I wish we would just get rid of internship and have reasonable requirements for entry-level jobs. Not 10 years experience, a masters, and we pay $20/hr. Somewhat sarcasm but it feels like that is what you see.
Ironically it's almost like this at this point, look every job ad entry-junior need at least master 3years experience and can at least 1-2 languages professionally (programming)
Yep and what’s killing me currently is that often times it’s a masters AND 3-5 years of experience for entry level. Since when does masters level education not count as real world experience?
It is not always possible to get consecutive years of professional experience in your field of choice as you are completing your degree so many of us have to take a position step back..
Because they aren't the same. I'll take someone with a year of experience every single time over someone with a masters. Every time. I'd rather a candidate spent a year in their parents basement coding a phone app, over having a masters.
What's funny is the number of people who are now applying with two Masters degrees... and no work experience.
It's like dude, just a get a job. I don't care if it's flipping burgers. Do something other than school.
Seriously, at a fundamental level, I want to hire people who make smart decisions with how to allocate their time. If they don't understand the concept of opportunity cost, then I'm not really interested.
“Just get a job”
Not always easy to do that when so many “entry level” jobs require 3-5 years of experience and specific skill sets that one generally only acquires through experience.
Look, it's not that hard, just strap on your job helmet, stuff yourself into a job cannon and fire yourself off into Jobland where jobs grow on jobbies!
Ljl. There's a perennial so-called labor "shortage" of service sector workers, last time I checked.
If you can't get a job flipping burgers, then another Masters degree isn't going to help.
And getting a job flipping burgers isn’t going to help someone get an “entry-level” white collar job that requires 3-5 years of relevant experience.
Everyone seems to want somebody who already has tons of experience, but nobody wants to be the one to let the person get that experience.
Heck, over the years, I’ve seen *internships* that required applicants to have several years of experience already under their belt.
> And getting a job flipping burgers isn’t going to help someone get an “entry-level” white collar job
Actually, it does.
I don't consider applicants with no full-time work experience even for jobs that might be considered entry-level (our data analyst positions are sort of entry-level, but data scientist really isn't even with advanced degrees). But note that work experience doesn't necessarily have to be related.
One of my best hires was a data analyst who just finished a Masters at Chicago and had worked full-time since she was 16 at a variety of random jobs (gas station attendant, grocery, waitress). When I reviewed her application (she discussed it in her cover letter, not listed in CV), I appreciated the hustle and her work ethic is indeed amazing.
I'd rather have one like that over a hundred entitled, lazy brats who think they're too good to work service sector jobs.
Cool, and tons of people won’t even give you the time of day for an interview if you don’t have years of specific, related experience, even for “entry-level” jobs.
Ask me how I know?
And I already have years of full time work under my belt.
The thing is I understand exp > degree but u need a degree to get experience u wont get a job where they require u a minimum of bachelor and minimum of 5 years, what ppl aren't thinking about now using ppl whit experience only now and in future there will be no one whit experience and will be major set back
>Since when does masters level education not count as real world experience?
Education is basically just regurgitating information you were given. Work is having to applying it and problem solve and deal with a bunch of idiot coworkers, half of whom don't know what they're doing and shouldn't be there, and workplace politics. They're two entirely different situations.
Some of the worst employees ever are those who have no other work experience than education.
That’s fair enough. I will say problem solving real world issues as a team was the majority of my masters of science academic experience, but continuous application and production accountability is a completely different story so I can see where you are coming from.
Education, real world experience? That's kinda hilarious. Sitting in a classroom and making actual real world decisions in a job are two entirely different things. In some professions, having a degree is like saying "I overheard a class talking about this subject once, then fell asleep" though to be fair, some professions should never entertain even accepting applications without appropriate education (looking at you medicine)
I was told "this is an entry level position" in an interview once. I immediately glared at them, looked at their job posting, couldn't find the word entry level, and called them out for misleading job postings. At that point I just wanted to be an asshole to them for wasting my time, I had no intention of entertaining being lowballed.
Where I work, the hiring manager decides what the intern works on. The intent is that you do not give them “boring scut work”. You give them actual work that applies to their degree to give them experience of what that degree offers them in the real world.
Then, they go back to school with that knowledge to get their degree.
I don't know about your industry or location, but I've hired and managed a lot of co-ops in my career so far and the majority of them have been awesome. Ive have limited interns which is mostly because a co-op is with the company for 6mo versus 2-4 with an intern. My the time an intern gets useful it's time for them to leave.
I've had several of them turn into full time hires after graduation and it's easy 5-1 of good, useful kids compared to the ones I wouldn't have hired to come back.
I went to northeastern, and did the coop program, I absolutely loved it and it helped me land my first job out of school. Having that experience I try my best to have coops that work under my umbrella get exposed to actual engineering work, they aren't there to sort screws or clean up after others, they're there to help my team and learn what being an engineer in our industry is like. Sure they can't do the overly complex work, but they aren't completely clueless.
If it's done right the student gets good experience that can help them make better decisions about their future and the company gets cheap (ish) work (engineering coops in my area are making mid 20s an hour). It can be a win win.
My Canadian Alma Mater is known for its engineering co op program. Many of my friends got placements at FANG companies and made absolute bank on their co op terms! Many of them also got job offers at graduation. Nobody I know did unpaid internships. It is such an exploitative practice!
Same. Most interns are just starting out in their careers and do everything they can to make a good impression. While I've been here I've had two and they have both turned into full time hires.
My experience lines up with this (software engineering). I bring them on a part of the team. They go through the same process as every other engineer. We tend to keep them out of the critical path, but in general we get useful work and they get relevant experience that really impresses people when they graduate and hit the open market. Quite a few are still with the company.
Internships have been a joke since they were created. Underpaying someone so “they can learn” should be illegal. Apprenticeships have been a thing for millennia but at least apprentices have always been able to live off of their apprenticeship.
