My 15-Year High School Reunion

Spirit fingers waving, I attended my 15-year high school reunion this weekend with a small crowd of fellow classmates. We roamed the halls of the school — which sort of looks like Hogwarts, as you can see from this photo — catching up on everyone’s careers, families, and relationships, and reminiscing about our past lives as scholars, athletes, dreamers, and schemers. I went to a remarkable private school in Chicago, St. Ignatius College Prep, thanks to scholarships, loans, and work-study programs, and frankly, I still can’t believe I had the privilege of attending such an academically rigorous, spiritually caring, and well-credentialed, well-rounded school.

I’m simply in awe of my fellow classmates — one works in a high-profile White House position,  and loads more work in Washington, D.C.; several have doctorate degrees or are on their way to them, and at least one has a professorship at an Ivy League school. Others are writers, entrepreneurs, finance professionals, teachers, doctors, and lawyers. They are a humbling group to be around, and I feel proud to call them my peers.

As you might expect, the economy came up several times. Most of the folks who attended the reunion were happily employed, and eager to share news about their career, but most also mentioned friends or family affected by the recession. And since we were about 300 graduates short at this particular event, who knows how many more classmates are unemployed or underemployed at the moment.

Aside from the economy though, another facet of our reunion struck me. One of the graduates honored at our reunion was previously an infantry officer in the Army, having spent years in Iraq and Afghanistan before starting his civilian career.  Another graduate I spoke with enlisted in Navy years ago, and had completed four tours of duty in Iraq. The loss of one of my classmates who was was killed in the World Trade Center on September 11 was poignantly felt, too. A far away war, which has gone on for most of our working lives, was acutely present at this reunion in a way that I’ve never felt before. It got me thinking about how deep the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have affected each of us. I myself formerly did communications work as a civilian for the U.S. Army, and the experience changed the whole course of my career. I wonder how many other lives in my class have been touched by these hard years, how many losses have been felt.

For our class of 1997, who graduated from college in 2001, our working years have been filled with drawn-out wars and economic uncertainty. We graduated high school full of optimism, ready to go into the world and make a difference after four years of college. But almost immediately after getting to the working world, with freshly printed diplomas in hand, so much changed the instant we arrived. There has never been a “normal” for us since the day the towers fell, which for many of us was during the infancy of our first post-graduation internship.

I wonder what the rest of our careers hold for us. So much of what has defined success for this class has been surviving. Surviving rounds of mass layoffs, surviving the attacks, surviving recessions, surviving  tours of duty … surviving.  We feel lucky to have been the ones to survive it all. I hope that the next decade brings a little more stability and normalcy for the class of 97, and that we see more classmates, not only surviving but thriving, at our 25-year reunion.

The post A 15-Year Reunion Amidst 11 Years of War appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

The conference itself, the American Association of Medical College’s professional development conference for communicators (otherwise known as the GIA group) is fabulous; I’m learning a lot and meeting new peers, feeling inspired about my work and passionate about the cause. I’ve said this many times before, but I feel very lucky to have stumbled into a career that I truly love. Ten years after graduating from Bradley University, I still enjoy the vast majority of my working days and for that I’m very grateful. If you’re a student thinking about a career in communications, marketing, or public relations, feel free to post questions about the field here and I’ll be happy to answer them either in the comments or in a future post.

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Not happy to be networking (2010)

What does networking mean to you? Happy hours with people you can’t stand? Costly seminars that don’t yield much information? Really fun parties with food and drinks?

Whatever your view of networking, it’s essential for any job seeker in this economy, at least in my neck of the woods. Those with full-time jobs, like myself, have come to expect resumes regularly from all corners of our network: family, former co-workers, former clients feeling out internship opportunities for their children, friends of current co-workers, recent graduates of the alma mater, acquaintances from far away, and random people from LinkedIn.

Because I’m a communications director at a major university, and because I’ve spoken to several classes on campus and also attend exec ed programs and keep close ties to my own university, I have lots of networking experience helping new-ish graduates.  Networking is how I got both of my professional jobs, and also how I help people I know find jobs and leads. It’s *unscientifically and only declared by me* more effective than relying on job postings. But here’s a secret: I actually don’t really like networking that much.

