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> Offering to work unpaid is a hack that gets you in the door. I'm not sure it's an especially effective hack. Min. wage is what, less than a tenth what you'd

• robryan 17y ago
  I'd imagine though that once trained this person will derive more value than someone on minimum wage though, assuming that you would pay someone at least 10 times minimum wage. Although they could also spend most of their time learning and not return even minimum wage value, I guess it's a trade off.
  • lsc 17y ago
    of course, that's why you'd hire the guy; for it to be worth my time, I'd need to get back what I paid him plus the value of my time spent teaching that could have been spent on other things. I'm just saying that compared to the value of my time, adding in a minimal paycheque doesn't make the intern significantly more expensive, and it makes me feel a lot better about asking him or her to do stuff. If an employer isn't willing to pay a token wage, I question how much (expensive) time they will give to that intern in training and mentoring. I mean, just having real problems can be valuable, but you can get that for yourself. Buy a $8/month VPS from me and write something. The advantage you (the intern) are getting out of an internship is the mentoring; working with people who are better and more experienced than you are.