For the past month I have been seeking students for upcoming spring work terms in a couple of different departments of my company. Just in the past week, after interviews I’d offered work terms to three students (and nine altogether for the month) who turned them down because they were unpaid! I’d politely explained to them that there was not enough money in the company’s budget to pay them, not even $10-11/hour. You are being offered experience in your field! What is with 20-somethings these days expecting to be paid for working a 5-week work term? You don’t even know what you’re doing yet–it’s risky enough to the company to have you on with us for free (given mistakes you could make and what not), let alone you. I’m sorry, I wish we could pay but we can’t. You have bills to pay? You paid for tuition? Well, that’s life–you can’t expect to have everything handed over to you. I sure as hell didn’t. In fact, I WORKED FOR FREE back in my day for 3 months to gain experience and obtain employment in my field. It’s unbelievable that young people these days can’t appreciate what I’m offering them (the experience to help them get work in their field)! You kids really need to lose the entitlement and learn to work as hard as us “old people” have. Good day. —Baby Boomer Who Worked Her Way Up
This article appears in Feb 23-29, 2012.
Thank you baby boomer, for saddling everyone who has come after you (including Gen Y) with your forced socialism and massive public sector debts!
Perhaps during your three weeks of free work, you missed out on learning about being responsible for yourself, and instead believe your “entitlement” to force multiple generations coming after you to pay for your largesse takes precedence…
Bahwhawhawhaw – hey, I’m an old Boomer and I never worked for free. Fuck that shit.
Times have changed, Grandma. It’s not your day anymore.
Maybe if they knew before the interview that it was unpaid it would help weed out the ones who want to get paid for their work. Are you telling them before the interview?
Yeah fuck that shit is right. Nobody works for free, Unless on-the-job training is required for a student’s couse. Post an ad on the bulletin at the community college and see if you get a bite, cheap ass.
if it isn’t a job with mucho dinaro, thenm they don’t wanna get involved in it. experience is worth fuck all to them, when they can flip a burger, after they graduate from say, art school.we used to offer learning experiences years ago, when i ran terra nova landscaping. you work two weeks for free, then if you liked the job, we would hire you full time. at one point, in all our businesses, we had over 150 paid employees.
Understandable. I had to do a 6 week work term when I graduated, it was supposed to be unpaid but many employers felt bad and decided to compensate most of the students. I was lucky enough that my employer paid me for half of the hours I worked, much better than nothing. Coming from my college I didn’t know a single person who turned down a work term because it wasn’t paid, so I’m guess you’re recruiting out of universities?
Besides, if a company see that a student is willing to put in good work hours without the expectation of being paid, then more often then not I’d expect that student to be hired on afterwards. Much easier than training (and paying) a new employee.
i suppose it depends on the work and whether it’s important to your *career* choices. volunteering is one thing but if those five weeks involved something you might not normally have a chance to learn…i dunno
We didn’t force anyone into debt Dartmouthy !
We didn’t give away NS Power to Emra for a song either.
All of that was done by the Liberal & Conservative Governments of this Province along with the same 2 Federal Parties with exactly the same agenda spend, spend ,spend ,spend to buy our way to popularity using tax payer funds & commitments as if it was their money!!! THat is why we are 13 BILLION dollars in debt in N.S.
You need to get out & talk to some of the older people who have for years been subjugated to bullshit ,kneejerk policies. Forced on us by our so called elected leadership ! Which is why it bounced back and forth from frying pan, to fire. The only choices we ever had…Bad & worse !
As to you OB I did 2, 2 week terms for the job I trained for back in 79. We did 2 weeks then back to school & I seem to remember about 3/4 weeks of schooling we did 2 more.It wasn’t mandatory to do the placement back then. ( & the 2 weeks were 14 days straight)
But
When I finished my training, & put my certification & job experience in a resume everyone in the class that had done the job placements got jobs right out the door of school. There are still many tradeschools doing job placements… I suppose University student graduates already knowing everything,(I’m not sure if you are speaking University,but it sounds like it) so they don’t feel a need for doing any on the job experience/training.
Gosh, too bad they abolished slavery OP.
But seriously, why don’t we insist that work-terms be without pay, thereby causing people to rack up more debt, default on loans, rely on the food bank, etc. Genius. Pure commie genius.
Quid pro quo asshole.
It’s too bad these kids didn’t know that the internship was an unpaid one before they wasted your time.
When I was in school (the early 90s) the most popular internships (government, MTV) were unpaid, and with tuition over 25k/year, only the rich kids got to work those internships. There was one grant/year for summer internships in my major, and I didn’t get it. I had to turn down the unpaid internship I was offered by a big ad agency in Chicago, and took one at a different agency-not as perstigious as the first one, but it paid $5/hr… better than nothing.
Five years after I graduated, my school instituted a policy of funded internships. Every student gets a $2500 stipend for an internship her junior year. One of the many universities in Hfx should consider funding something similar to this.
