Unpaid work - Slave Labour or great help.
Discussion
I thought I would post about my experience of unpaid work, more specifically an internship (obviously unpaid work comes under many headings but it is all ultimately the same).
I have recently moved down to London with my long term girlfriend. She managed to get a well paid job in an industry where her qualifications were highly sought after. The difference with me is that I did what I now know to be a relatively meaningless degree which I am no longer interested in. I realise that this is my own fault and I wish I could go back 5/6 years and think about my future a bit more.
This brings me onto the point of my internship. Since graduating with a 1st (albeit in Media Practice) I was left with the 'horrible dilemma' of choosing a career path which is both feasible with my qualifications, enjoyable and most importantly for me it has to have room for progression through hard work and dedication. I am happy to start low down and have the opportunity to work my way up over the years. My biggest dread is the idea of being stuck in a job with no career prospects and hating every living day of it.
I started looking around for ways to find a career that would interest me. I finally stumbled across an internship at one of the countries best known charity’s in an area which I find interesting (marketing), I applied and got offered the position. The work is unpaid but I could not be happier that I chose to do it. I have no found an industry that I am enjoying at a company that is held in very high esteem in a sector (non profit) that I now feel is where I want to try and progress.
I do realise that I am lucky enough to have some savings, a partner who earns enough to support us both and the time to do this work. Although this was a very long way of getting my point across, what I wanted to say is that unpaid work can be the best way to find a sector that interests you whilst also gaining valuable experience to add to the CV. I would recommend it to anybody and wanted to put a fresh angle on unpaid work as opposed to the usual 2 sides which consist of employers saying they are doing people a favour and unemployed people saying that they are being used as slave labour. I like to think that I have added an in between perspective that may be useful to somebody out there who finds themselves in the predicament that I did.
I have recently moved down to London with my long term girlfriend. She managed to get a well paid job in an industry where her qualifications were highly sought after. The difference with me is that I did what I now know to be a relatively meaningless degree which I am no longer interested in. I realise that this is my own fault and I wish I could go back 5/6 years and think about my future a bit more.
This brings me onto the point of my internship. Since graduating with a 1st (albeit in Media Practice) I was left with the 'horrible dilemma' of choosing a career path which is both feasible with my qualifications, enjoyable and most importantly for me it has to have room for progression through hard work and dedication. I am happy to start low down and have the opportunity to work my way up over the years. My biggest dread is the idea of being stuck in a job with no career prospects and hating every living day of it.
I started looking around for ways to find a career that would interest me. I finally stumbled across an internship at one of the countries best known charity’s in an area which I find interesting (marketing), I applied and got offered the position. The work is unpaid but I could not be happier that I chose to do it. I have no found an industry that I am enjoying at a company that is held in very high esteem in a sector (non profit) that I now feel is where I want to try and progress.
I do realise that I am lucky enough to have some savings, a partner who earns enough to support us both and the time to do this work. Although this was a very long way of getting my point across, what I wanted to say is that unpaid work can be the best way to find a sector that interests you whilst also gaining valuable experience to add to the CV. I would recommend it to anybody and wanted to put a fresh angle on unpaid work as opposed to the usual 2 sides which consist of employers saying they are doing people a favour and unemployed people saying that they are being used as slave labour. I like to think that I have added an in between perspective that may be useful to somebody out there who finds themselves in the predicament that I did.
I think everyone is aware of the 2 sides too it. Im all for Charity's and non-profit organisations offering work placements for college leavers and graduates.
What im not happy about is a company being paid from our tax money to place people on benefits into large multi-national companies to work for free for 2 months 'or else starve'.
Im all for work experience, internships etc but the government should not be involved or paying someone to be involved.
The whole system needs a rethink.
How about people like yourself who get off their arse and do something actually get an increase in benefits and perhaps 'shock horror' get useful support and guidance from the government on how to convert your experience into a paid job in order to put tax back into the system.
