4 ms·

No HR person would allow unpaid intern positions in 2021. It's very clearly illegal in the United States. When I mentor college students, the only times we hea

No HR person would allow unpaid intern positions in 2021. It's very clearly illegal in the United States. When I mentor college students, the only times we hear about unpaid internships are: 1) Unfunded wannabe startups or small family businesses who don't understand what they need, but they assume they can convince some naive kid to do it for free. No one with actual skills or prospects takes these jobs. Job boards remove these posts if they're moderated. 2) Students who struggle to get a normal internship, so their dad/uncle/cousin/neighbor lets them do an unpaid "internship" off the books at their company to get something to put on their resume. They don't really do much work, but now they can put a line on their resume and claim some work experience for the next interview.

mitchdoogle 6y ago
Has this changed recently? When I was in school, seemed like most internship opportunities I found were unpaid. There was some deal where it would count as college credit. Now don't try to tell me college credit counts as being paid
- virtue3 6y ago
  The only way to have unpaid interns is if they are receiving college credits I believe. > Unpaid internships are legal if the intern is the "primary beneficiary" of the arrangement. This is determined by the seven-point Primary Beneficiary Test. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15161-are-unpaid-internships-legal.html https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15161-are-unpaid-internshi...
- coderintherye 6y ago
  Yes, things changed in 2010, this is the best summary I could find of it: https://www.commlawcenter.com/2018/01/confused-paying-interns-rules-just-changed.html https://www.commlawcenter.com/2018/01/confused-paying-intern... That said, the interpretation changed some in 2015 and again n 2018. Here is the Department of Labor's "test" on whether or not you can provide unpaid internships: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns... That's federal, but some states have stricter laws.
munk-a 6y ago
Unpaid internships are quite legal in the US as long as the intern is receiving benefits from the arrangement[1] - this means that an unpaid intern running to fetch you coffee and pick up your dry cleaning is almost certainly illegal in the US. Additionally, unpaid internships are extremely rare in technology right now due to the intense market demands - if you dangle an unpaid internship out in the market you're not going to get very many bites as everyone will either go for prestige focused internships[2] or just an equivalent internship that actually comes with a salary. In non-tech fields this sort of thing is much more common and, at least when I went through school in the States, the fact that you might have to work an unpaid internship was a reality we all accepted (the cultural perception may have moved on). It's not illegal but it's possible very few HR person would allow such a posting - internships aren't profitable for companies, so most of the unpaid internships were teensy companies that hadn't realized that their interns would actually cost the company money regardless of the salary. 1. Here's the DOL's Fact Sheet including the seven evaluation metrics: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns... 2. Which is it's own problem - working an internship at Google is basically having Game of Thrones on your IMDB page and the FAANG companies do exploit this perceived prestige.
- cbozeman 6y ago
  > basically having Game of Thrones on your IMDB page I'd rather have Alien, but each to their own.
minimuffins 6y ago
> No HR person would allow unpaid intern positions in 2021. It's very clearly illegal in the United States. Unless this claim is scoped to the tech industry, it's absolutely wrong. Frankly I don't know the actual legal status but it's standard practice in a lot of industries, esp. things like publishing.

mitchdoogle 6y ago

Has this changed recently? When I was in school, seemed like most internship opportunities I found were unpaid. There was some deal where it would count as college credit. Now don't try to tell me college credit counts as being paid

virtue3 6y ago
The only way to have unpaid interns is if they are receiving college credits I believe. > Unpaid internships are legal if the intern is the "primary beneficiary" of the arrangement. This is determined by the seven-point Primary Beneficiary Test. https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15161-are-unpaid-internships-legal.html https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/15161-are-unpaid-internshi...
coderintherye 6y ago
Yes, things changed in 2010, this is the best summary I could find of it: https://www.commlawcenter.com/2018/01/confused-paying-interns-rules-just-changed.html https://www.commlawcenter.com/2018/01/confused-paying-intern... That said, the interpretation changed some in 2015 and again n 2018. Here is the Department of Labor's "test" on whether or not you can provide unpaid internships: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns... That's federal, but some states have stricter laws.

munk-a 6y ago

Unpaid internships are quite legal in the US as long as the intern is receiving benefits from the arrangement[1] - this means that an unpaid intern running to fetch you coffee and pick up your dry cleaning is almost certainly illegal in the US. Additionally, unpaid internships are extremely rare in technology right now due to the intense market demands - if you dangle an unpaid internship out in the market you're not going to get very many bites as everyone will either go for prestige focused internships[2] or just an equivalent internship that actually comes with a salary. In non-tech fields this sort of thing is much more common and, at least when I went through school in the States, the fact that you might have to work an unpaid internship was a reality we all accepted (the cultural perception may have moved on). It's not illegal but it's possible very few HR person would allow such a posting - internships aren't profitable for companies, so most of the unpaid internships were teensy companies that hadn't realized that their interns would actually cost the company money regardless of the salary. 1. Here's the DOL's Fact Sheet including the seven evaluation metrics: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-internships https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/71-flsa-interns... 2. Which is it's own problem - working an internship at Google is basically having Game of Thrones on your IMDB page and the FAANG companies do exploit this perceived prestige.

cbozeman 6y ago
> basically having Game of Thrones on your IMDB page I'd rather have Alien, but each to their own.

minimuffins 6y ago

> No HR person would allow unpaid intern positions in 2021. It's very clearly illegal in the United States. Unless this claim is scoped to the tech industry, it's absolutely wrong. Frankly I don't know the actual legal status but it's standard practice in a lot of industries, esp. things like publishing.