Melissa Reyes, a Marist College graduate, got an unpaid internship at the fashion house Diane von Furstenberg. She quit after doing little more than cleaning closets and fetching lunches.
Posted on 05/07/2012 6:19:43 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Confronting the worst job market in decades, many college graduates who expected to land paid jobs are turning to unpaid internships to try to get a foot in an employer’s door.
While unpaid postcollege internships have long existed in the film and nonprofit worlds, they have recently spread to fashion houses, book and magazine publishers, marketing companies, public relations firms, art galleries, talent agencies — even to some law firms.
Melissa Reyes, who graduated from Marist College with a degree in fashion merchandising last May, applied for a dozen jobs to no avail. She was thrilled, however, to land an internship with the Diane von Furstenberg fashion house in Manhattan. “They talked about what an excellent, educational internship program this would be,” she said.
But Ms. Reyes soon soured on the experience. She often worked 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., five days a week. “They had me running out to buy them lunch,” she said. “They had me cleaning out the closets, emptying out the past season’s items.” Asked about her complaints, the fashion firm said, “We are very proud of our internship program, and we take all concerns of this kind very seriously.”
Although many internships provide valuable experience, some unpaid interns complain that they do menial work and learn little, raising questions about whether these positions violate federal rules governing such programs.
Yet interns say they often have no good alternatives. As Friday’s jobs report showed, job growth is weak, and the unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year-olds was 13.2 percent in April.
The Labor Department says that if employers do not want to pay their interns, the internships must resemble vocational education, the interns must work under close supervision, their work cannot be used as a substitute for regular employees
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I think I’ll change my major to Fashion Merchandising...
Oh,the humanity /s). It sends a clear message to your next employer: “I’m willing to work hard and start at the bottom.”
But...But....the messiah sez we need to pay so all students get a college education????
a degree in fashion ‘moichendizing’ (Mel Brooks...Yogurt)??
thats a degree???
good luck.
Unpaid, no contract of performance, long hours - this is nothing more than slavery using an extortion scheme, all done by a parasitic company. Companies who prey upon those looking for work, and thereby removing time their “intern” could be spending looking for a real job, need to have the Labor Department reaming them a new one.
My industry uses “interns”, these are low-paid jobs, where new-hires in engineering are brought in during their Junior or Senior year, and are teamed up with engineering teams of more experienced engineers. This gives the student a good idea of what to expect when they enter the workforce as an engineer, and gives the company an idea of what the “intern’s” skill sets, aptitude and teamwork capabilities are. Usually, at the end of 3 months (Summer Break, typically) the student returns to school with a job offer in hand for when he graduates.
This crap in the article, is inexcusable. It’s modern day slavery.
A degree in fashion merchandising - and she’s too good to sort out last season’s merchandise? That is hardly cleaning a closet. So why doesn’t she sue them for racism.
These kids think they’re too good to do anything but what they want to do. Remember when Monica Lewinsky said she wanted a job at the UN where she would make policy. LOL
Check out this article: You're an Engineer? You're Hired - The unemployment rate in the field these days is a super-low 2 percent
Kids don’t work summer jobs anymore when they are in high school. So they graduate college without ever having a job, or developing a work ethic.
Yup, it’s a degree. Companies like Target, Kohls, Macy’s, Dillards, Foley’s and even Walmart hire these people to create a store “look” in their fashion departments. Typically, these graduates wind up on a team of “Buyers” who have the job of procuring the style, sizes and whatnot that you see in these stores.
They had a really great show on Costco recently, where the teams of “Buyers” researched fashion, electronics, toys, fine wines, and power tools.
Those things do not just happen by themselves.
For free, though? The theory is that the internships are trading free labor for an on-the-job education in a chosen field. Cleaning out closets isn’t exactly vocational training.
Yeah, she’s probably overly entitled. But you can make a fair point that these students shouldn’t be fetching coffee and cleaning closets for free.
}:-)4
Yeah. People are way too quick to poo-poo things they don’t understand. I know a buyer for Neiman-Marcus. She buys men’s socks. It’s a good job and gives her an opportunity to move into a position some day in which she is more interested.
As you said, things don’t appear on the shelves as if by magic.
Good article. Something the article fails to mention is the extreme competition to acquire even these internships.
Graduating with a B.S. at least gives you somewhat of a chance at landing a job. I can’t imagine graduating with a B.A. in this current economy.
Foward to get get gumberment benefits
It's been a while since I looked for a job, but doesn't applying for 12 jobs seem a fairly small number? There must be thousands of businesses in the fashion industry, just in New York.
She is an idiot. A non paid internship in order to get her foot in the door and she ruined even that. Suck it up, do the best job ever and other doors will open. Instead she complains, makes the news, and proves why no one should ever hire her. Entitlement attitude!
If someone hires her, in 5 years she will be suing them for discrimination. I didn’t have a staff or interns to do my job for me or I wasn’t VP of diversity entitlement office ......
What an idiot!
Absolutely.
Internships are supposed to work somewhat like the old trade apprentice program. Sure, you'd do some (maybe a lot) of menial labor along the way, but most of the time is supposed to be spent LEARNING A SKILL.
Spending most of the time cleaning out closets, going for lunch runs, etc is not learning a skill. It's not seeing how the company works.
It's simply taking advantage of a desperate person. The company involved should be seriously sued for not paying the minimum wage.
Two things
first of an in most places an internship can be what you make it. As she was cleaing out last years styles ( OH the Humanity) she could have tried to learn how trends develop and you could have asked what was successful in last year’s line and what was not and why
as she is giving coffee out she could pick the brains of all those who take coffee
she could ask to sit quietly in on planning projection and trend meetings
Instead she thought she would instantly be a fashionista.
secondly did you read the requirements the Labor Dept sets up for an unpaid intern? that they be under close supervision of someone and that they not do anything that a paid employee should do.
WTF?
Whe would any company pay one of theor employees to babysite/ ‘superivise” an unpaid person? That is a waste of money
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