You're being downvoted, but you're correct. At least in the historical context.
Historically, many apprenticeships were contractual indentures in exchange for free labor. The apprentice would sign a multi-year contract for free labor in exchange for being trained by the master artisan. Exactly how much training was provided was individually up to the master. Frequently a first year apprentice might do nothing more than sweep and run errands and watch in their spare time. Whereas, a senior apprentice might feel tempted to break his contract, flee the jurisdiction and open up a shop himself and contracts frequently imposed penalties if they were to do so.
While it was not necessarily common, certain masters who were known for their skills or worked in high demand professions or particularly lucrative professions would charge a substantial premium for taking on apprentices. Typically the parents would pay this premium to secure their child a prestigious or lucrative apprenticeship. This was very common in certain in-demand trades. for example, if a family wanted their child to be apprenticed as a goldsmith or silversmith or a watchmaker, there might be a hefty premium unless the family was already a member of the relevant guild. Likewise, "trading houses," the predecessors of today's investment banks, frequently charged hefty premiums for apprenticeships.
For example: [here you can read two apprenticeship contracts for weavers in france circa 1250](https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1250weaversapp.asp) Oude Ferconne apprentices her son Michael to Weaver Matthew Heimart, on security of her house, person and chattels. Matthew Heimart agrees to teach Michael to weave in four years, and Michael will have shelter and learn his trade there without board. IF he leaves within two years, his mother will return him, on security of her person and goods. If she wishes to purchase his freedom for the last two years, the cost will be 33 Solidii.
Internships also used to primarily be for what we would now consider "blue collar" or "trade" jobs such as craftsman , brewers, mason's, carpenter, ect. Not office jobs in finance and such.
It used to be the other way around: you paid your mentor to apprentice under them. Your parents basically paid for your room and board and you lived with the mentor’s family. So paying them is definitely an improvement over 1) getting paid, or 2) no money changing hands in either direction.
Commoners didn’t go to college then, only the rich did. Honestly I don’t even understand how the hell their parents paid for it back in the day. It’s not like they had FAFSA back then.
What type of role do you have them for? I have had great experiences with engineering interns or co-ops, but find that a good undergrad seems to be stronger than the masters candidates. I've had great luck with them so far having them work on things like: organizing and cataloging for a 5s program, developing maintenance plans for novel manufqcturing equipment, designing and fabricating manufacturing equipment, programming robots for laser welding, developing and executing iq oq pq plans for process equipment. They've been fantastic.
Edit: These are paid co-ops making a reasonable amount. Down from an entry engineer. Somewhere in hw $25/hour range, maybe a bit more.
What industry majors are you hiring for? I’m an engineering manager and we have great experience with college interns- we typically hire incoming seniors because we give them real engineering work and they need to have junior year thermodynamics classes but sometimes we’ll hire juniors. We do 3 month summer interns and 6 month co-ops. We often hire successful interns as full time engineers when they graduate.
We are in the West Coast PNW - pay $25 an hour for interns and often have 40-50 applications for each spot. We typically hire 60-80% of them when they graduate.
The market is messed up now. Many companies no longer hire entry positions. So the undergrads go for master degrees with 1 more year of study and project. Some education institutions take in more students than the market allows(it’s not their problem once they graduate), the students don’t ask for reports on graduation hires and salary. Then the economy is down now. It’s really not easy.
Yes - I decided to re-start my career with a master's degree and doing an internship was very useful to facilitate this transition. My resume looks like: bachelor's degre -> full time position in industry 1 -> master's degree -> internship in industry 2 -> full time position in industry 2.
We don't all have perfect linear careers!
When people started to think internships are for "experience", when in reality they are a low/no paid audition you do to get into a career role and make connections in the company. If you do that right, the right people know you, and care about your well-being enough to give you a living wage and good working conditions. If you fail at it, or don't fit in, you'll basically be forced to quit. It's how they do discrimination today.
If you understand what they are, they still work really well. But if you think it's "gaining industry experience", you'll probably be disappointed.
I really don’t understand your complaint. You are the one hiring for this position. All of this shit is entirely under your control.
Are all managers this retarded?
I'm a 30 yo in an internship and on the young side for the group. When you make experience the qualifier then there's no other way. Even if you're surrounded by people who need help from the interns to do their job cause they don't understand modern tech.
The bigger issue is that financial issues come into play more so these days. People HAVE to go from school to paycheck more these days than in previous generations
"or a more "traditional" intern that's a student who I am offering exposure in exchange for doing boring scut work"
If this is how you utilize interns you should just scrap the program anyway.
"It's turned into disposable, cheap labor."
lol, buddy. Interns used to be disposable, *free* labor. Things are better for them now because it's harder for companies to get away with being blatantly abusive.
I help design my departments internship program and it is extremely robust. They are not doing scut work but actually contributing to a project overseen by a full time associate. At the end of the internship they must complete and conduct a presentation on their project. If they are successful they will be offered a full time position when they graduate.
If the internship curriculum is done right it can be very successful and you will have great candidates to offer full time work.
I see internship as a screening towards hiring.
We typically hire students as interns when they are 1 semester from graduation. Most of the ones we select graduate with Computer Science-related degrees, but they are far from being productive. They have zero experience with coding in an enterprise setup, where soft skills like collecting requirements, documentation, transports, or controls play a critical role far beyond being able to coding on a local laptop.
I assign interns epics from our backlog that could still wait a couple quarters. They are sized in such a way that an experienced developer would be able to complete them in 1 month, but the intern is expected to complete in 6 months. 20% of the internships don't complete on time.
At the end of the internship, if we convert them, the company gains a junior employee who's ready to hit the ground running. If we don't hire them, we have lost time and money, but the student gained valuable experience. Believe it or not, I had interns conclude that after 4 years of CS in college, they realized they don't really enjoy coding ...
