The New Scam: Hiring The Unemployed For Unpaid Work

Seriously, I don't know what to make of this one:

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-old-interns-20110315,0,583984.story?track=rss

I know of a few folks that have gone through unpaid internships and one turned into a full time job with decent pay and bennies.

I expect to see a lot more of this, especially when reports come out saying a shortage of skilled workers in some fields.

Id have no problem working as an intern and gaining the skills I would need to successfully do the job while still getting unemployment benefits.

As far as working for free..Not going to happen after being out of work long term.

I feel that more programs like this would be beneficial at getting us back to work, provided that we continue to receive unemployment benefits till the company brings us on FT.

I think it's cheap on the part of companies because they could always claim that they have no open positions.

It's a scam and I posted an article like this last year on the original UF. It used to be that you did an internship in college to get experience in that field. The thinking was then you had something to put on your resume to show experience in your field and it was supposed to help. Sometimes it did, sometimes not.

However, it's out of control. I would do an internship to gain experience in a new field, and I would do something like this for a non profit. In fact I am going to start volunteering at church for the CCD program. Then I get experience plus gives me something to do. Not to mention that church is only about 5 blocks away and I can walk in nice weather. I would also do volunteering for animal shelters and things like that. I am not going to volunteer for a field I have experience in for a company just so it MIGHT help me. It usually doesn't pay off then the company gets rid of me anyway.

I always see this scam on Craigslist and even the legit job sites. One was a law firm looking for "intern admin assistants", another was a PR firm looking for "intern marketing specialists". I've been approached to do free work for companies and they "may consider me for a position". Yeah right.