Let me clarify: I completely hate traditional networking, that is. I’m absolutely horrible at “working the room” and I try to avoid events billed as “networking nights” at all costs. Typically when I do go to industry events I find a few people I know, post up at a table and barely introduce myself to anyone new. I’ve had some good experiences; I once won a combination VHS-DVD player. Another time I attending a women in business workshop that was technically not networking but ended up being incredibly inspiring and made me realize that perhaps all networking isn’t bad. But I’ve also attended events where I’m all alone because I got an exclusive “invite” and they promised free drinks, but ultimately just aren’t worth my time. And I’ve sat in on plenty of “workshops” that are really just vendor presentations in disguise.

But as I was declining an invitation to another networking happy hour today, it occurred to me that I actually do know a lot about networking. I’ve seen really good networkers in action, have activated my network on occasion, and also have witnessed pretty big networking blunders. So here’s my personal guide to networking that won’t result in you ending up at some lame party, doing shots with strangers who turn out to be people just trying to sell you something.

1. Choose your events carefully, decline gracefully, and when you go, be prepared. Industry events are unavoidable and thus a good place to start my list. Some people love them. They love planning them, attending them, making new friends, and getting free stuff. I am not one of those people. I usually avoid them like the plague. But occasionally a great one comes up — there’s a speaker you want to see, former co-workers or clients you want to catch up with, or a new group (like Bloggers) you want to get to know.  When you find one you like,
   • Check out the guest list if you can, and make a point of finding people you want to talk with on site (think through some conversation topics when you get there).
   • Ask your peers who’s going and definitely try to go with a relevant friend – it will make your whole night run a little smoother.
   • Bring your business cards and hand them out selectively.
   • Do not sit around with your cell phone out all night…. this opens up the possibility that some weirdo may ask you for your number and insist that he/she call you right then and there to make sure you both have each other’s numbers. (Yes, it’s happened to me.)
   • Don’t only talk about reality TV. Please. Read up on some issues of the day before you get there.
   • If you run out of conversation topics, take a page out of Eleanor Roosevelt’s playbook and start running through subjects based on the alphabet: Apple gadgets, Basketball teams, Cruise ships, how much you like Denver, etc.
   • If you must decline at the last minute or leave early, be gracious and either let your host know as soon as possible.  Nothing bums event planners out like empty seats.
   • Follow up via email the next day with anyone you exchanged information with. Add them on LinkedIn or follow them on Twitter. Do not add them on Facebook just yet.
2. Instead of attending “networking events,” work your network! If you’re looking for a new job, don’t send a mass blast out to everyone you know or post a status update “I need a new job! Who wants to help me out!?” Instead, think about this as a highly involved process: First, consider what job you want or company you are interested in. Then, look at how your network maps to this target. Approach each potential “lead” with a personal email, message, or phone call. Share your resume AND formal cover letter in the first email. Ask to set up a lunch. Prepare a list of questions and conversation topics. Offer to pay for lunch. Show up looking presentable, and take notes while you’re there. Follow up with a thank you message after your lunch. I’ve found that one-on-one networking lunches yield far greater returns than networking events. In fact, a gal from one of the classes I recently participated in tracked me down for a networking lunch. She was polite, but very engaged and highly motivated. She took the advice I gave her during that lunch very seriously, and ended up landing an internship with a PR firm shortly after.
3. Be prompt. Be courteous. Follow up. But not too much. People with full time jobs are BUSY, especially those in mid-level or senior-level positions. If you send an initial e-mail or make a call and don’t hear back, try again in three to five days with a quick check-in. Your friend may not have seen the email, or may have dropped in their “look at this later” queue. If you still don’t hear back after two e-mails, give it a few weeks and try again, don’t be shy. If you hear back after any e-mails, respond promptly (usually within 24 hours). If you don’t hear back after three emails, don’t take it personally. But stop emailing. You may be annoying them. The next time you see them in person, mention that you were trying to reach him or her, and leave it at that. If he or she welcomes an email from you, they’ll ask for it.
4. Always use professional communications for professional networking. That means complete sentences, no “dude, yo, bro,” or whatever else we’re saying now, even if you’re emailing or messaging one of your close friends. You never know who might get the forward. I know some more progressive companies built around youth or creative cultures might welcome casual language in communications, so when in doubt, ask an industry peer (or professor).
5. Use social networking to connect with new contacts. I’ve alluded to LinkedIn plenty here. But Twitter can be an effective tool for building your networks in certain industries like PR, marketing, communications. And for others, like science, research, medicine, and too. Blogs and Tumblr are still great for showcasing portfolios of work. And I’ve had success getting in touch with people on more dedicated “social” platforms like Google+ and Facebook. It’s really up to your preferences, your network, your industry. Obviously if you’re using a social platform for career networking, you need to be sure it’s appropriate for potential employers (and less obviously, potential referrers within your own network). Scrub-a-dub-dub those pages, people.
6. Check in with recruiters from companies you like. It’s a good idea to look into the HR department or set up one-on-one meetings or lunches with recruiters if possible. Not job interviews, more like informational interviews. You want them to know you and your skill set, your interests, so that if a position ever opens up, you’re on recruiting’s mind. This may not be feasible for every industry, but it works in mine so consider it a brainstorming idea.
7. As someone who networks to help other people, be judicious. If you aren’t looking for a job, but are in the position to serve as a connector between two people you know, remember your reputation is on the line. If someone approaches you and asks to pass a resume along, by all means, do it. But you don’t need to give your full endorsement of that job-seeker against your better judgement if you have serious concerns about their work ethic, skill set, or history. However, if you know someone great who be a wonderful fit for a position, say so with confidence. Your word will go a long way.

