Working for little to no pay (internship/apprenticeship)

Background: I am graduating this December and will be attending grad school in the Fall. It seems like many firms are cutting back on hiring interns or not hiring them at all this year. I was curious if it could be a good idea for me to introduce the idea of me doing an unpaid internship this summer. I obviously would like a paid internship, but right now experience and connections is more important than an hourly wage. Any thoughts on if this is a good idea or how I should go about bringing this up to my connections.

9 Comments
 

The real estate industry has faced a lot of difficulties recently and finding a paid job within CRE has never been easy. With our current economic environment, lay offs continue to rise; I believe CNBC reported that five of the largest U.S. banks have cut a total of 20,000 jobs this year. This means many of those previously working in finance are now seeking new jobs. I am seeing many former IB and PE guys trying to use this period as an opportunity to transition into REIB and REPE. This obviously does not help those who have been focused on securing a career in CRE as there are more people fighting over a few paid positions. It is very common to work unpaid when starting off, so taking an internship or working for free is more than okay as long as you are able to survive financially. Look at it as an opportunity to gain experience and leverage for the future. I get the difficulty of taking on an unpaid job, as that was a huge decision of mine. However, I believe it was the right move since the industry is becoming even more competitive.

 

How did you go about landing it? Did you apply places or reach out to people letting them know your looking for unpaid internship

 

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