6 ms·

Unpaid internships are becoming EXTREMELY common (if not in the CS field, certainly elsewhere). In NYC this used to be only the case for fashion, but has now s

by mhp 18y ago

Unpaid internships are becoming EXTREMELY common (if not in the CS field, certainly elsewhere). In NYC this used to be only the case for fashion, but has now spread to basically every other industry. We had a discussion the other day at lunch whether this was legal/ethical. I'm still not sure how I feel about it...

sachinag 18y ago
(EDIT: I believe) It's ethical; (I'm not a lawyer, but lawyers have told me) it's only legal if the student gets class credit.
physcab 18y ago
I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it. The employer actually hires most of their talent through the unpaid internship program. They get to see if the people who do the internship are really there because they want to learn and contribute regardless of monetary compensation. I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation, but the arrangement has taught me a great deal about how to program scalable applications that I will definitely use in the future.
- mechanical_fish 18y ago
  I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation Which is why using unpaid internships to screen your hires is unethical. It's an artfully disguised form of class discrimination. Lots of very smart and hardworking people cannot afford to work for free. Apparently those people are at a severe disadvantage when applying to work at your company. And it's not as if unpaid internships offer financial aid, like schools do. I think it's fine to screen prospective employees as paid interns. I also think it's fine to try them out as consultants first, or even to have them perform a few hours of work for free, as a test. But in general work should be paid for. Unless, as I've said elsewhere, it is 100% free-software work. Of course, just because it's unethical doesn't mean it doesn't happen or that you can do anything to change it.
  - physcab 18y ago
    Unethical is way too harsh. This is NOT class discrimination. If you ask me,judging on the basis of GPA alone is class discrimination. Poor people don't stand a fighting chance. But that's a slightly different argument. Unpaid internships don't impose requirements that would keep you from getting paid elsewhere, so regardless of your economic situation, you can decide how much you want to work. My employer doesn't care if you work 30 hours or 2 hours...they just want to see how much you enjoy doing the work. Any smart and hardworking individual wouldn't be at a disadvantage because they could find a way to make it work. For the record I'm pretty poor myself. I have two jobs to pay my bills. But I don't see anyone who has significantly more money having more of an advantage than me.
    - medearis 18y ago
      You've gotta be kidding me. Being poor prevents you from having a high GPA?
      - physcab 18y ago
        Prevents? No. I didn't say that. But being poor usually means you don't have access to the same levels of education. Read the comments in this thread. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=520836 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=520836
        medearis 18y ago
        No -- you didn't say anything about education level, which is tangential to GPA. What you said is "judging on the basis of GPA alone is class discrimination. Poor people don't stand a fighting chance." In other words, if you're poor, you don't stand a chance of (i.e. are prevented from) being able to achieve a high GPA. My experience says differently. I've read one of Gladwell's other books, and I think he makes the same mistake you are making. A correlation does not necessarily imply "discrimination" or that the odds can't be overcome. For instance, women have higher GPAs than men, on average. That doesn't mean that using GPA as an indicator of performance discriminates against males. It might mean that males might need to work harder or do something a bit differently in order to get the same GPA. In the end, my admittedly subjective take is that the biggest factor is individual motivation. We all have our setbacks and obstacles to overcome, but that's just the craps of life. I can verify, however, that it is indeed possible to go from moving out of your house at 16 with no money to graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford (not me, but someone very close to me). Difficult, yes... but it shows that there is almost always a "fighting chance."
