Employers Should Tread Cautiously With Unpaid Interns | Federal rules require an education component when internships are for credit
Melanie LeDoux knew she had scored big when she landed a paid internship at human resource software provider Workscape in Marlborough.
Then a student at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., LeDoux threw herself into the position, performing every task to the best of her ability and quickly distinguishing herself as a standout. Today, she’s an associate in the human resources department, helping to manage the firm’s 400-plus employees and overseeing a current crop of interns.
“When you’re an intern, you just need to be willing to do whatever needs to get done, whether it’s answering phones or covering the front desk or filing or shredding paper or rebuilding the website,” LeDoux said. “You’re there to learn everything you possibly can.”
Workscape has a dozen interns working in the company at any one time, said Ed Hurley-Wales, the company’s senior vice president for human resources, who developed an intern program at the company when he joined nine years ago. “Interns are just a great resource from a number of perspectives,” he said. “They bring a level of intellect, passion, commitment and enthusiasm that I believe is contagious and that you want in a work environment.”
Business Education
Internships have been a staple of the college education process for decades, but persistent unemployment and increasing competition for full-time positions have more people competing for internships with hopes of landing a job or gaining experience. At the same time, fewer paid internships are available and more businesses are testing the notion of using unpaid interns to help round out their workforces. National intern recruiting website UrbanInterns.com recently reported that two-thirds of its listings were for unpaid internships, up from 60 percent a year ago.
Businesses that use unpaid internships need to be careful not to run afoul of federal labor laws governing the use of interns, said Jean Sifleet, a Clinton-based business attorney. “The job market is so tough that many young people are willing to work for nothing just to get some experience,” she said. “Unfortunately, that can lead to risky situations. For an internship to be effective and fair, there needs to be structure and a clear learning element.”
Sifleet’s advice for businesses is to draft a job description for an internship, including clear parameters of the position and the plan for exposing the intern to learning situations. “There is potential for abuse when business owners are using the internship as a trial period, where if someone does well, they might extend a job,” she said. “In that situation, they should probably be paying at least minimum wage.”
Working through a college’s career services department can help a business avoid the gray areas. Students on academic internships earn credits toward graduation and are usually placed in positions that have been pre screened by the school.
At Clark University, between 130 and 150 students earn academic credit for outside internships each year, according to Sharon Hanna, assistant director of career services. Students who study communication and culture and international development are among those required to perform internships to graduate.
“Internships are becoming much more competitive and there is more awareness among students of the value of them,” she said. “Students who don’t complete one before graduation can struggle without some actual work experience.”
A business doesn’t necessarily have to provide constant training or supervision to an intern, but there is expected to be a “learning agenda” on the job, Hanna said.
The opportunity to test out a potential employee can be valuable for a business. “That’s especially true in this type of economy,” where businesses want to make careful hiring decisions, she said.
Economically driven change in how internships are approached has been more dramatic in some fields than others. For instance, as thousands of jobs have been shed from shrinking — or disappearing — newspapers, internships have become increasingly scarce and quite often non-paying.
That has sparked an ethical debate about whether such internships, which can open myriad career doors, unfairly exclude students who must use their non-school hours to earn their way through school.
In the criminal justice field, where many internships are with municipalities or public agencies, competition is fierce for both paid and unpaid internships. “Towns that might have paid once just aren’t in a position to do that now,” said Tricia Gavin, associate professor of criminal justice and internship coordinator at Anna Maria College in Paxton.
Students who perform internships in the field gain valuable skills as well as a better understanding of the field they’re about to enter.
“There are practical skills as well as a host of information about values and ethical responsibilities and the role they’ll be playing in all that,” Gavin added.
The best internships are win-win situations, with employers gaining not only a chance to evaluate a future employee but also a motivated young worker who can often bring a fresh perspective, said Sifleet.
“Young people have a host of skills in the technology area that a lot of businesses can benefit from,” she said. “At the same time, a lot of them lack professional polish and may not even know what proper business communication looks like. Both sides can learn a lot from each other.”
Lori Smith, assistant director of career services and internship placement coordinator at Nichols College in Dudley, said most employers are well aware of the rules governing unpaid internships and those that work with an established university will get a guiding hand in finding ways to use interns to their advantage. “We’re here to advise them on what makes not only a legal internship but a good one,” Smith said.
Keith Regan is a freelance writer based in Hopkinton.
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