Unpaid Internships

By Coffey Zhang, Campus Representative, University of Wisconsin

Recently, I found an interesting tool from SimplyHired.com, a website that is specialized for job search. You could research the trends of matching jobs in any industry within the past year with a click. I searched for unpaid internships in major fields in the business sector, such as accounting, finance, investment & banking and marketing. Even though the lines fluctuate a lot each graph; in general, a slightly upward trend from March 2009 to September 2010 is shown.

With the increasing number of students take unpaid internship lately, the topic about the legality, benefit level and associated costs draw the public’s attention. With that, critique sites are sprouting up over the web, such as blogs like UnfairInternships.com and evaluating sites YouIntern.com and InternshipRatings.com. Personally, I think the deferral benefits could be tremendous or insignificant regarding to a person’s attitude towards the unpaid internship. For most of the unpaid internships, besides the additional money spend on transportation and housing in order to accommodate the internship itself, tremendous amount of money is paid for the internship credits that are required by the employers. I took an unpaid internship when studying abroad in Ireland. I found it extremely costly not only because the program was taken place in a European country, but also the three credits that I paid for a totaling of $2300.

Even though it seems that the benefits cannot offset the current costs right now, it could be useful as a way to distinguish a candidate from the rest of the students that are still expecting to land a paid internship. Also, it gives a general idea of what the field of your interest looks like, what are the people there look like as well as a great experience that could put on your resume. Summarizing the above, I would say that the pros outweigh the cons if you take the unpaid internship seriously enough and be able to talk about it afterwards.