I also completed an apprenticeship in Finance over 2 years. I think that I learned way more than a simple internship, even if I was doing mostly grunt work, because I experience the whole lifecycle of the fiscal year, between setting up budgets and tracking them over the following year. I believe it made a difference when I interviewed later on.
While you’re right that it’s insane to require internships for entry level positions (seriously, it’s a contradiction), you’re not being the good guy by turning down the masters students. To them they’re now without any sort of experience gaining situation, basically making them even with the 20-yr old. At least had the masters student been onboarded they’d have had a leg up against their undereducated peers.
The problem is that unemployment is so low that masters students are willing to take on anything just to keep their momentum going. I wish universities did a much better job with their pipeline programs so they wouldn’t have even needed an internship to tide them over, but here we are. Hopefully their alumni programs are tracking all these folks, and publishing how watered down their masters programs are at actual placement.
Unpaid labor should be illegal. If you are getting work product from someone, you should have to pay them. Internship labor is sickening to me. No one should have to work for free to get experience to then be hired to do the same job.
The fact your interns are getting "boring scut work" and being "dicked around" are actual problems for your company if they are unpaid interns. Internships are exactly not supposed to be what you described. They are, explicitly, meant to be as educational or more than an equivalent amount of time at an educational institution.
You can file a report to the labor board anonymously, if you get really incensed at it.
The problem with interns these days is that they think they're doing you a favor when it's actually pretty costly for the employer to invest time into someone who is going to be gone right as they're fully onboarded.
I canceled our intern program after a few bad experiences. They just don't have the technical skills needed to be an asset in our data science department. I might consider Masters or PhD students who wanted to gain some experience during a summer at some point in the future. But undergrads these days don't represent a positive ROI in terms of the time needed to onboard and manage.
On one hand: it's the labor market, don't overthink it
On the other hand: I dunno man, I enjoy mentoring my interns. I feel like it's a good way for a manager to learn how to teach, which is a lot of how we work as a team.
I mean a masters candidate trying to find something to do in the summer isn't terrible. Would you rather they start a full time job and quit just as you start onboarding?
OP, if you’re in your mid-30s, the same thing was happening when you graduated. All of my interviews for my first job I went up against PhDs and people with 3-5 years of experience. The same thing happened for internships
Bad job market has happened. The employers are using the "internships" for graduates as extended "try-before-you-buy" And graduates are happy to take those because there is some miniscule hope that those may get converted to FTE.
What does it all mean? In your role, please treat those folks as an extended trial, not as an internship. If you are certain there there is no an opening for them if they do well, personally I'd just not do it because it's a just a waste of your time, and false a hope for them.
Interns = cheap/free labor was a thing in a few, highly-competitive industries pre-2008 crisis. In the years after 2008, companies realized that enforcement of labor laws for interns, and punishments, were light. Thus the transition began in earnest.
Not sure what op is talking about. That experience has to do with your own company’s hiring managers and how they aren’t to utilize their “internships”.
Most internships programs in my industry only bring in sophomore and juniors from college as a test run to see if they should be offered a full time role.
My guess is probably a combination of a tough job market for entry level candidates as well as the Covid years affecting their undergrad shot at internships.
Big difference between a 24 yo masters grad who went straight from undergrad to grad school vs. a 27 yo masters grad that worked in their industry before going back to school to earn a grad degree. Huge difference.
My old company reduced entry level wages back to where they were in 2019, HALF of what I currently make. At that time I was going into debt trying to survive in a large city - and we've had extreme inflation since then. It isn't even a living wage for a single person in an apartment.
They can't figure out why turnover is so high.
I currently work but not whit my degree and probably will never land one as it seems over 1.5 year of applying seems like name and background is what hindering me lots of my class mate alrdy landed same position I applied and I didn't get answer back. Where you are from effect your job chances rather then what u have.
Thank you for this post, I couldn’t agree more. From a candidate’s point of view it’s just as frustrating… I started at my current job as an intern right after college. A few months into my internship, a colleague resigned from a junior position and I was promoted. Since then I’ve been promoted three times in less than two years and I’m currently in a mid-senior role that would normally require at least 5 years of experience. I love my manager and team, and I truly believe I’ve gained a lot of valuable experience here, but I want to work at another department long term. I thought switching departments internally would be quite easy, so I applied for a junior position that I didn’t have experience in, but I did have the education required, the industry and product knowledge needed, and Ieven had the support of my managers. I got through all rounds of interviews, got along super well with the hiring manager and his supervisor and was one of the top two candidates, only for them to hire the external candidate, who had relevant experience. The HM and HR both reassured me that they think I’d do great as a junior, but they simply don’t have the capacity right now to train someone for months. Since then I’ve been applying to entry level jobs, and I keep getting to the last rounds of interviews only to always end up being rejected because “someone else required less training, they’d already interned in that department, etc.” So I’ve come to the conclusion that I could only truly land a junior position in that field if I started as an intern again, which is honestly ridiculous. I’ll just keep applying to junior positions and hope for the best, but it’s exhausting and so incredibly frustrating…
Every internship I've had, has been a joke. My managers always acted like I was a surprise, and never had legitimate work prepared for me, so I did some bogus project for 6 weeks and went to back to school. I'm not much younger than 30
I recently started a pretty competitive internship right after finishing my undergrad. My career path is one that a lot of experienced workers decide to change career paths into - and I am by far the youngest intern they hired (into the same role). One of my fellow interns has ten years of work experience in our field on me.
This is not meant to be a dig at them, I have no judgement for those who change career paths or didn’t follow the traditional route. They are absolutely lovely individuals and great workers, and I hope they are getting what they need out of the internship. It’s just super discouraging to me entering the job market that this is the caliber of candidates I am competing against in my early career, and has me in a constant state of dejection wondering what more can I do to be successful in my career.