- tptacek 18y ago
  We hire people through internships. So do a lot of other companies in our field. Of course, we pay the interns. Because we're not, you know, assholes.
  - physcab 18y ago
    So someone with absolutely no experience can apply for and get a job with your company, work however many hours they want, and wouldn't be expected to produce work that you could charge for...and still get paid?
    - tptacek 18y ago
      A few months ago, a guy from DePaul sent me an email and we got coffee. His "weekend" was during the normal work week, because of his shift job. He was looking for something to do during that off time. He had no work experience in our field. We picked him up. He's been excellent. So your (somewhat strange) questions, broken down: "Apply for and get a job" --- Check. "Work however many hours they want" --- You need to make a commitment; you can't just come in Wednesday this week and Friday the next week. But if "however many hours you want" means "I'll give you days X, Y, and Z of every week", then, Check. "Wouldn't be expected to produce work we could charge for" --- I have no idea what this even means. Who produces work for no reason at all? Of course we're going to want you to do real work. "And still get paid" --- Check.
      - physcab 18y ago
        If your intern does work that you charge your client for, then of course it makes sense to compensate him or her. At my unpaid internship, I came in with no programming experience. They basically paired me with sr. programmers so I could learn how to program efficiently, but was still too inexperienced to give me actual client work they could charge for. Believe me, I wouldn't want to charge the client either for the crap that I put out initially. But their investment will eventually pay off because when my skills strengthen enough to meet their standards, they'll hire me.
        18y ago
- jimbokun 18y ago
  "I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it." Just think how much you'd love it if you were getting paid!
pxlpshr 18y ago
Actually in Austin TX it's been a common practice for a very long time. The reason being, in many degree programs at University of Texas students are required to do a semester internship to graduate. Therefore, it can actually put a pretty enormous burden on companies in the area to facilitate internship programs twice a year. Because it is tied to degree programs, there's also a fair amount of documentation and work that these employers must do. In addition, interns require training which costs money and wastes time, and they usually quit as soon as their requirements are complete. That said, unpaid internships are justified and common here. However, as a general best-practice I always advise companies to pay their interns if they are working on billable / revenue-generating work. If they are just doing mindless work, then I feel they are compensated with 3 hours of school credit and the cost/time sink. Having worked with a lot of interns from the school, you get a lot of fickle results and often it's really more of a waste of time than beneficial situation for the company. And I damn sure would not trust an intern to work on mission-critical projects until they proved themselves, which often takes longer than their internship requirement. To any UT students, I was able to get out of mine and get 3 hours credit because I was self-employed w/ 2 companies. :)

