Opinions on unpaid internships?
So I was hoping for an internship in RE development for this summer (junior year) but didn’t have much luck. Recently was offered an internship at a boutique investment sales firm, who are successful in their market (NYC area) but its unpaid. I won’t have an internship if I don’t take this and do have enough saved up to get by during the summer. Plus will be able to work another job and squeeze by. I’ve asked some of my contacts and they said that the firm is reputable and do a high volume of deals, so experience wise it should hopefully be good, but wanted to get second opinions here about it being unpaid.
My own opinion is that it is what it is, I wasn’t good enough to land what I wanted and got this instead, I can leverage it into something better senior year, or maybe even get a return offer. I actually like brokerage as well. But thoughts from you guys.
Unpaid internships are fine. They are teaching you experience for free.
Unpaid internships prey on people who desperately need experience. The value of your labor isn’t zero. Don’t settle.
Exactly. The value of interns is usually deadweight, less than zero.
Not necessarily. I think not paying interns says a lot about the person who’s doing it, and you won’t attract the best talent if you don’t pay them.
Paying interns minimum wage is the bare minimum, it’s ridiculous to expect people to work for free and I think the practice should stop. Not saying that interns usually don’t extract more value than they create, but I don’t think it’s right to have people work for free and if you’re a decent person, you won’t create an unpaid internship.
I think it depends on if it is heavily advertised as unpaid, like the Tobin ones which are definitely preying on people. However, if it's a shop that doesn't offer internships, you reach out and network, and someone in a position of leadership comes in with the "we don't do paid things but we would be happy to have you around this summer and show you the ropes" and means it sincerely, then its not so bad. Just my opinion, depends on the motive.
Agree
It wasn’t advertised, got it through networking.
Unpaid internships get a lot of shit nowadays, but the vast majority of an internship's value is not in the 15$/hr you get paid but the ability to break into your field and get some experience. I would do it for a month, bail, and put that shit on your resume.
Haha yeah I know. Experience far outweighs the 15 bucks an hour but it would just have made things a little easier. I was planning on staying the whole 8 weeks, you really think it would be okay to bail after a month. I guess no one will really know I was only there for a month but still.
stay the whole time if you are able to
my best internship was an unpaid internship, or at least it started out where I wasn't making any money. I did two unpaid internships and a couple paid internships and learned more in some of the unpaid ones than the paid ones. I am pro-unpaid internship, most unpaid interns aren't going to add that much value, I saw that at both of the unpaid internships that I did. one of my bosses decided to stop hiring unpaid interns because they didn't do enough work, they just saw it as something to put on the resume, and it was easier to hire people from overseas and pay them very little to do some work instead so I think he stopped with the interns.
It's a scummy thing to do. I got approached to do an unpaid IB offer - no way I was going to do it. I figured I didn't need it on my resume to get an offer (and I did get multiple BB offers), it's a bad deal imo, and the reason why I'm in IB is only for the money - not going to work for free. I would 100% accept an internship for $10 / hr or minimum wage if it was a good experience without a doubt, but I wouldn't work for free. The $10 an hour would barely make a dent on my finances, but it would make even less of an impact on the bank. $10 times 40 hours times 10 weeks is $4000. That's pennies to any decent place. And it doesn't even make sense to pay an intern $10 an hour when you can pay a Filipino or an Indian guy with years of experience less than that. There's people who say they like obese chicks and that they're cuddly or something (instead of smelly sweaty and gross), but they're either so desperate they don't care or coping hard. Same deal with unpaid internships. Don't fucking settle, don't take an unpaid internship offer, don't sacrifice your dignity, you're here to fucking make money.
Yes, I want to make money, but this isn’t a bank. It’s an investment sales firm. Everyone is 100% commission.
If you make more than minimum wage and you think it's good experience go for it. Some of the most lucrative sales jobs are 100% commission, I know a tech sales guy who works 40 hours a week and makes very close to 8 figures and his contract is 100% commission.
Unpaid internships are foul and our only accessible to “rich kids.” What average person can afford to to live in New York without being paid. It’s ridiculous. Any self respecting form should never promote or offer unpaid internships
They weren’t promoted, he just offered me one after we talked a couple times. Still not ideal but better than nothing at all.
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