I might come up with a how-to-network 2, since I’ve just been writing these on the fly but am now getting kind of tired. So I’ll stop here for now and pause to ask what you think. What is your experience with networking? Do these tips help you? What did I leave off this list?

Can’t wait to hear your responses. Good night friends.

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Man-friend attended a job fair for lawyers in Chicago a few weeks ago and no one was even taking resumes. Most people he talked to said they were only there as “informational” resources. Let me repeat, not only were these organizations not hiring, they were NOT EVEN ACCEPTING RESUMES FOR CONSIDERATION. At a job fair.

He also tells me most of the jobs he hopes to apply for have clauses in the job description stipulating that new grads with less than two years experience should not apply.

I hope we are able to stay in Illinois — where my awesome job is, and our families are — and that he can find work here. Unfortunately, if he can’t find work in Chicago, even with 10 years of experience in the financial field and a respectable law degree (with intern and clinic experience), we won’t meet our goals and we’ll have to move elsewhere.

And he’s only one of many new grads I know in very similar positions, some who graduated last year and others earlier this year.

For the sake of all the new graduates we love, I hope the job market opens up soon.

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One of the reasons I’ve been holding off on grad school involves the actual degree. Initially I thought an MBA with a focus in marketing would suit my career goals, but as I’ve been thinking about marketing career paths I’m not entirely sure that’s the route I want to take. The point of marketing, after all, is to “sell stuff” (as a friend pointed out), and often in marketing you’re stuck selling things people don’t necessarily want or need. (See Alex Bogusky’s recent write up in Fast Company and read the part about shilling for Burger King.)  However, as far as careers go, the benefits of an MBA are that I really do enjoy the marketing process and the people who work in the field, an advanced degree would greatly increase my earnings potential, and I do need to learn certain marketing lessons that I didn’t get in my communications undergrad program (though I did minor in marketing).

An alternate path started to take shape, however, as I learned about the field of public health. Most of my communications and public relations career has been health focused. I’ve worked with some of the world’s biggest over-the-counter drug companies and non-profits to develop programs designed to educate Americans about certain diseases and conditions, like headaches, heartburn, digestive diseases, high cholesterol, and more. And I’ve loved those experiences –  using my strengths to deliver health and education messages has been a natural marriage of my interests and my skills. The field of public health seemed like a natural progression – especially after attending a lecture last week to hear former US Surgeon General David Satcher speak about the need for health professionals. I felt inspired (I stared dreaming about how I could help work towards a healthier America, how I could impact  obesity and related conditions such as heart disease and diabetes) and so made an appointment to talk with our school’s public health program to validate whether my skills were appropriate and what I’d need to do to get into the program.

It was a lively conversation. Clearly my interests and job experience were spot on. However, I saw a major red flag. The public health program I was considering is clearly aimed at physicians. The admissions woman kept talking about how as a communicator, I would be a “boundary spanner” in helping communicate messages about health to the public.  ”You could write press releases and make brochures,” said the admissions woman. Trouble is, with a communications degree, I can already do that. And I did just that – like eight years ago as an account executive. I told her, “You know, that really is right up my alley. But I left my old firm as a vice president.”