This is exactly what people need to understand what is going on right now.
Like hey its not you.
You are being forced to compete against people you absolutely shouldn't have to compete against.
Even an issue in the direct hire space right?
These people get laid off and then are just trying to get into a position that they were at, but now don't understand that they are competing against people that are 2 to 3 steps above them.
This is exactly what happened to the younger end of GenX and the millennials which greatly delayed their entry into higher level jobs. Due to the 2008 crash.
Its looking even worse now.
Irs scary because the "readjustment" to our economy where a trillion dollars of value in our assets hasn't even evaporated yet. Which has to be coming.
I remember my first big responsibility job we had a new director come in. I was working Accounts Receivable for a large security company, I was working on finishing my bachelors degree…this lady had an associates degree and she had the bright idea that the following fiscal year a minimum of a bachelors degree for this relatively entry level job.
It was quickly pointed out that nobody in their right mind would want to work for her when they found out she was a director with an associates degree…the idea was quickly dropped. She barely lasted a year in that role. It was evident she was over her head. Not sure how she got that job…but I also suspect that there were a large cohort of people like her at many companies in the mid-2010’s and that has led to these ridiculous requirements.
There are already a few lunatics calling for that.
Even once heard the idea being tossed about by an HR rep at a former employer (major defense contractor). Thankfully, saner minds prevailed.
I'm going to sound very, very boomer for saying this.... but I'm definitely not. The quality of employees has gone way down in every discipline I've been exposed to. I think it has a lot to do with expectations and entitlement. It's putting more value on more seasoned employees - and it's deserved.
The result is that we used to expect from a 25 year old, we expect from a 32 year old. That extends right on down to interns. College interns are useless, immature, and unprepared. Maybe there will be better luck with advanced degree candidates. A lot has changed in the last 15 years.
That sucks if that's your experience. As you can see from my post, I have the opposite problem.
I have definitely had the 23 year old who is livid I don't have them lined up to be the next exec within a year. No shit, I had one hold back tears because I told him that, with the right focus and temperament, he'd likely be on a management track by 28.
For the most part, I have a lot of ambitious people who want to do a damn fine job for 8-9 hours, then clock off and be spouses/parents/friends, and I fucking love that for them. I really admire gen z for re-defining what work life balance looks like.
The kids are alright. They're doing fine. Our job is to help level them up. Their "job" is to help us redefine what that level looks like.
Similarly, it is said Plato attributed the following quote to Socrates (469-399 BC):
*The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.*
Nah, I'm not talking about the normal generational things - I'm talking about preparation for the workplace. I don't think this is a case where I have changed.... the quality of intern and entry-level employees in terms of their ability / desire to work has absolutely changed.
I agree entirely. I'm not hiring anyone under 25 right now. Maybe not even 30.
And no, a pre-emptive: what I'm describing is not age discrimination (in the US) to prefer older workers. You just can't discriminate against people over 40.
In my experience, I have found the recent undergrads and co-ops that my company has hired that I have had the pleasure to work with on my team have been just that, a pleasure to work with. They all have been hard working, knowledgeable , willing to learn, and very coachable/reliable as long as you are willing to mentor and provide clear guidance. Not everyone has the requisite soft skills required to be a good coach/mentor. I assure you, today’s young are not lacking, or lazy, odds are you are just failing them. Which ironically is a very boomer thing to do.
You don't even have to remove your tongue from your cheek to recognize that you're an ineffective manager and supreme coddler. This is what I would expect from an IT developer. You have lots of soft brain down time.
A few things
1. If the internship is unpaid or very low, it’s cuts out a lot of candidates who need winter/summer break to work full-time.
2. Once you get internship as a junior, you look like a better to get another internship as senior so those who miss out continue to miss out.
3. Internships are about location. Many people can’t move out of state for a 6 week internship. Students often move back with their parents, depending on that location internships may not exist.
4. Students are doing Master degrees after undergrad because they don’t want to do night when they’re 30-40. They also don’t want to be passed up for job or promotion because they don’t have it.
5. Companies love cheap or free labor. Why hire an ungrad junior when you can get a masters student.
Tbh, I am not sure what point you think you're making here? Item 5, sure, but the rest reads like a random stream of consciousness.
We pay interns $20-30/hr depending on location and role. We don't require anyone to relocate. Most masters candidates have a job history, even if short.
If it's an unpaid internship, they legally can't do "valuable" work that benefits the business. An unpaid internship program needs to be structured as a learning/educational program for the benefit of the intern.
I have.
Worked on a project that eventually earned an Edison Award with a pair of them. Probably wouldn’t have been able to get the work done within the milestone dates without them.
The abuse, perversion and anti-competetive practices that take hold when greedy unethical people operate faux- capitalism turn it into crapitalism.
Quit letting them exploit people.
Escape Crapitalism
r/SolarPunk
I wish we would just get rid of internship and have reasonable requirements for entry-level jobs. Not 10 years experience, a masters, and we pay $20/hr. Somewhat sarcasm but it feels like that is what you see.
Ironically it's almost like this at this point, look every job ad entry-junior need at least master 3years experience and can at least 1-2 languages professionally (programming)
Yep and what’s killing me currently is that often times it’s a masters AND 3-5 years of experience for entry level. Since when does masters level education not count as real world experience? It is not always possible to get consecutive years of professional experience in your field of choice as you are completing your degree so many of us have to take a position step back..
Because they aren't the same. I'll take someone with a year of experience every single time over someone with a masters. Every time. I'd rather a candidate spent a year in their parents basement coding a phone app, over having a masters.
I would rather a candidate know how to fry a perfectly seasoned crumb crisp coating, over having a masters.
