Unpaid Internships Won’t Necessarily Get You a Job

For three years, the National Association of Colleges and Employers has asked graduating seniors if they’ve received a job offer and if they’ve ever had either a paid or unpaid internship. And for three years, it’s reached the same conclusion: Unpaid internships don’t seem to give college kids much of a leg up when it comes time to look for employment.

Jordan Weissmann looked at a survey by NACE showing that college students who do unpaid internships aren’t more likely to get a job than students who never interned (students who do paid internships are). He says we’re left with a little bit of mystery about why this is, but I’d guess that the students who aren’t doing internships are simply working a regular job, and that’s also valuable. When I was in college, I had part-time job working in my college’s housing office, mostly doing administrative work and answering questions from new students and parents. That kind of experience was probably a lot more helpful in getting a job after I graduated than fetching coffee and transcribing interviews at an unpaid internship.

Also, yes to this:

It might also be time to stop calling post-collegiate internships “internships.” As Intern Bridge Vice President Robert Shindell said to me, whether or not they’re paid, they really are just generally temp jobs with a fancy title.

Photo: Sean MacEntee

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