Am I undervaluing myself?

GA7_2

I'm a current 1st year University student and about to start an internship and am wondering about how to measure the value of this internship. It's a 3 month internship in the role of Business Development/Marketing for a start up company who will NOT be paying me on a 20 hour a week schedule. They pay expenses and bonuses if I hit target.

On one hand I'm quite excited because my CVv is strictly retail/sales up until now so this is the first opportunity to develop a more professional CV and learn alot. At the same time I am not being paid nd my rent is really high. I can pay for the rent no problem, but I feel guilty having just left my paid job (got fedop having been in it 2 years) and then taking up something unpaid.

Am I devaluing myself by having 3/4 years working experience on my CV already? I could go for one in the summer but I also want to travel alot in the summer.

whitewing

What target do you have to hit?

stevemLS

Probably not, internships seem to be the only way to get experience these days and you have already said that you have no experience other than retail.

GA7_2

whitewing wrote: »

What target do you have to hit?

That I do not know yet. If I don't hit them, obviously it would be just expenses paid.

theoretica

What training and development will you be getting? Will you be able to shadow people to important meetings and learn more about different areas of the business? Work on major projects? A good internship can be amazingly valuable. A poor company trying to get around the minimum wage can be a waste of your time.

Armorica

It depends on the sector. Free internships are very common in some, not in others.

TBagpuss

theoretica wrote: »

What training and development will you be getting? Will you be able to shadow people to important meetings and learn more about different areas of the business? Work on major projects? A good internship can be amazingly valuable. A poor company trying to get around the minimum wage can be a waste of your time.

This is key. If you are an intern, I would expect you to be learning about the business and having the opportunity to get experience in different areas. I would not expect you to have 'targets' as it's hard to see what you would be doing to achieve them - the point of internships not being paid is that the company is not expecting to get much 'money's worth' out f you because you are gaining experience and insight, rather than stating at an entry level position and working.

So ask about what exactly you are going to be doing, think about what would be useful *to you* and push to spend at least some of your time doing that. It's not unreasonable to do some work (they will be spending time explaining things to you, after all) but an internship ought to be about learning, not about giving free labour.

That said, think about how useful it will be to you to be able to say that you have done this internship - is it likely to jeopardise your chances for permanent jobs in your filed if you don't do it, or something similar?

GA7_2

theoretica wrote: »

What training and development will you be getting? Will you be able to shadow people to important meetings and learn more about different areas of the business? Work on major projects? A good internship can be amazingly valuable. A poor company trying to get around the minimum wage can be a waste of your time.

It's hard for me to say/gauge this early on. It's in a marketing role so they are helping me learn about marketing and I've so far been involved in their B2B marketing presentation and adjusting it. I've also done alot of market research to find prospective clients to meet. So I don't know really, it's been good so far although it's quite intensive

GA7_2

TBagpuss wrote: »

This is key. If you are an intern, I would expect you to be learning about the business and having the opportunity to get experience in different areas. I would not expect you to have 'targets' as it's hard to see what you would be doing to achieve them - the point of internships not being paid is that the company is not expecting to get much 'money's worth' out f you because you are gaining experience and insight, rather than stating at an entry level position and working.

So ask about what exactly you are going to be doing, think about what would be useful *to you* and push to spend at least some of your time doing that. It's not unreasonable to do some work (they will be spending time explaining things to you, after all) but an internship ought to be about learning, not about giving free labour.

That said, think about how useful it will be to you to be able to say that you have done this internship - is it likely to jeopardise your chances for permanent jobs in your filed if you don't do it, or something similar?

Funny you post this. My role centres around targets. If you read my previous reply I have been involved in other things and it sounds like I will be involved in different things but my main role is to research, find, contact and meet with clients and pitch the product to them. Once I have their details I pass it on to somebody else who communicates further to develop B2B relationship. It's kind of like selling I guess.

So I don't know - is that right or wrong?

Running_On_Empty

Discuss this issue with your university's careers staff. They are experts in this type of question and will definitely have been asked this before.

bristol_pilot

In some sectors doing an unpaid internship is just about the only way to get a start, in others it is unheard of. From the little you have posted about this role and company, I'd be concerned that they are just using you as cheap labour especially as it's a start-up and it's not clear that there will be that many seasoned professionals around for you to learn from. On a CV, paid employment always looks better than an internship for the same role, so if you're just going to be flogging stuff you may as well get paid for it and it will look better on your CV. On the other hand if it's an internship shadowing Richard Branson that's another matter. Really, so much depends on the sector and the specifics.

Getting students and graduates to sell stuff in the streets on a commission-only basis and calling it 'marketing' has been going on for years and there is still a steady stream of mugs who keep falling for it. Maybe the new twist is to call it an 'internship'