We were recently sent an email with a link to a video (shown below) put together by a website called Interns Anonymous all about students who have taken voluntary (unpaid) internships.

The video highlights the injustice, and often elitism, experienced when you have to take an internship to get into your chosen field of work, but the culture of that industry is that you are expected to work for free.

Watching the video made me realise how lucky I was to be given the opportunities to gain work experience AND be paid well for it. It did make me wonder why IT, professional services, engineering, law and many others will pay their interns, whereas if you are keen to get into politics, design, and NGO etc you are expected to do it for free.

Maybe it is the fact that a lot of the companies / industries are global, and often with an American influence, or maybe it is because they are seen as more money driven.

Either way, we stongly feel that Interns should be paid for the hard work they do, and hopefully the campaigning and awareness raising by Interns Anonymous will cause a shift so that all interns will be paid, and work experience will become more accessible by all.