5 ms·

if one can get past HR, most people probably don't care, though it might be seen as strange imho major reason for targeting this age group is that they are wil

by cat199 7y ago

if one can get past HR, most people probably don't care, though it might be seen as strange imho major reason for targeting this age group is that they are willing to work for cheap without being insulted.

duxup 7y ago
For those of us changing careers... many of us are (well this was a few years ago so not me at the moment) too ;) For most industries just getting any 'experience' is half the battle.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
hinkley 7y ago
They don’t know they’re being insulted, and they lack the tools to address the issue. But more importantly, you don’t get sass for being a bad boss from a bunch of kids who have never had a real boss before.
- duxup 7y ago
  I wonder how often this "being insulted" thing is really a thing. I worked with a lot of interns in my time. Almost everyone seemed to greatly overestimate their productivity / use. The internships we offered were NOT net moneymakers / all that useful. They were more PR, random chance of finding someone good enough to hire. Maybe I wasn't seeing how many internships work but straight out of or in college into an internship is a real roll of the dice productivity wise in my experience. No doubt at the top schools / top candidates are different, but most, I'm skeptical of.
aripickar 7y ago
I mean for any big tech company, its not that cheap. I made $42.50 an hour plus a housing stipend when I was an intern, and I don't think that I did very much. A lot of the reason that companies do that is that paying an intern about $20k for the summer and converting them to a full time employee after graduation is cheaper than what they would spend to hire someone through the interview process and stuff like that.
- tasogare 7y ago
  To put things into perspective, a 3 months internship in France (which are usually imposed as part of master degree) is paid approximately 1650€ (1800 USD), for the whole internship. Yes, that doesn’t even pay a rent.
  - aripickar 7y ago
    I don't know what perspective that really brings. I'm sure that there are internships that pay less, but Cloudflare is a big company that is in the Bay Area, so thats pretty much what they're gonna pay.
  - mam2 7y ago
    Certainly not in most paris tech compagnies : mine pays 1000/month and its a startup. In Big tech its at least 1500.
- duxup 7y ago
  I worked with a lot of interns, and in my experience the ONLY value was finding folks randomly who were good enough to hire. The actual productivity / work for the interns on average was very low. The rate was so low though that I'm not sure if it really was a net positive, but I think the company liked the PR and such too.
  - sokoloff 7y ago
    We sometimes get completed usable work out of interns, but it’s much more a recruiting vehicle (for us) and a training/pay it back for the candidates. The recruiting can pay off for a decade when you land a star out of college and retain them.
  - aripickar 7y ago
    I mean yeah, that's not really a secret. The head of the intern program that I was at straight up told all the interns that it was worth it to the company if even 20% of the interns who were hired returned as full time employees.
leetcrew 7y ago
> imho major reason for targeting this age group is that they are willing to work for cheap without being insulted. I don't find this very convincing. we get a lot of bright, motivated interns at my company, but even so, there's a limit to what they get actually get done in three months working in an unfamiliar codebase. the deliverable itself usually isn't worth what you have to pay interns in a competitive market. we do find a large portion of our entry-level hires through the internship program, which I believe is the real value to the company.
- duxup 7y ago
  Yeah my experience with interns is the same. Outside of the exceptionally rare ultra high performers (I can think of maybe 2 I met like that). Interns really can't get a great deal done, even if just because they just arrived. There's a lot of onboarding for anyone joining, and productivity always takes a hit there.

by cat199 7y ago

duxup 7y ago

For those of us changing careers... many of us are (well this was a few years ago so not me at the moment) too ;) For most industries just getting any 'experience' is half the battle.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

hinkley 7y ago

They don’t know they’re being insulted, and they lack the tools to address the issue. But more importantly, you don’t get sass for being a bad boss from a bunch of kids who have never had a real boss before.

duxup 7y ago
I wonder how often this "being insulted" thing is really a thing. I worked with a lot of interns in my time. Almost everyone seemed to greatly overestimate their productivity / use. The internships we offered were NOT net moneymakers / all that useful. They were more PR, random chance of finding someone good enough to hire. Maybe I wasn't seeing how many internships work but straight out of or in college into an internship is a real roll of the dice productivity wise in my experience. No doubt at the top schools / top candidates are different, but most, I'm skeptical of.

aripickar 7y ago

I mean for any big tech company, its not that cheap. I made $42.50 an hour plus a housing stipend when I was an intern, and I don't think that I did very much. A lot of the reason that companies do that is that paying an intern about $20k for the summer and converting them to a full time employee after graduation is cheaper than what they would spend to hire someone through the interview process and stuff like that.

tasogare 7y ago
To put things into perspective, a 3 months internship in France (which are usually imposed as part of master degree) is paid approximately 1650€ (1800 USD), for the whole internship. Yes, that doesn’t even pay a rent.
- aripickar 7y ago
  I don't know what perspective that really brings. I'm sure that there are internships that pay less, but Cloudflare is a big company that is in the Bay Area, so thats pretty much what they're gonna pay.
- mam2 7y ago
  Certainly not in most paris tech compagnies : mine pays 1000/month and its a startup. In Big tech its at least 1500.
duxup 7y ago
I worked with a lot of interns, and in my experience the ONLY value was finding folks randomly who were good enough to hire. The actual productivity / work for the interns on average was very low. The rate was so low though that I'm not sure if it really was a net positive, but I think the company liked the PR and such too.
- sokoloff 7y ago
  We sometimes get completed usable work out of interns, but it’s much more a recruiting vehicle (for us) and a training/pay it back for the candidates. The recruiting can pay off for a decade when you land a star out of college and retain them.
- aripickar 7y ago
  I mean yeah, that's not really a secret. The head of the intern program that I was at straight up told all the interns that it was worth it to the company if even 20% of the interns who were hired returned as full time employees.

leetcrew 7y ago

> imho major reason for targeting this age group is that they are willing to work for cheap without being insulted. I don't find this very convincing. we get a lot of bright, motivated interns at my company, but even so, there's a limit to what they get actually get done in three months working in an unfamiliar codebase. the deliverable itself usually isn't worth what you have to pay interns in a competitive market. we do find a large portion of our entry-level hires through the internship program, which I believe is the real value to the company.

duxup 7y ago
Yeah my experience with interns is the same. Outside of the exceptionally rare ultra high performers (I can think of maybe 2 I met like that). Interns really can't get a great deal done, even if just because they just arrived. There's a lot of onboarding for anyone joining, and productivity always takes a hit there.