By the middle of the spring semester (or, for those who are more on the ball than the average college student, the end of fall), the pressure is on as the seemingly impossible scramble for summer jobs and internships comes to the forefront of most students' to-do lists. With the downturn in the economy, it seems that no matter how many opportunities a student seeks, no matter how good the résumé, the odds are stacked against the modern college student, even for smaller unpaid internships — and the phenomenon of the paid internship seems to have faded into myth.
This presents a problem, as most companies want to see résumés stacked with previous internship and job experience and yet seem increasingly unwilling to make those opportunities available. In a world where there are more highly educated people competing for fewer jobs, and merit and hard work just aren't cutting it, students and their families are turning to alternative means for procuring an elusive internship.
To many people, paying for an internship seems a bit counterintuitive as the general assumption is you get paid to do work, not the other way around. But that's exactly what many families are doing, some shelling out close to $10,000 for eight-week summer internships at major companies across the United States. And of course, where people are willing to pay, services will appear for them to pay for. According to The Wall Street Journal, companies like University of Dreams charge between $5,000 and $9,500 to help students polish résumés and score interviews with employers, provide on-campus housing at local universities and coordinate weekend social activities. Consulting firms that help students send cover letters and résumés to "target businesses" have all begun to see a rise in clientele.
In addition, many businesses, including a number of nonprofits in danger of being dragged under by the financial crisis, have begun creating internship positions that previously didn't exist in order to sell them to stay afloat, not to mention the websites like CharityFolks.com that auction off internships to the highest bidder.
This trend, which is becoming more and more common, is disturbing on multiple levels. Not only does it bestow a heavy advantage on college students from wealthier families who have a couple thousand (or more) extra dollars left over after spending a veritable fortune on an increasingly expensive college education, but it means that the people who are forming connections in big-name businesses and industries (and possibly getting permanent jobs there after college) are not necessarily the most qualified, but the richest. It perpetuates the seemingly unending childish dependency that critics say characterizes our generation. Not only that, but it prevents students from learning from the mistakes of botched interviews and missed appointments — and the reality that sometimes, no matter how hard you work, you won't get what you want. The very notion of internships for sale robs the process of any semblance of equality, companies of having the pick of the very best applicants, and students of the lessons of the real world.
