The Curse of Interning

Thought I might write about something a bit more interesting/serious this week, and it’s something that I think is so important to know. Anyone reading this who works in the media industry will have no doubt come across the joy of interning and work experience, and it’s astonishing how few people realise they are being exploited by this practice as a whole.

My former tutor at Leeds told me about one of the present students who had done some work experience at the dominant local radio broadcaster in West Yorkshire, the student had finished work experience, but then they offered the student shifts but didn’t pay the student for the shifts he was working. They let this go on for 9 months, giving the student no payment whatsoever for his hard work, and no indication that it would be rewarded.

First and foremost, this kind of practice is ILLEGAL. Anyone working is entitled to the national minimum wage, unless they are a student in full time education where they may undertake WORK EXPERIENCE as part of their education and studies or where the broadcaster/company is a registered charity, so for example youth projects or hospital radio. So in the case above, the student’s initial placement was fine, but the shifts offered following the end of the placement was in no way in line with current UK employment law.

Speaking as someone who knows many people who slave away as interns, with the expectation of the job appearing at the end of it, it’s so difficult to change everyone’s view on this kind of thing. We all intern and we all accept that the only way to bolster your CV or even stand a chance of getting into some large companies is to offer your services free of charge until ‘something comes up’.

Interns frequently are the people working hardest in an office, always keen to impress and all in the hope that the company they are being exploited by will wave a magic wand and give them a job, or that someone will see it on their CV and deign them to be experienced enough to have a full time job.
I understand the importance of getting experience in the industry, but it feels like entry level jobs have now become unpaid jobs, and so anyone looking to crack into the media, particularly production, magazines and advertising must accept months to a year of working for free after university before they will even be considered. Entry level jobs ask for 6 months experience, but I ask how can you get that valuable experience without living on tinned soup trying to pay rent for a long term period.

It’s even more difficult if you are being paid a salary but are looking to switch jobs. It would seem all your previous skills become irrelevant and you must go from a permanent position to unpaid work experience to even stand a chance of being considered by any potential employers. This is making our industry particularly inflexible, and possibly a wealth of talent is slipping under the radar because they feel that they cannot possibly afford to go back to being unpaid for the chance (which is very difference to a definite) of a job offer. It's good to see media websites like Media UK and The Unit List trying to help and posting up guidelines for people who are looking to break into the media and for people who might already be working and be unaware of the rules.

So as a whole I think the practice of interning needs to be reviewed, but in all honesty, all it would take would be an intern at the end of their tether and a very generous employment lawyer to take up their case and take it to court in order to get the media to stop condoning what sometimes seems like slave labour, and give people a chance to be rewarded for their hard work and the skills they bring to the table.