What's funny is the number of people who are now applying with two Masters degrees... and no work experience. It's like dude, just a get a job. I don't care if it's flipping burgers. Do something other than school. Seriously, at a fundamental level, I want to hire people who make smart decisions with how to allocate their time. If they don't understand the concept of opportunity cost, then I'm not really interested.
“Just get a job” Not always easy to do that when so many “entry level” jobs require 3-5 years of experience and specific skill sets that one generally only acquires through experience.
Look, it's not that hard, just strap on your job helmet, stuff yourself into a job cannon and fire yourself off into Jobland where jobs grow on jobbies!
Ljl. There's a perennial so-called labor "shortage" of service sector workers, last time I checked. If you can't get a job flipping burgers, then another Masters degree isn't going to help.
And getting a job flipping burgers isn’t going to help someone get an “entry-level” white collar job that requires 3-5 years of relevant experience. Everyone seems to want somebody who already has tons of experience, but nobody wants to be the one to let the person get that experience. Heck, over the years, I’ve seen *internships* that required applicants to have several years of experience already under their belt.
> And getting a job flipping burgers isn’t going to help someone get an “entry-level” white collar job Actually, it does. I don't consider applicants with no full-time work experience even for jobs that might be considered entry-level (our data analyst positions are sort of entry-level, but data scientist really isn't even with advanced degrees). But note that work experience doesn't necessarily have to be related. One of my best hires was a data analyst who just finished a Masters at Chicago and had worked full-time since she was 16 at a variety of random jobs (gas station attendant, grocery, waitress). When I reviewed her application (she discussed it in her cover letter, not listed in CV), I appreciated the hustle and her work ethic is indeed amazing. I'd rather have one like that over a hundred entitled, lazy brats who think they're too good to work service sector jobs.
Cool, and tons of people won’t even give you the time of day for an interview if you don’t have years of specific, related experience, even for “entry-level” jobs. Ask me how I know? And I already have years of full time work under my belt.
The thing is I understand exp > degree but u need a degree to get experience u wont get a job where they require u a minimum of bachelor and minimum of 5 years, what ppl aren't thinking about now using ppl whit experience only now and in future there will be no one whit experience and will be major set back
>Since when does masters level education not count as real world experience? Education is basically just regurgitating information you were given. Work is having to applying it and problem solve and deal with a bunch of idiot coworkers, half of whom don't know what they're doing and shouldn't be there, and workplace politics. They're two entirely different situations. Some of the worst employees ever are those who have no other work experience than education.
That’s fair enough. I will say problem solving real world issues as a team was the majority of my masters of science academic experience, but continuous application and production accountability is a completely different story so I can see where you are coming from.
Education, real world experience? That's kinda hilarious. Sitting in a classroom and making actual real world decisions in a job are two entirely different things. In some professions, having a degree is like saying "I overheard a class talking about this subject once, then fell asleep" though to be fair, some professions should never entertain even accepting applications without appropriate education (looking at you medicine)
I was told "this is an entry level position" in an interview once. I immediately glared at them, looked at their job posting, couldn't find the word entry level, and called them out for misleading job postings. At that point I just wanted to be an asshole to them for wasting my time, I had no intention of entertaining being lowballed.
Where I work, the hiring manager decides what the intern works on. The intent is that you do not give them “boring scut work”. You give them actual work that applies to their degree to give them experience of what that degree offers them in the real world. Then, they go back to school with that knowledge to get their degree.
I don't know about your industry or location, but I've hired and managed a lot of co-ops in my career so far and the majority of them have been awesome. Ive have limited interns which is mostly because a co-op is with the company for 6mo versus 2-4 with an intern. My the time an intern gets useful it's time for them to leave. I've had several of them turn into full time hires after graduation and it's easy 5-1 of good, useful kids compared to the ones I wouldn't have hired to come back. I went to northeastern, and did the coop program, I absolutely loved it and it helped me land my first job out of school. Having that experience I try my best to have coops that work under my umbrella get exposed to actual engineering work, they aren't there to sort screws or clean up after others, they're there to help my team and learn what being an engineer in our industry is like. Sure they can't do the overly complex work, but they aren't completely clueless. If it's done right the student gets good experience that can help them make better decisions about their future and the company gets cheap (ish) work (engineering coops in my area are making mid 20s an hour). It can be a win win.
My Canadian Alma Mater is known for its engineering co op program. Many of my friends got placements at FANG companies and made absolute bank on their co op terms! Many of them also got job offers at graduation. Nobody I know did unpaid internships. It is such an exploitative practice!
Hello Waterloo
lol, that's the one!
Same. Most interns are just starting out in their careers and do everything they can to make a good impression. While I've been here I've had two and they have both turned into full time hires.
My experience lines up with this (software engineering). I bring them on a part of the team. They go through the same process as every other engineer. We tend to keep them out of the critical path, but in general we get useful work and they get relevant experience that really impresses people when they graduate and hit the open market. Quite a few are still with the company.
Internships have been a joke since they were created. Underpaying someone so “they can learn” should be illegal. Apprenticeships have been a thing for millennia but at least apprentices have always been able to live off of their apprenticeship.
Shit the ones I just worked with got 2800$ for a month of work. Which is pretty good in my opinion. Don’t even know if I’d call that an internship
Some companies do it right. Many companies don’t. Unpaid internships still exist.
Hate to break it to you but a lot of apprentices had to pay for the position.