by mhp 18y ago

sachinag 18y ago

(EDIT: I believe) It's ethical; (I'm not a lawyer, but lawyers have told me) it's only legal if the student gets class credit.

physcab 18y ago

I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it. The employer actually hires most of their talent through the unpaid internship program. They get to see if the people who do the internship are really there because they want to learn and contribute regardless of monetary compensation. I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation, but the arrangement has taught me a great deal about how to program scalable applications that I will definitely use in the future.

mechanical_fish 18y ago
I know everyone can't do this because at some point you need compensation Which is why using unpaid internships to screen your hires is unethical. It's an artfully disguised form of class discrimination. Lots of very smart and hardworking people cannot afford to work for free. Apparently those people are at a severe disadvantage when applying to work at your company. And it's not as if unpaid internships offer financial aid, like schools do. I think it's fine to screen prospective employees as paid interns. I also think it's fine to try them out as consultants first, or even to have them perform a few hours of work for free, as a test. But in general work should be paid for. Unless, as I've said elsewhere, it is 100% free-software work. Of course, just because it's unethical doesn't mean it doesn't happen or that you can do anything to change it.
- physcab 18y ago
  Unethical is way too harsh. This is NOT class discrimination. If you ask me,judging on the basis of GPA alone is class discrimination. Poor people don't stand a fighting chance. But that's a slightly different argument. Unpaid internships don't impose requirements that would keep you from getting paid elsewhere, so regardless of your economic situation, you can decide how much you want to work. My employer doesn't care if you work 30 hours or 2 hours...they just want to see how much you enjoy doing the work. Any smart and hardworking individual wouldn't be at a disadvantage because they could find a way to make it work. For the record I'm pretty poor myself. I have two jobs to pay my bills. But I don't see anyone who has significantly more money having more of an advantage than me.
  - medearis 18y ago
    You've gotta be kidding me. Being poor prevents you from having a high GPA?
    - physcab 18y ago
      Prevents? No. I didn't say that. But being poor usually means you don't have access to the same levels of education. Read the comments in this thread. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=520836 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=520836
      - medearis 18y ago
        No -- you didn't say anything about education level, which is tangential to GPA. What you said is "judging on the basis of GPA alone is class discrimination. Poor people don't stand a fighting chance." In other words, if you're poor, you don't stand a chance of (i.e. are prevented from) being able to achieve a high GPA. My experience says differently. I've read one of Gladwell's other books, and I think he makes the same mistake you are making. A correlation does not necessarily imply "discrimination" or that the odds can't be overcome. For instance, women have higher GPAs than men, on average. That doesn't mean that using GPA as an indicator of performance discriminates against males. It might mean that males might need to work harder or do something a bit differently in order to get the same GPA. In the end, my admittedly subjective take is that the biggest factor is individual motivation. We all have our setbacks and obstacles to overcome, but that's just the craps of life. I can verify, however, that it is indeed possible to go from moving out of your house at 16 with no money to graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford (not me, but someone very close to me). Difficult, yes... but it shows that there is almost always a "fighting chance."
tptacek 18y ago
We hire people through internships. So do a lot of other companies in our field. Of course, we pay the interns. Because we're not, you know, assholes.
- physcab 18y ago
  So someone with absolutely no experience can apply for and get a job with your company, work however many hours they want, and wouldn't be expected to produce work that you could charge for...and still get paid?
  - tptacek 18y ago
    A few months ago, a guy from DePaul sent me an email and we got coffee. His "weekend" was during the normal work week, because of his shift job. He was looking for something to do during that off time. He had no work experience in our field. We picked him up. He's been excellent. So your (somewhat strange) questions, broken down: "Apply for and get a job" --- Check. "Work however many hours they want" --- You need to make a commitment; you can't just come in Wednesday this week and Friday the next week. But if "however many hours you want" means "I'll give you days X, Y, and Z of every week", then, Check. "Wouldn't be expected to produce work we could charge for" --- I have no idea what this even means. Who produces work for no reason at all? Of course we're going to want you to do real work. "And still get paid" --- Check.
    - physcab 18y ago
      If your intern does work that you charge your client for, then of course it makes sense to compensate him or her. At my unpaid internship, I came in with no programming experience. They basically paired me with sr. programmers so I could learn how to program efficiently, but was still too inexperienced to give me actual client work they could charge for. Believe me, I wouldn't want to charge the client either for the crap that I put out initially. But their investment will eventually pay off because when my skills strengthen enough to meet their standards, they'll hire me.
      - 18y ago
jimbokun 18y ago
"I'm in an unpaid internship right now and I love it." Just think how much you'd love it if you were getting paid!

pxlpshr 18y ago

Actually in Austin TX it's been a common practice for a very long time. The reason being, in many degree programs at University of Texas students are required to do a semester internship to graduate. Therefore, it can actually put a pretty enormous burden on companies in the area to facilitate internship programs twice a year. Because it is tied to degree programs, there's also a fair amount of documentation and work that these employers must do. In addition, interns require training which costs money and wastes time, and they usually quit as soon as their requirements are complete. That said, unpaid internships are justified and common here. However, as a general best-practice I always advise companies to pay their interns if they are working on billable / revenue-generating work. If they are just doing mindless work, then I feel they are compensated with 3 hours of school credit and the cost/time sink. Having worked with a lot of interns from the school, you get a lot of fickle results and often it's really more of a waste of time than beneficial situation for the company. And I damn sure would not trust an intern to work on mission-critical projects until they proved themselves, which often takes longer than their internship requirement. To any UT students, I was able to get out of mine and get 3 hours credit because I was self-employed w/ 2 companies. :)