She got the message. “You probably did that right out of college, huh?”  I told her I did.  She then told me that 90 percent of public health professionals don’t have degrees in public health. Basically what I’ve been doing with my career is public health, just without the degree (and usually attached to a product). And therein lies another problem; ancillary vs. mainline.

For those of you new to the concept, mainline employees are the decision makers and the people who keep a company running. Think about an airline: you need the pilots to fly the plane, the engineers to keep the plane moving, finance people to keep the bills paid and executives to steer the company and make the tough decisions. Then you have the ancillary folks. The folks who help the company, but aren’t integral to the product or service… the public relations people, the communicators, the marketers. Sure, as a communicator myself I could make the case that without good communications and marketing, the company as a whole will fail. But when there are tough decisions to be made about the direction of the company, trust me, no one is going to ask the advice of the communications people the vast majority of the time (although they probably should!).

My role at the moment is ancillary. And I find myself wishing I had a greater impact. However, the admissions woman was basically saying that since I’m not a researcher or a physician, my role would basically stay the same. Rather than being the spokesperson, expert, policy maker, or program manager, with my background, I’d just be the communicator. It sounded like fluff. It was fluff. In this field, I’d always be fluffy. Not only would I not be working to shape policy based on my own findings (since I have no science background), but without the MD, RD, PhD, or even a master’s in some type of science, my earning potential may go down, not up. (“You could apply for a communications internship at the NIH!” was the worst possible thing I could have heard at this meeting.)

So time to regroup. There is one woman in public health with a communications background at my university that I’d like to meet. She’s doing some really interesting research and I think her perspective would be helpful. But my interest is fading fast in this degree. Ultimately, if I want to help people get off their butts and on their feet, moving, and eating healthy, there may be better ways to steer my career in that direction. I could start my own foundation, for instance, or simply look to add in some volunteering in my off days while I continue to grow my communications career. After all, I could argue that the greatest way to make an impact is to take the money I’m earning and funnel it into projects that are already making headway.  Time to look back at that MBA and see what skills I can pick up that can help me advance my end goals …. which are not, certainly, to add a bunch a debt that will get me to where I already am.

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It’s an intriguing idea, especially for those of us trying to maintain a budget. I’ve spent years fretting about my work wardrobe. In my early 20′s, I didn’t have enough work clothes –  I spent my paychecks at Old Navy buying sensible button down shirts and black slacks by the bag to fit in with the oh-so-sophisticated managers in my office. Later, as I became one of those managers and neared 30, I spent an equal amount of time and money worrying about how to fit in with my trendy interns. Every episode of What Not to Wear sent me frantically to my closet for a re-evaluation – am I dressing age appropriately? What says professional… cardigans or blazers?  Do I wear flats, heels or flip-flops to the office? What’s Vogue saying for this season’s color palette?

All this attention to trends in office wear has left me with a closet full of cheap-ish blouses and ill-fitting pants. And yet, most days, I don’t want to wear anything in my closet. I spend several minutes every morning trying to throw together an outfit, taking great care to avoid wearing a combination I wore within the past two weeks. I regularly send bags of clothes worn less than five times to GoodWill.

6IOL challenges the vicious cycle of buying on trend, feeling discontent with your wardrobe, tossing old clothes and buying the next trend. It says you can wear the same basic clothes every day and hardly anyone will notice. It says clothes don’t make you; you make the clothes. It says your wardrobe doesn’t have to be a hassle in the morning. It says, and I’m quoting here, we can “rethink our relationship with our clothes.”

Sounds like something some middle-aged frugal blogger cooked up to save some cash, right? Well, wrong. 6IOL was dreamed up by some very chic, young and thoughtful advertising gals – one living in New York, the fashion capital of the US.  The site’s “roster” looks like an American Apparel catalog or a Leo Burnett creative team. This has nothing to do with financial bloggers.

I first read about the experiment in August or so, and briefly considered doing it but found I couldn’t commit fully – something about the extreme weather changes we experience in Chicago. But I was excited about the concept of a work uniform and about thinning my wardrobe in general. So I read up on a few people who have taken the challenge (“sixers”), and adopted some of their key learnings to my work wardrobe. For instance, I’m not afraid to wear the same pants twice a week, and I’m not hesitant to wear the same outfit within a certain time period anymore. In fact, it helps to have about five basic outfits picked out that I can wear week after week. It makes my mornings a little more automatic, and seriously, no one cares whether you are repeating outfits.

