Internships

Yes, they really have got their wires crossed over this. The formal paid holiday schemes of the City and milk round recruitment with on line assessment and then interviews and days of exercises are designed to weed out those who aren't up to it. They are fairly fair ways of testing and the Govenrment should be patting that sector on the back for doing it so well rather than coming out with statements that are simply untrue.

In sectors where the very bright are in high demand and wages are high it's a different market than that for graduares who want to work in an auction house or do journalism or fashion where the work if you ever end up paid isn't usually that well paid anyway.

However the issue of connections is an interesting one and the problem for children with low expectations not even knowing certain jobs apply is a problem. They need to know early because if they've no good exam results and no social skills you cannot sort that out at 18.

Lego- Agree, it's still a choice. It's not mandatory.

I just think this whole internship thing is a bit of a non-issue tbh. I have no idea why they decided to make such a big deal out of it.

As Xenia says, "internships" are definitely not the only way into a job.

Unless things has changed drastically in the last 3 yrs, most unpaid long term internships (i.e. more than just shadowing for a few weeks) exist in competitive but not especially well paid fields- politics, advertising, the media, journalism, publishing and not in the very well paid sectors that Clegg is targeting. The fact that you have to do these jobs unpaid to get the experience should probably tell the wannabes something about those sectors- ie that it's an employer's market. That's not necessarily a bad lesson.

Internships are not needed for most jobs. Although some professions recruit from paid vacation schemes, there still exists the milkround where graduates are recruited from students. Of course if you've managed to get some work experience as a student that will help and in today's market even the best graduates are finding it hard to get any job but plenty of jobs don't have requirements for months of unpaid work before you are hired.

and, back to the original point about internships...when i left school i had never heard of them. it was a'levels or job.

after a'levels it was work or university.
i took a year out, but there was no way my parents would have supported me financially for a year to do an internship, even if i had known they existed. i worked in a pub and gave my mum money for food. i was lucky she had the spare bedroom. there will be in the future, and now, lots of families who cannot support their older children through an internship or even have a room for them sleep in [especially with new rules on housing benefit].

the whole thing is a joke. what they say[yet again] is at complete odds with what they do. there they go again, taking us all for suckers. who buys this nonsense.

But the point is, insert1X50p, that people are not 'forced' into joining a union when they are teachers. Also, it's been noted that Gove has made cock up after cock up with funding for education.

Wouldn't it be the case though, that as a teacher it makes sense to be in a Union because if you were suspended on an unfounded allegation, the Union would back you and pay your legal fees?

(that might not be true - just my understanding of it)

I will 2nd that Earthworm! I know working teachers who are not in any union. Also, I don't know any rubbish teachers .

Mdavza, it is not compulsory for a teacher to be a union member; as a union rep, how can you not know this?

As bagged says the City has formal schemes which are blind to social class. The vacation schemes for the bar and other lawyers are paid. Here is one £265 a week - year we offer 65 vacancies across our winter and summer programmes. We pay our vacation students £250 per week.

Politics is diffferent and journalism is one of the worst - they don't have paid schemes open to all from which they recruit most graduates unlike other professions.

Most parents in all classes seek to help their children. Many a builder or plumber has got his son or daughter into that. We certainly don't want to stop that. We have a temporary problem that there are masses of graduates and no jobs for most of them which makes everything harder at present. These times will pass.

Yes, being a member of a union has never been a choice, when you become a teacher you have to join a union 'for your own safety' of course (in case a child accuse you of something etc.) And I am the first one in line to say sack the poor teachers, and there are loads of them, hiding behind unions, human rights and now, in Scotland, CfE.

mdavza You mean to say that teachers are being forced into being members of a union, even if they do not wish to be?

How sinister.

It makes me even more proud of Michael Gove's achievements in neutering the teaching unions, thereby unleashing opportunity and possibility to millions of children.

Er, longfingernails, I'm a teacher and as far as I know I'm not allowed to be a teacher without being a member of a Union? In fact I'm a union rep at the moment (highly glamorous job) and I tell you, when it comes down to the bare facts, we really, really don't have much of a say.

It is somewhat ironic that the practice of unpaid/unadvertised internships is most common in politics.

Most big companies run summer placement schemes/grad schemes which they advertise on their website, have a formal application process and are paid, so not an issue. This also includes most of the banks, who NC decided to target. This has been the case for decades.

Then of course there are informal, unpaid internships which are more likely to be through contacts but as someone already mentioned, these are usually more akin to work shadowing, and a personal favour. Those type of arrangements are never going to be formalised- they will just disappear.

eg if DH said "My friend's son wants to follow me around for a few weeks for nothing. Is that ok?" his HR department would probably grumble and then maybe agree. He's not going to wake up and say "I know, just to make life harder, I'll advertise for someone to follow me around at work for 2 weeks and pay them"

I a bit on the fence about internships realy, main reason being, my husband followed someone around for a couple of months and was offered a full time job from it! He had one day every week off, with his then job as it involved working weekends, and he approached a firm (through a business contact) to offer himself for free, on a trial basis, as he wanted a change of direction. I know its slightly different, as he did have a full time job at the same time.

His company get a lot of letters from unemployed people in his line of work offering themselves for free, and they have just taken some one on, as they are moving offices later this year and will be recruiting. So come November that person will be getting a full time job, where as the other option was weekly job club!

"Democratically accountable and democratically elected politicians make decisions on behalf of the public. If a public sector worker feels hard done by, they can publicise their case through our free media, and ultimately, by standing for election themselves, making their case to the public. If the public disagrees, then why should the public sector be immune from the public will?"

No lfn you ARE Chris Morris, aren't you? You're a weird one. I oscillate between thinking you're a loon and then thinking you're a brilliant satirist. Come on talons, fess up. Which is it???????

newwave They are sadly inevitable consequences of Labour's actions.

You blame the Tories (and probably the Lib Dems) because they are having to take these actions.

Instead, you should be blaming Labour for getting us into the positions where those actions have to be taken. There has been a structural deficit since 2003. If Gordon Brown had run a surplus in the boom years instead of wasting so much public money, it could have cushioned the bust. Instead, he thought he had abolished boom and bust, and borrowed and borrowed and borrowed.

There is no alternative. We have seen what happens when governments lose control of their finances in Greece and Portugal. Thank heavens we have pulled back from the brink of national bankruptcy.

Cutting benefits and cutting public sector headcount will lead to more jobs, longer-term.

This is because the ideal public sector proportion of GDP is probably around 20-35%. In Britain it is well over 50% if you include PFI, because of Labour's borrowing-fuelled spending binge.

If we get public spending down, we will get borrowing down in the short term, and taxes down in the long term. Low taxes create an environment where entrepreneurs can thrive.

glasnost Why? Democratically accountable and democratically elected politicians make decisions on behalf of the public. If a public sector worker feels hard done by, they can publicise their case through our free media, and ultimately, by standing for election themselves, making their case to the public. If the public disagrees, then why should the public sector be immune from the public will?

I think thats because everyone who isnt a millionaire is the same to them? Everyone is pretty scummy in their eyes, unless you got an 'off shore'.

newwave You do realise that the number of jobs is not constant, right? Wealth and jobs can be created by entrepreneurs.

It would be interesting to see how many sacked community outreach officers, diversity co-ordinators and five-a-day consultants set up their own company. I don't think most of them even know the meaning of self-motivation and entrepreneurship.

It will be set by heads according to the bottom line. Merit will have nothing to do with it.