I have a friend who has a s
t degree, is looking for work and she is clueless. I just want to shake her and shout "do something" in her face. But its not just her its the whole system, the only jobs the 'job centre' has advised her on as far as im aware are KFC which she went to the interview in jeans and a t-shirt and boots which she didnt even get an interview for. I looked at her CV and it didnt even have a personal statement on it. I actually wonder what they teach at uni these days...
What im not happy about is a company being paid from our tax money to place people on benefits into large multi-national companies to work for free for 2 months 'or else starve'.
Im all for work experience, internships etc but the government should not be involved or paying someone to be involved.
The whole system needs a rethink.
How about people like yourself who get off their arse and do something actually get an increase in benefits and perhaps 'shock horror' get useful support and guidance from the government on how to convert your experience into a paid job in order to put tax back into the system.
I have a friend who has a s
t degree, is looking for work and she is clueless. I just want to shake her and shout "do something" in her face. But its not just her its the whole system, the only jobs the 'job centre' has advised her on as far as im aware are KFC which she went to the interview in jeans and a t-shirt and boots which she didnt even get an interview for. I looked at her CV and it didnt even have a personal statement on it. I actually wonder what they teach at uni these days...I completely agree about the whole government scheme. Their system seems like a mix of botched together ideas from years of attempts to patch up problems in the benefit system.
I returned from 6 months out of the country last July. I was looking for temp work until we were sure of where we would be living. I didn’t get anywhere for the first couple of weeks so I went to sign on. The horror stories are true, the first sight that greeted me was a man asleep on the only sofa in the waiting area so I had to stand. The person who I had my interview with was so unhelpful that it made me more determined to get up and get a job. I was told that because my employment background was in customer service and retail (jobs through school and university) then they were the only jobs that I could feasibly apply for. I had stated that I was interested in marketing and I had certain transferrable skills from my degree and a couple of previous jobs that fell upon deaf ears as they said I had no previous experience. I then spent the next week signing up to agencies and finally found an admin job. Although the work I was doing could have been done by a 10 year old I was just happy that I no longer had to go into that soul destroying place (the JC).
As for the CV – I actually have quite a varied work background and have held down jobs throughout College and university which obviously fill my CV but I realise that I need relevant experience to get into an industry that interests me, hence the internship. My best mate has a 1st in Mechanical Engineering at master’s level but has never worked a day in his life. I have seen his CV and it was embarrassing, not even due to the lack of content, because the opening part of his personal profile was “I enjoy going out with my mates and having a laugh” ............ I think a healthy balance of real life experience (jobs, charity work etc.) and academia must surely be the way forward.
I returned from 6 months out of the country last July. I was looking for temp work until we were sure of where we would be living. I didn’t get anywhere for the first couple of weeks so I went to sign on. The horror stories are true, the first sight that greeted me was a man asleep on the only sofa in the waiting area so I had to stand. The person who I had my interview with was so unhelpful that it made me more determined to get up and get a job. I was told that because my employment background was in customer service and retail (jobs through school and university) then they were the only jobs that I could feasibly apply for. I had stated that I was interested in marketing and I had certain transferrable skills from my degree and a couple of previous jobs that fell upon deaf ears as they said I had no previous experience. I then spent the next week signing up to agencies and finally found an admin job. Although the work I was doing could have been done by a 10 year old I was just happy that I no longer had to go into that soul destroying place (the JC).
As for the CV – I actually have quite a varied work background and have held down jobs throughout College and university which obviously fill my CV but I realise that I need relevant experience to get into an industry that interests me, hence the internship. My best mate has a 1st in Mechanical Engineering at master’s level but has never worked a day in his life. I have seen his CV and it was embarrassing, not even due to the lack of content, because the opening part of his personal profile was “I enjoy going out with my mates and having a laugh” ............ I think a healthy balance of real life experience (jobs, charity work etc.) and academia must surely be the way forward.
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