In honor of the challenge, here are six tips for downsizing your work wardrobe:

1. Think of your work wardrobe as a uniform. No matter what your job, your work clothes should be professional, functional, age-appropriate and contemporary. Those who have taken the challenge have found that sticking to one neutral color for your base, like black or gray, enables a little more flexibility in working accessories. I’ve found it’s a little less noticeable – if you’re wearing an orange shirt three times per week, your co-workers might catch on a little quicker than if you’re wearing a white button down.
2. Don’t be afraid to wear the same items multiple times per week. I’ve noticed that if I wear black pants and black T-shirt, I can throw on a blue cardigan one day and a gray cardigan the next, and voila! – different outfit. (Sidenote: have you seen Gap’s line of black pants? I got two pairs on sale and have been wearing them at least three days per week.)
3. Consider different ways to wear the same piece. My dark skinny jeans are simply amazing chameleons. Roll them, and they’re capris. Wear them with a heel and they’re evening jeans. Wear them with converse and T-shirt and you’re on the way to the diner for breakfast food. I never, ever buy capris…not versatile enough to wear with everything.
4. Buy some Febreze and learn how to spot clean. This will save you time and money.
5. Save Forever 21 clothes for the bars. Buy clothes that are timeless and good quality for work.
6. Your appearance is about more than your clothes. Confidence, poise, intelligence, happiness, attitude – these all factor into your professional image. Clothes alone don’t make the woman (or man). Take pride in who you are and be true to yourself. As this guy said, it’s about the total presentation vs. the clothes.  I would have done well to remember that when I was worried about keeping up with my trendy interns.

I’m excited to see what the founders of 6IOL do next. They’ve inspired me to rethink the way I dress, and the way I consume clothing. They’ve added a new voice to the fashion world, a contrary perspective that’s appealing to many former fashionistas hit hard by this recession. They’ve shown us how to be conscious and contemporary.  I hope it’s a perspective that lives on.

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On the first promise, I’ve done quite well. In one year at my new job, I travel for business less and travel for fun more. I learned how to cook, lost 20 lbs. and am fitter than I’ve been since high school. I relaunched my blog. I took some executive education classes, and also do some guest speaking at the University. When I think of my stress level today vs. one year ago, the difference is astonishing.  I feel like a much different,  healthier, more positive person.

That’s not to say my new job is a cakewalk. Making the transition from corporate life to academia wasn’t an easy transition. But in my first year there, my team has made giant strides toward meeting our goals – everything from building a social media presence to developing new branding standards to the initiation of an internal communications presence to the launch of an events capability to the integration of our media relations planning teams …. well, let’s just say we’ve reinvented everything. Building something from the ground up is hard work, but it’s fun. And though we have some late nights, weekends, and really busy time periods, for the most part, work is done at the end of the day. (God, I STILL feel guilty saying that.) I was ready for a change of pace, and I got it. And having been through the 24-hour, always on call job, I appreciate this environment  more every day.

On the second promise, going back to school, I’ve not done as well. I did take some classes early on in the year, but they were not part of a master’s program. My goal was to be in an MBA program this fall. I didn’t even take the test to get in; heck, I didn’t even buy the book to take the test. It just hasn’t been a priority, and frankly, I’ve been fine to let this decision marinate for a while. After all, going to school is a big commitment, and a big expense. I’ve been watching B (my boyfriend) go through law school as an adult student and I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to all those struggles at the moment, especially when things are going so well on the “life” side of the work-life balance.

This week, however, I was talking to a friend about why I took the job at the university, and mentioned that my original plan was to get an MBA. “What are you doing to make that a reality?” she asked.

“Well….” I answered, trailing off.

She knew where I was headed. “Let me tell you this,” she said. “Don’t less grass grow under your feet. You’re young, but before you know it, time will have gotten away from you.”

Oy. Talk about a reality check.

I went home feeling gloomy and anxious. Am I wasting my time? Am I killing my earning potential? Since I have the luxury of being a single, childless woman now, shouldn’t I be doing all I can to earn, earn, earn? Shouldn’t I be investing in myself?  I thought about my apartment, and how I don’t yet own a home.  If I finished an MBA in two or three years, wouldn’t my living situation change dramatically as my income grew?