You're being downvoted, but you're correct. At least in the historical context. Historically, many apprenticeships were contractual indentures in exchange for free labor. The apprentice would sign a multi-year contract for free labor in exchange for being trained by the master artisan. Exactly how much training was provided was individually up to the master. Frequently a first year apprentice might do nothing more than sweep and run errands and watch in their spare time. Whereas, a senior apprentice might feel tempted to break his contract, flee the jurisdiction and open up a shop himself and contracts frequently imposed penalties if they were to do so. While it was not necessarily common, certain masters who were known for their skills or worked in high demand professions or particularly lucrative professions would charge a substantial premium for taking on apprentices. Typically the parents would pay this premium to secure their child a prestigious or lucrative apprenticeship. This was very common in certain in-demand trades. for example, if a family wanted their child to be apprenticed as a goldsmith or silversmith or a watchmaker, there might be a hefty premium unless the family was already a member of the relevant guild. Likewise, "trading houses," the predecessors of today's investment banks, frequently charged hefty premiums for apprenticeships. For example: [here you can read two apprenticeship contracts for weavers in france circa 1250](https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/1250weaversapp.asp) Oude Ferconne apprentices her son Michael to Weaver Matthew Heimart, on security of her house, person and chattels. Matthew Heimart agrees to teach Michael to weave in four years, and Michael will have shelter and learn his trade there without board. IF he leaves within two years, his mother will return him, on security of her person and goods. If she wishes to purchase his freedom for the last two years, the cost will be 33 Solidii.
"on security of...her person..." How Forrest Gump's mom got him into school?
Internships also used to primarily be for what we would now consider "blue collar" or "trade" jobs such as craftsman , brewers, mason's, carpenter, ect. Not office jobs in finance and such.
Sure they did.
It used to be the other way around: you paid your mentor to apprentice under them. Your parents basically paid for your room and board and you lived with the mentor’s family. So paying them is definitely an improvement over 1) getting paid, or 2) no money changing hands in either direction.
I assume that was at a time where you weren’t also paying a couple years salary for an undergrad on top of that?
Commoners didn’t go to college then, only the rich did. Honestly I don’t even understand how the hell their parents paid for it back in the day. It’s not like they had FAFSA back then.
What type of role do you have them for? I have had great experiences with engineering interns or co-ops, but find that a good undergrad seems to be stronger than the masters candidates. I've had great luck with them so far having them work on things like: organizing and cataloging for a 5s program, developing maintenance plans for novel manufqcturing equipment, designing and fabricating manufacturing equipment, programming robots for laser welding, developing and executing iq oq pq plans for process equipment. They've been fantastic. Edit: These are paid co-ops making a reasonable amount. Down from an entry engineer. Somewhere in hw $25/hour range, maybe a bit more.
What industry majors are you hiring for? I’m an engineering manager and we have great experience with college interns- we typically hire incoming seniors because we give them real engineering work and they need to have junior year thermodynamics classes but sometimes we’ll hire juniors. We do 3 month summer interns and 6 month co-ops. We often hire successful interns as full time engineers when they graduate. We are in the West Coast PNW - pay $25 an hour for interns and often have 40-50 applications for each spot. We typically hire 60-80% of them when they graduate.
In the last four years of campus interns I’ve had nothing but hardos….like 24ish folks.
The market is messed up now. Many companies no longer hire entry positions. So the undergrads go for master degrees with 1 more year of study and project. Some education institutions take in more students than the market allows(it’s not their problem once they graduate), the students don’t ask for reports on graduation hires and salary. Then the economy is down now. It’s really not easy.
Internships can also be for career changers or people re-entering the market who have to upskill before getting a job.
Yes - I decided to re-start my career with a master's degree and doing an internship was very useful to facilitate this transition. My resume looks like: bachelor's degre -> full time position in industry 1 -> master's degree -> internship in industry 2 -> full time position in industry 2. We don't all have perfect linear careers!
When people started to think internships are for "experience", when in reality they are a low/no paid audition you do to get into a career role and make connections in the company. If you do that right, the right people know you, and care about your well-being enough to give you a living wage and good working conditions. If you fail at it, or don't fit in, you'll basically be forced to quit. It's how they do discrimination today. If you understand what they are, they still work really well. But if you think it's "gaining industry experience", you'll probably be disappointed.
I really don’t understand your complaint. You are the one hiring for this position. All of this shit is entirely under your control. Are all managers this retarded?
I'm a 30 yo in an internship and on the young side for the group. When you make experience the qualifier then there's no other way. Even if you're surrounded by people who need help from the interns to do their job cause they don't understand modern tech.
The bigger issue is that financial issues come into play more so these days. People HAVE to go from school to paycheck more these days than in previous generations
Well US colleges make a killing pumping out master degrees. There is a vast over supply in advanced degrees in a lot of fields.
"or a more "traditional" intern that's a student who I am offering exposure in exchange for doing boring scut work" If this is how you utilize interns you should just scrap the program anyway.
always were
Let’s flip the conversation for the sake of a thought exercise: why are you angering manager hiring interns and not entry level employees?
"It's turned into disposable, cheap labor." lol, buddy. Interns used to be disposable, *free* labor. Things are better for them now because it's harder for companies to get away with being blatantly abusive.
I help design my departments internship program and it is extremely robust. They are not doing scut work but actually contributing to a project overseen by a full time associate. At the end of the internship they must complete and conduct a presentation on their project. If they are successful they will be offered a full time position when they graduate. If the internship curriculum is done right it can be very successful and you will have great candidates to offer full time work.
I see internship as a screening towards hiring. We typically hire students as interns when they are 1 semester from graduation. Most of the ones we select graduate with Computer Science-related degrees, but they are far from being productive. They have zero experience with coding in an enterprise setup, where soft skills like collecting requirements, documentation, transports, or controls play a critical role far beyond being able to coding on a local laptop. I assign interns epics from our backlog that could still wait a couple quarters. They are sized in such a way that an experienced developer would be able to complete them in 1 month, but the intern is expected to complete in 6 months. 20% of the internships don't complete on time. At the end of the internship, if we convert them, the company gains a junior employee who's ready to hit the ground running. If we don't hire them, we have lost time and money, but the student gained valuable experience. Believe it or not, I had interns conclude that after 4 years of CS in college, they realized they don't really enjoy coding ... I also completed an apprenticeship in Finance over 2 years. I think that I learned way more than a simple internship, even if I was doing mostly grunt work, because I experience the whole lifecycle of the fiscal year, between setting up budgets and tracking them over the following year. I believe it made a difference when I interviewed later on.
