Interships and co-ops- cheap till it's not

A few years, I had a conversation with one of my friends about how it would be possible to make an enormously profitable company by using nothing but interns who were required to work for welfare benefits. As is frequently the case, if I can think it, somebody else is already doing it.

For years companies and schools would hunt together for cheap help. The practice was widespread in the graphic arts fields, radio and television fields. Their preferred prey would be a matriculated (tuition paying) student who needs to get "experience". So, they get the student to do an "internship" for "credit". However, the physical reality of this situation means they not only work for free, but pay college tuition to do it! The presumption is that the student would learn all sorts of useful skills. The reality is that they often only do very routine work. I've personally seen this and it was nothing short of employee exploitation. As an example, years ago, I was managing a Radio Shack. For about a month, I had a Syracuse University student employed in a sales position. During his stay, he made a little bit over minimum wage being a sales clerk just like the other minimum wage sales clerks. I tried teaching him some basic selling techniques, how to stock shelves and count change - the same skills that were taught to others who didn't have a college degree. I hope he picked up something else since he was paying S.U. tuition just to be in my store!

I had thought that interning had fallen out of style. Nope. It's expanded in a big way. I recently found this out when I was offered a "co-op" position at an I.T. company. At first, I thought I would be working for a real co-op which usually requires "sweat equity" to "buy" a voting share on the board (rather than investing a bunch of money as a lump sum). However, that wasn't the deal. I was simply playing the supply-demand game and currently it's a buyer's market.

I've found several other "job offers" that were like this. One of the worst examples was at a company that make of all things, products for I.T. security! It is amazing these companies are taking such large risks with their business infrastructure. The position of an I.T. person is as much about trust as skill. An I.T. person can easily install tools to allow them to make off with production secrets, sell customer information, gather credit card information or simply embezzle. An inexperienced I.T. person can accidentally open security holes and knock out many computers at once. All but the lowest level I.T. person can have more access to company information than the chief financial officer. Yet for all this power, entry level I.T. workers are either underpaid or unpaid. The fact that I.T. interns sometimes make less than a floor sweeper really shows how saturated this field has become.

Judging from the existence of these low-ball offers, I can only conclude that there is currently a massive over supply of I.T. people or an under-supply of competent management. Other industries that have legitimate shortages of workers frequently offer training deals or bonuses for joining. That's rare in I.T. except for very specialized skills. Ah, but the market is constantly changing. Here's to hoping it will start changing for the better soon!