I came home and started outlining a post on how I’m at a career crossroads and the clock is ticking. And then I read the second paragraph in this essay.

And I read it again.

I thought about how, actually, I really enjoy the feeling of grass under my feet. If at some point, time does get away from me, know what I’m going to regret?  The eight years I spent making plans for other people, letting my job run my life and generally missing the little things, like grass between my toes. I would regret not doing more with my free time, not spending time with friends and family. I would regret not traveling. I would not regret, however, missing an opportunity to max out my earning potential.

I’ve been an overachiever my whole life. Academically, professionally, and even extracurricularly, if that’s a word. For instance, in school, I used to cry if I got anything lower than an A (no joke). In college, I didn’t just join a sorority, I became president of all of them. I scored promotions every year at my old job. It’s strange for to admit that I’m not ready just yet to head back to school. I feel like an underachiever.

B-school is most likely still in the cards for me. But taking a break  from the pressure I put upon myself is good for me, too. I shouldn’t get an advanced degree just because it’s expected. I should do it because it will help me achieve a goal I set for myself for the future. I’m not yet sure what that goal is. I might like to become a brand manager on the marketing side. I might like to one day go back into the agency world and manage creative talent. I might want to try starting a consulting business of my own.

But I also might want to complete a few more races. I might want to spend some time volunteering. I want to see what I can do with my blog. I want to put my energy towards projects and goals that will help me to become a better, happier, healthier person, not just someone who makes a lot of money.

Before I settle on the when, I need to settle on the why. And with things going the way they are, I’m just not sure I’m there yet.  I hope that doesn’t make me an underachiever.

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You, my savvy, sophisticated readers, will understand that certain sensitivities arise when transitioning to a new job, so I haven’t been able to write much and I can’t share many of the details about salary, benefits, etc.

However, I will say this: For the past eight years at my former company, I learned and grew every day. The people I worked with were some of the best in the business and I plan on keeping in touch with most of them. MS&L Chicago will always hold a special place in my heart. I had a hard time leaving; in fact, I was a sobbing mess the day I walked out the door. The company, and my peers, were nothing but supportive during the entire transition.

But despite my fondness for my job and my co-workers, I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity that presented itself to me in the new job, working in communications for an Illinois-based university. (Need to find out if I’m OK to blog about it.) For many reasons, including my personal passions and interests, benefits and more, it seems to be the perfect job for me. I’m overwhelmed with excitement and thankful for opportunity.

So for those of you looking for jobs in this rough economy, maybe this provides a little hope. Feel free to post your questions about interviewing, networking, etc. here and I’ll do my best to answer them this week.

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The New York Times Shifting Careers Blog

Marci’s written some good posts as of late.

The post Cool Career Blog appeared first on The Budgeting Babe.

In order to get a foot in the door of the PR industry, I did two: one unpaid, three-month internship for Chicago’s Department of Aviation and one year-long, paid internship with my current company that turned into a full-time job. I was thrilled, elated, to land both of these internships – they were highly competitive. In the past, I’ve wholeheartedly acknowledged that without these internships, I surely wouldn’t be where I am today. I wasn’t forced into it; I had the freedom to choose another job. But this was ultimately what I wanted to do, what I trained to do. And I couldn’t get a full-time position without a few internships under my belt.

Internships work wonders for corporations: they provide a seemingly endless source of cheap (or free) labor that doesn’t require health care, and can be disposed after the summer if the employer is displeased for any reason. At my office, we love having interns around – they offer fresh ideas and keep us updated on youth trends. A full-time internship can function like an extended job interview, allowing employers to choose the best and brightest to fill open spots.

All this seems like a win-win situation: the intern gets a foot in the door and is allowed to temporarily test drive a full-time position before joining full time. Yay! The employer benefits from fresh ideas and motivated cheap labor. Yay! But there’s one problem: the student loan clock keeps ticking and interest keeps collecting. And the bigger those loan payments get, the harder it is for the lender to invest in the economy over time.