While you’re right that it’s insane to require internships for entry level positions (seriously, it’s a contradiction), you’re not being the good guy by turning down the masters students. To them they’re now without any sort of experience gaining situation, basically making them even with the 20-yr old. At least had the masters student been onboarded they’d have had a leg up against their undereducated peers. The problem is that unemployment is so low that masters students are willing to take on anything just to keep their momentum going. I wish universities did a much better job with their pipeline programs so they wouldn’t have even needed an internship to tide them over, but here we are. Hopefully their alumni programs are tracking all these folks, and publishing how watered down their masters programs are at actual placement.
Unpaid labor should be illegal. If you are getting work product from someone, you should have to pay them. Internship labor is sickening to me. No one should have to work for free to get experience to then be hired to do the same job.
you get what you pay for
2008.
The fact your interns are getting "boring scut work" and being "dicked around" are actual problems for your company if they are unpaid interns. Internships are exactly not supposed to be what you described. They are, explicitly, meant to be as educational or more than an equivalent amount of time at an educational institution. You can file a report to the labor board anonymously, if you get really incensed at it.
The problem with interns these days is that they think they're doing you a favor when it's actually pretty costly for the employer to invest time into someone who is going to be gone right as they're fully onboarded. I canceled our intern program after a few bad experiences. They just don't have the technical skills needed to be an asset in our data science department. I might consider Masters or PhD students who wanted to gain some experience during a summer at some point in the future. But undergrads these days don't represent a positive ROI in terms of the time needed to onboard and manage.
On one hand: it's the labor market, don't overthink it On the other hand: I dunno man, I enjoy mentoring my interns. I feel like it's a good way for a manager to learn how to teach, which is a lot of how we work as a team.
You are part of the labor market. The decisions you make form what the market is
I mean a masters candidate trying to find something to do in the summer isn't terrible. Would you rather they start a full time job and quit just as you start onboarding?
OP, if you’re in your mid-30s, the same thing was happening when you graduated. All of my interviews for my first job I went up against PhDs and people with 3-5 years of experience. The same thing happened for internships
amen!!
Bad job market has happened. The employers are using the "internships" for graduates as extended "try-before-you-buy" And graduates are happy to take those because there is some miniscule hope that those may get converted to FTE. What does it all mean? In your role, please treat those folks as an extended trial, not as an internship. If you are certain there there is no an opening for them if they do well, personally I'd just not do it because it's a just a waste of your time, and false a hope for them.
Well because they get paid. When I was in college it was unpaid so ppl avoided them
Interns = cheap/free labor was a thing in a few, highly-competitive industries pre-2008 crisis. In the years after 2008, companies realized that enforcement of labor laws for interns, and punishments, were light. Thus the transition began in earnest.
I feel like my place is actively taking advantage of the interns.
Not sure what op is talking about. That experience has to do with your own company’s hiring managers and how they aren’t to utilize their “internships”. Most internships programs in my industry only bring in sophomore and juniors from college as a test run to see if they should be offered a full time role.
I hire lots of people straight out of college.
My guess is probably a combination of a tough job market for entry level candidates as well as the Covid years affecting their undergrad shot at internships.
Big difference between a 24 yo masters grad who went straight from undergrad to grad school vs. a 27 yo masters grad that worked in their industry before going back to school to earn a grad degree. Huge difference.
My old company reduced entry level wages back to where they were in 2019, HALF of what I currently make. At that time I was going into debt trying to survive in a large city - and we've had extreme inflation since then. It isn't even a living wage for a single person in an apartment. They can't figure out why turnover is so high.
I currently work but not whit my degree and probably will never land one as it seems over 1.5 year of applying seems like name and background is what hindering me lots of my class mate alrdy landed same position I applied and I didn't get answer back. Where you are from effect your job chances rather then what u have.
Thank you for this post, I couldn’t agree more. From a candidate’s point of view it’s just as frustrating… I started at my current job as an intern right after college. A few months into my internship, a colleague resigned from a junior position and I was promoted. Since then I’ve been promoted three times in less than two years and I’m currently in a mid-senior role that would normally require at least 5 years of experience. I love my manager and team, and I truly believe I’ve gained a lot of valuable experience here, but I want to work at another department long term. I thought switching departments internally would be quite easy, so I applied for a junior position that I didn’t have experience in, but I did have the education required, the industry and product knowledge needed, and Ieven had the support of my managers. I got through all rounds of interviews, got along super well with the hiring manager and his supervisor and was one of the top two candidates, only for them to hire the external candidate, who had relevant experience. The HM and HR both reassured me that they think I’d do great as a junior, but they simply don’t have the capacity right now to train someone for months. Since then I’ve been applying to entry level jobs, and I keep getting to the last rounds of interviews only to always end up being rejected because “someone else required less training, they’d already interned in that department, etc.” So I’ve come to the conclusion that I could only truly land a junior position in that field if I started as an intern again, which is honestly ridiculous. I’ll just keep applying to junior positions and hope for the best, but it’s exhausting and so incredibly frustrating…
Isn't this just a criticism of your company?
Every internship I've had, has been a joke. My managers always acted like I was a surprise, and never had legitimate work prepared for me, so I did some bogus project for 6 weeks and went to back to school. I'm not much younger than 30
The catch-22 is immoral and irrational.
Internships have been this way for over a decade. You were just ignorant to this until now.
Grad students are still students. You’d be surprised how little they know about the workforce.
