6 ms·

Perhaps it is different for design, but taking on an intern for a software shop is almost always a greater burden than benefit. I interned at a few different p

Perhaps it is different for design, but taking on an intern for a software shop is almost always a greater burden than benefit. I interned at a few different places while in college, and I was definitely way ahead of the class as far as writing useful code. Regardless, the overhead of people bringing you up to speed on their specific projects and processes for only three months of work just doesn't match what you are going to contribute. The cold hard fact is that you are still junior, very junior, no matter how much a hotshot you think you are. So the time they put into you makes it a pretty even trade for it not to be paid. Though come to think of it, both internships I went to were paid. But the point stands. To put it simpler terms, ask any company whether they find new college graduates effective and worth the overhead for the first few months they work. I doubt many would say yes, and those are people more qualified than those seeking internships.

dkersten 15y ago
I did a six month (paid) internship when I was in uni and after two weeks of "training", we were pair programming with the fulltime employees. By month three, I was working on core services that are still in use by the company now. So, interns are definitely not always a burden, but I certainly do understand that they often would be, but to be honest, you get what you pay for - if it had been an unpaid internship, I'd have had very little incentive to really put much effort into it. I mean, months of unpaid work would be demoralizing and I'd probably quickly have ended up producing little of value.. Luckily it never came to that and I ended up going back to work at the company for another 1.75 years, before I left to try out the world of freelancing and startups. For the record, that company hires between two and five interns every year. They find it effective enough to keep doing it. They treat it as much as a hiring thing as a cheap labor thing and they find having (paid) interns to be pretty effective.
- nicpottier 15y ago
  Six months is definitely different, I would agree that in that time you can become effective. In a way you are agreeing though, as you said, it took two months for you to be working on core services, so there is a significant ramp up time. If we are talking about a summer internship then it is questionable whether you will really add more value than extract. This is irrespective of ability level and just the reality of getting to know an organizations processes, codebase, etc.. In any case, I'm not quite sure what the article's beef is. If there was no market for unpaid internships, then there wouldn't be any. Clearly some interns are finding it worth their while enough to go work for free. Do totally agree that it is an absolutely awesome funnel for candidates though, and worth drawing those candidates in via pay or other fringe benefits.
  - dkersten 15y ago
    Well, I was working on core services, together with fulltime employees (pair programming), after the first two weeks and at the time, they did a lot of pair programming anyway. After two months, I was basically working on my own, but I like to think that I added value much sooner. Having said that, I don't disagree - it definitely does have a rampup time and I don't disagree with that theres a market and value in unpaid internships, especially short term ones - I'm just saying that I also think theres value for employers and candidates alike in paid internships too.
mattm 15y ago
In my city, it was customary for the university to place students in four-month work terms during the summer for them to get experience. One manager of a software company told me that they basically only took students from these as community service as in the best case they would break even.
cdr 15y ago
In software, if your company is any good, you hire good iterns and pay them a good wage to get an edge on hiring them once they graduate. Plus, if you're hiring good interns, they will absolutely benefit you if you let them. Sometimes hugely. An intern made Joel Spolsky several million dollars: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-thanks-or-no-thanks_Printer_Friendly.html?partner=fogcreek http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th... Not saying I was any good or my employer was any good, but at my first internship I wrote software in my free time that ended up saving the company tens of thousands of dollars a month.
widget 15y ago
In general, a shop that wanted to make very much money off of interns would have to have them work on new code(any sizable code base is going to take a while to get up to speed on), and/or hire only excellent students (though in this case they wouldn't have the option of not paying, good programmers never have to work cheap).
lojack 15y ago
That overhead you're speaking of is present with bringing anyone onto a project, not just interns. I actually went to a school that required every student in my program to do a minimum of 1 year of paid internships (split into 3 and 6 month blocks). Judging by how abundant and competitive the companies looking for interns were I'd say they found it very much worth the overhead.

dkersten 15y ago

I did a six month (paid) internship when I was in uni and after two weeks of "training", we were pair programming with the fulltime employees. By month three, I was working on core services that are still in use by the company now. So, interns are definitely not always a burden, but I certainly do understand that they often would be, but to be honest, you get what you pay for - if it had been an unpaid internship, I'd have had very little incentive to really put much effort into it. I mean, months of unpaid work would be demoralizing and I'd probably quickly have ended up producing little of value.. Luckily it never came to that and I ended up going back to work at the company for another 1.75 years, before I left to try out the world of freelancing and startups. For the record, that company hires between two and five interns every year. They find it effective enough to keep doing it. They treat it as much as a hiring thing as a cheap labor thing and they find having (paid) interns to be pretty effective.

nicpottier 15y ago
Six months is definitely different, I would agree that in that time you can become effective. In a way you are agreeing though, as you said, it took two months for you to be working on core services, so there is a significant ramp up time. If we are talking about a summer internship then it is questionable whether you will really add more value than extract. This is irrespective of ability level and just the reality of getting to know an organizations processes, codebase, etc.. In any case, I'm not quite sure what the article's beef is. If there was no market for unpaid internships, then there wouldn't be any. Clearly some interns are finding it worth their while enough to go work for free. Do totally agree that it is an absolutely awesome funnel for candidates though, and worth drawing those candidates in via pay or other fringe benefits.
- dkersten 15y ago
  Well, I was working on core services, together with fulltime employees (pair programming), after the first two weeks and at the time, they did a lot of pair programming anyway. After two months, I was basically working on my own, but I like to think that I added value much sooner. Having said that, I don't disagree - it definitely does have a rampup time and I don't disagree with that theres a market and value in unpaid internships, especially short term ones - I'm just saying that I also think theres value for employers and candidates alike in paid internships too.

mattm 15y ago

In my city, it was customary for the university to place students in four-month work terms during the summer for them to get experience. One manager of a software company told me that they basically only took students from these as community service as in the best case they would break even.

cdr 15y ago

In software, if your company is any good, you hire good iterns and pay them a good wage to get an edge on hiring them once they graduate. Plus, if you're hiring good interns, they will absolutely benefit you if you let them. Sometimes hugely. An intern made Joel Spolsky several million dollars: http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-thanks-or-no-thanks_Printer_Friendly.html?partner=fogcreek http://www.inc.com/magazine/20090101/how-hard-could-it-be-th... Not saying I was any good or my employer was any good, but at my first internship I wrote software in my free time that ended up saving the company tens of thousands of dollars a month.

widget 15y ago

In general, a shop that wanted to make very much money off of interns would have to have them work on new code(any sizable code base is going to take a while to get up to speed on), and/or hire only excellent students (though in this case they wouldn't have the option of not paying, good programmers never have to work cheap).

lojack 15y ago

That overhead you're speaking of is present with bringing anyone onto a project, not just interns. I actually went to a school that required every student in my program to do a minimum of 1 year of paid internships (split into 3 and 6 month blocks). Judging by how abundant and competitive the companies looking for interns were I'd say they found it very much worth the overhead.