In third world countries a similar dynamic is common for government jobs. For a job where you can collect a lot of bribes, you will usually have to pay to get t

In third world countries a similar dynamic is common for government jobs. For a job where you can collect a lot of bribes, you will usually have to pay to get the job in the first place, and also kick back a certain portion of your income to whoever you got the job from. In this case you are paying to merely add to your resume, which in a sense is even worse than being an underpaid third world government employee. This is really a consequence of the very weak job market we have now. You can see some people here commenting that they have no problem getting well-paid internships, but this is only true for people who are at the top of the heap, in terms of attractiveness to employers - there are a lot of such people who read Hacker News. Relative to the population at large though, it's a small percentage of the population.