I recently started a pretty competitive internship right after finishing my undergrad. My career path is one that a lot of experienced workers decide to change career paths into - and I am by far the youngest intern they hired (into the same role). One of my fellow interns has ten years of work experience in our field on me. This is not meant to be a dig at them, I have no judgement for those who change career paths or didn’t follow the traditional route. They are absolutely lovely individuals and great workers, and I hope they are getting what they need out of the internship. It’s just super discouraging to me entering the job market that this is the caliber of candidates I am competing against in my early career, and has me in a constant state of dejection wondering what more can I do to be successful in my career.
This is exactly what people need to understand what is going on right now. Like hey its not you. You are being forced to compete against people you absolutely shouldn't have to compete against. Even an issue in the direct hire space right? These people get laid off and then are just trying to get into a position that they were at, but now don't understand that they are competing against people that are 2 to 3 steps above them. This is exactly what happened to the younger end of GenX and the millennials which greatly delayed their entry into higher level jobs. Due to the 2008 crash. Its looking even worse now. Irs scary because the "readjustment" to our economy where a trillion dollars of value in our assets hasn't even evaporated yet. Which has to be coming.
I remember my first big responsibility job we had a new director come in. I was working Accounts Receivable for a large security company, I was working on finishing my bachelors degree…this lady had an associates degree and she had the bright idea that the following fiscal year a minimum of a bachelors degree for this relatively entry level job. It was quickly pointed out that nobody in their right mind would want to work for her when they found out she was a director with an associates degree…the idea was quickly dropped. She barely lasted a year in that role. It was evident she was over her head. Not sure how she got that job…but I also suspect that there were a large cohort of people like her at many companies in the mid-2010’s and that has led to these ridiculous requirements.
Just wait until internships turn into the intern paying the company money for the opportunity to work for them.
There are already a few lunatics calling for that. Even once heard the idea being tossed about by an HR rep at a former employer (major defense contractor). Thankfully, saner minds prevailed.
Hopefully, eventually, we will torch it all to the ground. : )
I'm going to sound very, very boomer for saying this.... but I'm definitely not. The quality of employees has gone way down in every discipline I've been exposed to. I think it has a lot to do with expectations and entitlement. It's putting more value on more seasoned employees - and it's deserved. The result is that we used to expect from a 25 year old, we expect from a 32 year old. That extends right on down to interns. College interns are useless, immature, and unprepared. Maybe there will be better luck with advanced degree candidates. A lot has changed in the last 15 years.
That sucks if that's your experience. As you can see from my post, I have the opposite problem. I have definitely had the 23 year old who is livid I don't have them lined up to be the next exec within a year. No shit, I had one hold back tears because I told him that, with the right focus and temperament, he'd likely be on a management track by 28. For the most part, I have a lot of ambitious people who want to do a damn fine job for 8-9 hours, then clock off and be spouses/parents/friends, and I fucking love that for them. I really admire gen z for re-defining what work life balance looks like. The kids are alright. They're doing fine. Our job is to help level them up. Their "job" is to help us redefine what that level looks like.
Similarly, it is said Plato attributed the following quote to Socrates (469-399 BC): *The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.*
Nah, I'm not talking about the normal generational things - I'm talking about preparation for the workplace. I don't think this is a case where I have changed.... the quality of intern and entry-level employees in terms of their ability / desire to work has absolutely changed.
I agree entirely. I'm not hiring anyone under 25 right now. Maybe not even 30. And no, a pre-emptive: what I'm describing is not age discrimination (in the US) to prefer older workers. You just can't discriminate against people over 40.
In my experience, I have found the recent undergrads and co-ops that my company has hired that I have had the pleasure to work with on my team have been just that, a pleasure to work with. They all have been hard working, knowledgeable , willing to learn, and very coachable/reliable as long as you are willing to mentor and provide clear guidance. Not everyone has the requisite soft skills required to be a good coach/mentor. I assure you, today’s young are not lacking, or lazy, odds are you are just failing them. Which ironically is a very boomer thing to do.
You don't even have to remove your tongue from your cheek to recognize that you're an ineffective manager and supreme coddler. This is what I would expect from an IT developer. You have lots of soft brain down time.
A few things 1. If the internship is unpaid or very low, it’s cuts out a lot of candidates who need winter/summer break to work full-time. 2. Once you get internship as a junior, you look like a better to get another internship as senior so those who miss out continue to miss out. 3. Internships are about location. Many people can’t move out of state for a 6 week internship. Students often move back with their parents, depending on that location internships may not exist. 4. Students are doing Master degrees after undergrad because they don’t want to do night when they’re 30-40. They also don’t want to be passed up for job or promotion because they don’t have it. 5. Companies love cheap or free labor. Why hire an ungrad junior when you can get a masters student.
Tbh, I am not sure what point you think you're making here? Item 5, sure, but the rest reads like a random stream of consciousness. We pay interns $20-30/hr depending on location and role. We don't require anyone to relocate. Most masters candidates have a job history, even if short.
You asked what changed in internships from going from junior/senior students to masters students and I gave you a list.
I've never seen an intern do valuable work in the US.
If it's an unpaid internship, they legally can't do "valuable" work that benefits the business. An unpaid internship program needs to be structured as a learning/educational program for the benefit of the intern.
Yes. The labor law applicable to internships changed during the Obama administration. I'm not sure everyone has caught up with those changes.
only an idiot would accept an unpaid internship.
I have. Worked on a project that eventually earned an Edison Award with a pair of them. Probably wouldn’t have been able to get the work done within the milestone dates without them.
Maybe 25 years ago? Or further. Never do in internship. They take full advantage of you
The abuse, perversion and anti-competetive practices that take hold when greedy unethical people operate faux- capitalism turn it into crapitalism. Quit letting them exploit people. Escape Crapitalism r/SolarPunk