The New York Times recently commented on this phenomenon:

Take This Internship and Shove It
The New York Times
By ANYA KAMENETZ
Published: May 30, 2006

MY younger sister has just arrived in New Orleans for the summer after her freshman year at Yale. She will be consuming daily snowballs, the local icy treat, to ward off the heat, volunteering to help clean up neighborhoods damaged by Hurricane Katrina and working part time, for pay, at both a literary festival and a local restaurant. Meanwhile, most of her friends from college are headed for the new standard summer experience: the unpaid internship.

Instead of starting out in the mailroom for a pittance, this generation reports for business upstairs without pay. A national survey by Vault, a career information Web site, found that 84 percent of college students in April planned to complete at least one internship before graduating. Also according to Vault, about half of all internships are unpaid.

I was an unpaid intern at a newspaper from March 2002, my senior year, until a few months after graduation. I took it for granted, as most students do, that working without pay was the best possible preparation for success; parents usually agree to subsidize their offspring’s internships on this basis. But what if we’re wrong?

What if the growth of unpaid internships is bad for the labor market and for individual careers?

Let’s look at the risks to the lowly intern. First there are opportunity costs. Lost wages and living expenses are significant considerations for the two-thirds of students who need loans to get through college. Since many internships are done for credit and some even cost money for the privilege of placement overseas or on Capitol Hill, those students who must borrow to pay tuition are going further into debt for internships.

Second, though their duties range from the menial to quasi-professional, unpaid internships are not jobs, only simulations. And fake jobs are not the best preparation for real jobs.

Long hours on your feet waiting tables may not be particularly edifying, but they teach you that work is a routine of obligation, relieved by external reward, where you contribute value to a larger enterprise. Newspapers and business magazines are full of articles expressing exasperation about how the Millennial-generation employee supposedly expects work to be exciting immediately, wears flip-flops to the office and has no taste for dues-paying. However true this stereotype may be, the spread of the artificially fun internship might very well be adding fuel to it.

By the same token, internships promote overidentification with employers: I make sacrifices to work free, therefore I must love my work. A sociologist at the University of Washington, Gina Neff, who has studied the coping strategies of interns in communications industries, calls the phenomenon “performative passion.” Perhaps this emotion helps explain why educated workers in this country are less and less likely to organize, even as full-time jobs with benefits go the way of the Pinto.

Although it’s not being offered this year, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Union Summer internship program, which provides a small stipend, has shaped thousands of college-educated career organizers. And yet interestingly, the percentage of young workers who hold an actual union card is less than 5 percent, compared with an overall national private-sector union rate of 12.5 percent. How are twentysomethings ever going to win back health benefits and pension plans when they learn to be grateful to work for nothing?

So an internship doesn’t teach you everything you need to know about coping in today’s working world. What effect does it have on the economy as a whole?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics does not identify interns or track the economic impact of unpaid internships. But we can do a quick-and-dirty calculation: according to Princeton Review’s “Internship Bible,” there were 100,000 internship positions in 2005. Let’s assume that out of those, 50,000 unpaid interns are employed full time for 12 weeks each summer at an average minimum wage of $5.15 an hour. That’s a nearly $124 million yearly contribution to the welfare of corporate America.

In this way, unpaid interns are like illegal immigrants. They create an oversupply of people willing to work for low wages, or in the case of interns, literally nothing. Moreover, a recent survey by Britain’s National Union of Journalists found that an influx of unpaid graduates kept wages down and patched up the gaps left by job cuts.

There may be more subtle effects as well. In an information economy, productivity is based on the best people finding the jobs best suited for their talents, and interns interfere with this cultural capitalism. They fly in the face of meritocracy — you must be rich enough to work without pay to get your foot in the door. And they enhance the power of social connections over ability to match people with desirable careers. A 2004 study of business graduates at a large mid-Atlantic university found that the completion of an internship helped people find jobs faster but didn’t increase their confidence that those jobs were a good fit.

With all this said, the intern track is not coming to an end any time soon. More and more colleges are requiring some form of internship for graduation. Still, if you must do an internship, research shows you will get more out of it if you find a paid one.

A 1998 survey of nearly 700 employers by the Institute on Education and the Economy at Columbia University’s Teachers College found: “Compared to unpaid internships, paid placements are strongest on all measures of internship quality. The quality measures are also higher for those firms who intend to hire their interns.” This shouldn’t be too surprising — getting hired and getting paid are what work, in the real world, is all about.

Anya Kamenetz, a columnist for The Village Voice, is the author of “Generation Debt.”

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