Is an unpaid internship for web development at a startup legitimate?

Question

I'm a new grad of a web design/development certificate course with very little experience and I've begun applying for jobs.

I have received interest mostly from places offering internships. I have an interview set up for one of these internships at a startup but it was stated on the description that it is unpaid and it seems that they advertised for several other unpaid internships at the same time (for other roles in the startup).

How can I determine whether it's worth it to pursue this internship and should I continue looking for jobs while participating in the internship if I obtain an internship?

Answer 1

In the United States, many unpaid internships are not legal!

In the US, an unpaid internship must meet the following criteria (from the Department of Labor and FLSA regulations):

• The training, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to what would be given in a vocational school or academic educational instruction.
• The training is for the benefit of the trainees
• The trainees do not displace regular employees, but work under their close observation
• The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the trainees, and on occasion the employer’s operations may actually be impeded
• The trainees are not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the training period.
• The employer and the trainees understand that the trainees are not entitled to wages for the time spent in training.

If, after the interview, it seems as though it is a normal (not intern) position, just unpaid, and it doesn't meet the above criteria, then you have an obligation to report them to the Department of Labor, provided that you are under Unites States jurisdiction.

Answer 2

I look at those who offer unpaid internships as either bottom feeders or potential bottom feeders. If you decide to apply for an unpaid internship, have a plan B in place even if that plan B is another unpaid internship. That way, if you decide to dump them because you feel you are not learning anything except how to be exploited, you at least have an alternate place to go. Since you're not getting paid, it would behoove them to make a good impression on you quickly - and they won't have all (say) summer to make that impression.

Answer 3

In my experience, unpaid internships aren't worth it. I'm based in London and there's a lotta dodgy startups which are trying to do too much with little experience or infrastructure to execute their plans (the whole 4/5 startups fail in their first two years bit -- "we do design, dev, marketing, strategies, management, editing and mire!" type deal), usually with one or two key guys or gals running the show who actually have some idea of what they're doing. Their objective is to build up their company or group with as little cost as possible and the dodgy places will offload work for normal employees onto inexperienced and professionally unseasoned grads who have no idea what they're getting into or what they're worth, usually for the same hours as a full-time employee and unpaid and they'll even be sketchy on reimbursement for travel or lunch.

Steer clear of smaller places that offer unpaid internships as a general rule -- there's nothing you can't learn from a book and practise out yourself that you'd be doing for one of these places. Not every startup is like this but its common enough to be a hazard to watch out for. If you really wanna do the unpaid route, get with the biggest names around. Like a prestigious university, brand value is everything and very helpful when you're first getting up the ladder. Seriously, if you're at all ambitious about your career, this should be the only reason you would consider doing unpaid work, like anything else in life.

Answer 4

There seems to be a Catch-22 here based on getting paid or not and whether you get to do any meaningful work. I'm not sure what is worse: getting paid to learn nothing or actually doing and learning something for free.

Everybody assumes you're being exploited because you're doing work for free. Unfortunately, there are too many internships where there isn't any real work being done at all by the interns. That doesn't mean you can't learn anything, but too often there isn't anyone there who can take the time to supervise. Let's face it, they don't have the money to pay you, they don't have the money to pay people to attend to you either.

The most important piece may be whether or not you can get a quality reference from the people at this company based on your experience. They may allow you to contact a previous intern to see if it was worth it or not.