Internship employment status?

[cozi]

DD is first year uni and has been offered a 4 week summer internship - not very relevant to her likely future career path, but it's something. There is the option of home working or attending the office in London. She sent me the contract to look over before she signs it and I was surprised to see it was a self-employment contract. She will have to invoice the company at the end of the 4 weeks, and there is a clause about them not paying if no "services" have been provided. There are no minimum hours mentioned. The pay for the 4 weeks is less than what she could earn at her casual job at a sports centre. Does this sound usual or unusual for an internship? I'm concerned they may just be getting some cheap summer labour (and that's assuming they pay up at the end of the 4 weeks).

What sector is the internship in ?

When you say not relevant, is it completely irrelevant? (eg 4 weeks in an accounts office when she wants to work in dentistry is probably pointless, but 4 weeks in an accounts office when she wants to work in marketing might at least offer transferable skills).

With an internship you are looking to build relevant CV skills and network for a future job, either with that organisation or a similar one. So sometimes it is an investment, but that really depends on the quality of the internship and the organisation.

Travelling in to the office is a good plan if (a) the pay makes that cost-effective and (b) there are actually other members of staff there.

Check out the company - is it reputable? Does it have a grad scheme (which would indicate it had a good set-up for bringing in new talent)? Does it have a clearly stated programme for the internship?

She should query in writing (email is fine) whether, if she makes herself available for work on time each day, they will definitely provide paid work. If the answer is it a clear “yes” then in her shoes I would politely reject the offer mentioning that she is looking for guaranteed paid work and cannot afford the risk that they won’t be able to occupy her.

Having any job on your cv is a good thing at this point in your career, and if the internship isn’t relevant then it’s probably not worth the investment of time and the missed opportunity to make decent money.

This sounds a bit dodgy to me! If the company is serious about providing paid internships, why would it not just put her on the payroll? Lots of reputable organisations manage to provide summer internships to students and pay them properly. If the work likely isn't that relevant to her future career plans, I would steer clear of this organisation.

In some industries (for example publishing, TV, that kind of stuff) unpaid or very low paid internships are the standard way in and pretty much the only way in.

In other fields, usually where the aim is higher paid professional jobs such as management consulting, accounting etc, it’s usual to pay a decent salary to interns.

So very sector dependent.

Bottom line is - if she has a better offer, take the better offer, and if she can’t get anything better, do this.

Thanks. It's a marketing/pr company. Seems long established and legitimate, with some big name clients. They recruited her at a careers fair, and it sounds like she applied without much thought as to what it entailed on the grounds that anything is better than nothing. She"s a maths student, aiming for data science/ai/analytics/finance, but this company don't seem to do anything clever with data - just pr, social media, press releases, reputation management etc - and the terms of the contract are an orange flag. It's up to her, but temping might be better.