Numerous students and nascent graduates are keen to add an internship to their resumes for a variety of reasons. Internships are a critical element of your education at the majority of institutions, for which you get credit. What would happen when there are so many students and graduates seeking internships but so few employers willing to accept them since their stipends would increase the company’s expenses?
This leaves the corporate compass in the middle ground. Some companies understand the importance of internships to scout for their next superstar employee. While some companies employ unpaid interns since it has no added cost to the business and the students obtain their internship experience as well as a certificate. Hence, stipend-driven internships or unpaid internships, which is a win-win and which is a no-no?
Experience and expedience: the incredible internship age
For the last decade or so, internships in colleges and universities have become popular among students to get a competitive advantage and advance their careers. It serve as a springboard for better employability, cognitive consolidation, industry exposure, and acclimatization to real-world job experience while still having the scope for making rookie mistakes.
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One must unquestionably compensate interns because it is the right thing to do. It makes the applicant’s experience enjoyable and gives both sides more responsibility and ownership once the internship starts.
Paid internships are on the rise thanks to many trailblazing portals in India which have accrued the best internship offers with stipends. While an intern’s stipend may seem little to the employer, it is often their first source of remuneration and a significant generator of self-esteem. Most of the time, this results in interns working diligently in order to produce top-quality work, which benefits everyone. This consequently makes the experience of an intern incredibly rewarding, and the company also gets a hardworking youngster that can be a part of the roster in the future.
Unpaid internships: To be or not to be?
Although the situation that the current wave of internship culture finds itself in is not that dramatic and the majority of them are win-win situations for students and corporations. However, there does seem to be some gray area here too. Unpaid internships have marred the market for a long time, as some companies think it’s okay to compensate hardworking interns only with a certificate and proffer them with intangible virtues of experience. Hiring an intern is essentially the same as hiring a vendor, service provider, or employee whose services a company expects to benefit from in return for the money they invest.
Can unpaid internships be justified?
There are some exceptions that can eclipse the set norms of the internship ecosystem. The cases that can be considered are:
NGOs: Since part of the justification for a stipend is that interns’ employment adds to the company’s profit or income, they are entitled to a stipend. This is not the case for NGOs whose main mission is to improve social welfare. Thus, NGOs can be an exception to the paid internship bandwagon.
The distinction between apprenticeship and internship: In some professions, a student may want to study an art form or specific topic for an extended length of time under the tutelage of a master. For instance, acquiring and working on the basics of film-making from a director; learning music from a renowned musician, or developing writing styles from an author. In such scenarios, the stipend is often at the master’s judiciousness. Since the mentor doesn’t directly benefit from such an association, it can’t be called an internship.
Why unpaid internship culture needs to go
Internships aim to provide students or freshers with a simulation of professional training with job-like experience. Workplaces that provide unpaid internships usually promise better working experiences, letters of recommendation, and other forms of compensation – except monetary remuneration. Perks gained through unpaid internships might be very helpful in building a career, but unpaid internships can start to lose their sheen once they stretch to their full term as the motivation to work for free can abate.
It is important to realize that exposure is not enough compensation, employment is a trade of time for money, and it should be treated as such no matter what the title of the job is. Paying an intern is the correct thing to do. As interns often don’t have much experience and are only there for a short time, hiring them may not be the best decision for every employer, and that’s acceptable. If that’s the case, it would make more sense not to hire interns than to hire interns who don’t get paid.
— Authored by Sarvesh Agrawal, Founder and CEO of Internshala
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