In the meantime, OB, do you have anything at all to put on the table? A stipend, an apartment, bus or parking pass, a fish or farm share, a cottage…3 university credits? Maybe you could rent a house for 3 interns to share or something. You should be able to get an inexpensive summer rental.
And consider, OB, that there might be more to the story than that these kids are self entitled brats. I *had* to earn money on summer and winter breaks; it is well within the realm of possibility that these kids do, too.
They’re students! They’ve incurred massive debt and a swelled ego during their tenure at school. Of course they want money! Provide them with an enticement maybe? At the end of their term, evaluate their performance and slip them a couple of fifties under the table proportionate to their worth.
the boy did co-op job placement in highschool, he was paid and ended up with full time employment in the summer
I did an unpaid work term about 10 years ago in Dartmouth for 4 weeks. It was great experience that helped me get a job in the field I was schooling in. I really appreciated the company that helped me. I would recommend any other student to do the same. Experience is experience. It is a great way to get your foot in the door.
I commend you OP for the opportunity you offer. These students don’t expect to be paid to go to school, why do they expect to be paid for the education you are offering? 4 weeks is nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Just because you were a boot-licking, gullible idiot when you were young doesn’t mean they have to be, OP. They don’t want shit handed to them, they want to work, not give *you* shit for free. So who was the entitled one here again?
I’d do an unpaid internship as part of a course, but not outside the bounds of my education, or as a volunteer. I’ve actually done two of them through NSCC and they (not my BSc) are, without a doubt, how I’ve managed to secure most contacts and jobs I’ve had.
Without the 3rd party (school/ university/ college) influence, I wouldn’t trust a random to actually give me the references that would be (and have been) the benefit of working an unpaid position.
Your bitch is written in a way that makes it sound like you didn’t advertise an unpaid internship, so that’d be your bad. You don’t think it’d be a little hinky to get an interview for what you thought was a job only to be told it was an unpaid position? I’m also curious as to whether or not the company you’re “hiring” for is a large or established one, or if it’s a small one looking for free labour…
makes sense cannatell, free labour is one thing, something beneficial for both parties is another
these comments are a little dumb. MOST work-terms and co-ops are unpaid. Mine was one of the only paid internships in my graduating class..
If you work for nothing, you’re worth nothing.
I’m a co-op student at MSVU one of requirements for a co-op job is that it has to be paid. Also we have to pay $1000 (full credit fee) to the Mount for each of our 3 co-op terms. You want a student who will work their butts off for you then you have to pay them! Also the provincial government will subsidize half of hourly wage, this will encourage more employers to hire co-op students.
You’re not taking PR are you, roman holiday?
Because LOL.
In any event, ella — UNIVERSITY program work terms and co-ops are paid. All of them. If you find them through your university they are PAID.
roman holiday’s right — I did co op at MSVU and we paid for a 6 hour credit and we were required to be paid for at least 13 weeks. My co ops lasted 16 weeks and I was actually paid quite handsomely. I made 15k during one of my 4 month co ops. And the type of work I was doing was the same work the full timers were doing. No one babysat me or anything. I actually was higher up in the ranks than a lot of full time staff (professional/managerial classification — entry level, but a higher up classification than the clerk or admin assistant classifications).
It’s the NSCC work terms that aren’t paid. Perhaps OB should be looking to the community college crowd instead of the university crowd.
Also: it’s not an entitlement to want to get paid for work. Even as a student. You’re getting work out of them — you’re not doing them some huge favour. Co op students are basically cheap labour.
I think you’re really looking for a student from compu college (or whatever the fuck they call it these days) or NSCC — their work terms tend to be 5-ish weeks or less (6 maybe?) and they don’t expect to get paid.
You gotta pay for university student labour, my friend.
I would take an unpaid internship in my field (no longer a student), provided I could be flexible with my schedule to find a part-time job. If I knew I couldn’t afford to take on an unpaid internship over a paying position, I wouldn’t go in for the interview. Maybe there was some sort of miscommunication between you and the students you interviewed.
Yep Pretty Kitty, I’m a 2nd year pr student and just got hired for my first co-op term. Our co-op jobs range $12/hr to $37/hr depending on the location and who your working for. I volunteer year round when I’m in school to gain more skills for my field.
Roman, does the co-op office still make students submit resumes for volunteer opportunities?
you know how people complain that the jobs they’re applying for require x experience in the field….
and how can I get experience if every job requires experience?
this would be one way.
if they notice jobs in your field say this all the time, then they’d be stupid not to at least try to make this work… to reap the benefits down the road. Or are they that short-sighted?
Oh roman holiday.
You poor poor soul.
I wish you the best of luck… but be prepared to be unemployed when you graduate.
Unless you take the french certificate. TAKE THE FRENCH CERTIFICATE.
And don’t let the co-op office bully you. They tend to bend over backwards for the employers, sometimes at the expense of the students.
Also, i agree with Zed! You have to get creative when it comes to getting work experience. This could be one way… and an excellent networking opportunity, but something most university students won’t consider.
