated me like a peer and taught me a lot about the editing and editorial side of journalism. While at Rolling Stone, I did some indepth research for a big project, and even got my name in the magazine (although Alison was spelled wrong!). I was offered a job at Rolling Stone but the pay was appaling. In fact, it was pretty much so low I couldn't have survived on it. After a lot of soul-searching I turned it down, although Tish - the person who oversaw interns - was really disappointed. It was great, though, because I connected her with a couple of other people for internships. They worked out and one of them actually did work at RS for a while. 

Bolingbroke - I believe internships are done in conjunction with college. They're part of a student's education. Students frequently get college credit for doing internships.

So not only are they often unpaid -- students are paying to work. That's a pretty sweet deal for an employer, for sure!

It has always seemed to me that internships have more downside than benefit. 

For society, they create barriers to upward mobility. As internships replace entry level jobs, the only people able to get those jobs are those who have outside sources of income. 

Interns need to arrange those outside sources of income. Unless they have family money, they end up having to work two jobs, only being paid for one. And of course interns are often students; being a student is a third job.  

It's no great deal for the company. The early days of hiring an entry-level employee are the hardest days; you're spending a lot of time teaching them to do their jobs, and not getting a lot of the benefit. Because internships are rapid turnover, employers are always seeing the early days and never getting the benefits. 

Better to just give young people entry-level jobs, and pay them a small -- but livable -- wage, then promote the most talented. Of course, do those entry-level jobs exist? We don't have mailrooms or typing pools anymore where bright young men and women can get their start. 

dcawrey - I never did an internship. Even when I was in colleage, my attitude was that if I work for someone, that person needs to pay me. Like Alison, I come from a journalism background, and I put the time into my college newspaper instead. 

Although to tell the truth mostly we just hung around the newspaper office. :)

It makes sense to me that interns should be paid. After all, they contribute to the value of the company. 

I'd guess it depends on industry, although way back when tradesmen (and they were men then) had apprenticeships for crafts like blacksmiths, carpentry, etc. I was in journalism school in the late 1980s and they were a well-established tradition then. As to IT, I don't know how long technology departments and firms have used interns, but I recall writing about them during my 10-year tenure at CRN, which began in 1989.

I noticed a rise when the economy was down.  Small business needed to fill the spots without the overhead.