Here’s the problem I have with the “well, I paid my way through university, so you should be able to as well” argument that often comes from Baby Boom and Gen Xers. Tuition in Canada (esp in the last 15 or so years) has risen at a rate far outstripping inflation and the ability of students to make up that difference in summer or part time work – hell, my undergrad tuition was $1000 a year more at the end of my undergrad degree than it was at the start. This is mostly due to provincial governments across Canada reducing the amount of per student funding they give to post secondary institutions, who in turn must make up the shortfall by jacking up tuition rates. Add to this the fact that more people are getting a post-secondary education, and simply “working our way up” without the educational credentials isn’t an option anymore. Take away message? Times have changed, and the environment you grew up in isn’t the one faced by today’s students.
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/daily-quotidien/0…
Students are now graduating with massive debts unseen by those who came before and a competitive labour market where a larger proportion of people have some form of PSE training. For those of us who want to start families, paying down that debt is a number one priority. You get what you pay for, and if you don’t want to (or can’t) pay students to work in your company, we’ll find people who can. The free market can be cruel like that.
Are you and your organization fucked in the head? What do you consider a “work term”? If this were an internship then I know many students who would do this just for experience without remuneration….. IF — and ONLY IF —- this is to carry out menial office tasks that most of us have to do but do not have the time to do them — then, once again, fuck you!
Ask yourself this ……. Are you doing this for YOU or for THEM?
When you can answer that question you will understand why they turned you down.
I’m pretty sure they have bills and massive student loans to repay. Some just can’t afford to work for free, only for the ” experience”. Allot of the old business owners had no education, nor did they have the “experience” you talk about when they started out in business. My my my, how times have changed. NO SLAVE LABOUR FOR YOU!!!!!
It’s how they think now. If you have kids who are in the 8 to 20 something year old range or have friends who do you may have noticed that most of them in that age group think the world ows them something. They want everything they want for nothing and think they are entitled to it. Ask them to do the dishes or take out the garbage and you’d think they were being asked to cut off their arm or something. Most of the kids today are lazy, disrespectful, arrogant and rude. Guess what though, we created them and allowed them to become thus. I hope you find the workers you need who will appreciate the experience you offer.
Hey Pretty Kitty, I did my own job search as well as applying to the ones through the co-op office. I was lucky this round out of the eight jobs I applied to I got six interviews and two offers! I’m older (26) than the majority of the 75 students in my program and I worked for 5.5 years in the political world and retail before I enrolled in the Mount which I think gave me a huge advantage over other students who are coming straight out of high school or another degree. All the volunteer positions I’ve been involved with I found on my own or through friends. Volunteering is great it shows employers you can multitask but it is hard when your a full student in a demanding program. Also the whole co-op search and having to go to pd sessions is basically a 6th course!
It was a huge waste of time, to be honest.
I had experience and another degree and found the program… not very challenging. I dunno, it left a really bad taste in my mouth.
I love PR, don’t get me wrong… but I was bored throughout the program and dealing with my peers (not all but a large majority) was a hair pulling experience. Most needed to get a grip on reality. Big time.
In any event, jobs in communications are scarce around here. Even if you know french there aren’t that many opportunities… if you have 5-10 years experience in public relations, more doors are open. Employers in PR don’t count work experience, they count PR work experience.
I don’t want to be a huge downer, but the program gives you a lot of build up… and when you leave it’s tough.
And this is coming from someone who was first to get a job offer (and the job offers I wanted) for all three of her co-ops, and maintained a high GPA. I have tons of people in my network in comms — many of which are in high up positions who’ve always told me my portfolio and resume is excellent and should open doors for me, but that there’s just not that many opportunities available.
Like I said, I love PR and comms, but if I had to do it over again, I’d go into something different… there’s way more supply than demand (not to mention employers will short change you on salary and expect you to do everything and anything and require 2-3 years experience for entry level positions that pay in the 20k range because OH HAY you should be lucky to have a job! *eyeroll*)
I really hope your experience is different. I really do, but even with my current level of experience, there still isn’t much out there.
Maybe Metro Transit should lay off a bunch of workers and offer paid internships to students for like $13/hour. Apparently it’s an excruciating job which will give them fantastic “real world” experience and will give them great skills in time management.
Baby boomers are perhaps the most coddled generation ever. We learned from the best so don’t bitch at our generation for the fault of yours.
Wheels don’t you have a bus to drive you crusty piece of shit?
themax couldn’t be any more wrong with that bogus statement! Such a millenial thing to say.
Working for free in today’s economy are you nuts. Someone pulled that scam on me once back when I was young (Gen X), result no permanent job and being blamed for a mistake they made and poor computer equipment that kept crashing all the time. If your company can not afford to hire anyone then your company is in trouble and should file for bankruptcy. The only ones that can work free internships are rich kids not a regular student trying to survive in the real world. You say you worked fro free, did you live at home at the time, did you have a student loan, how did you survive without any money. Certain things you did not mention.