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You might be wondering what is the next step after you complete your graduation. For many, it is a confusing situation. Some might plan to look for the job and others might be interested in starting their own business. The day after you complete your graduation, you have to put yourself in the position of the treasure hunter who is searching for the opportunity to get money. Your family might be expecting you to start earning from your skill. The majority of the student may choose to join some company to begin their career. However, finding the job in the corporate might not that easy when there are many experienced people out there in the city. In such a competitive world, the only way to get a quick job is to join as an unpaid intern and start gaining the experience in your field. The internship has many branches attached to it. You can join the companies or find the individual expert near your location and work with the expert as their assistant. The unpaid internship is a great choice to learn more about your field by being with the expert in your industry. The experience and working culture will help you to understand how the industry works. Although the unpaid internship program looks exciting in the beginning, you need to understand the things can go in any direction after you join the company or the individual expert in your region. You should prepare for all kinds of challenges and difficult circumstances that you may have to face while working as an unpaid intern. Here are some of the experience, the student had while working as an unpaid intern. Not all are great, but it is interesting to see how they manage themselves.
Note: Some names used in the below stories are changed to preserve anonymity. Martha, 24 In my unpaid internship experience, I had an excellent time for the first few months. By profession, I am a lawyer, and I join the law firm to gain more knowledge about my field. The company hired me immediately and started me assigning the task from the first day itself. For the first few months, I was so excited about the job. I got to learn many things by taking the meetings and interacting with the experienced lawyers in the company. It was a dream come true situation for me. After a few months of the internship, the excitement level started dwindling. I realised I am obtaining a good knowledge about the process, but the job is lacking monetary benefit. Without financial support, it is hard to stay focused on the given task. The money suddenly started bothering me. You get the same amount of work every day that you have to complete on deadline and in return, you are not getting paid. I think this is the worst part of the unpaid internship. It feels great for the first few months, but after that, you start concerning about the time and hard work that you are putting into your job. Tim, 23
For me, the unpaid internship was a nightmare. I am a professional video editor. I decided to work for the video editing expert who I found online while surfing on Facebook. I saw the past work of this guy online, and it made me feel to work with him for a while as an unpaid intern to learn more from him. I contacted him, and he gave a positive response to my proposal. He used to work at his small studio located in my city. The first few days were fantastic. I got to operate different types of video editing software, got to learn more about the lighting, and how the studio works in reality. I was so excited to go every day to the studio and take part in the different kinds of projects. After a few weeks, everything changed. The guy started assigning his task to me. He used to ask me to pick his 9 years old child from the nearby school, get groceries from the store, go with him to meet people where he used to use me to carry his bag and other stuff. The things started falling dramatically, and I began to lose my interest in the internship. I was not expecting that my unpaid internship experience will turn into a nightmare for me. Nancy, 24 I wanted to become a personal secretary. To learn more about the job I joined the company as an unpaid intern. The early days were quite comfortable. You don't get many tasks, and you spend most of the time surfing the web on your desktop, no one is bothering you. It was very peaceful at the beginning, and I started liking the environment. I am glad that I found the company where my boss stays out of the city all the time. When your boss is consistently travelling, you do not get much interaction with the boss. As a result, less task on your desk and little management. However, not all days are the same. On someday, you will be flooded with various kinds of task, such as meeting scheduling, preparing meeting agenda, routine checks, etc. I believe this is the part of the job and it is going to stay that way, so I accepted it. I was thrilled with my experience working as an unpaid intern. I got to learn how the corporate secretary works and what type of task you have to manage while working. I continued the job after completing my internship tenure and join as the full-time employee at the firm. I am still working for the company and happy with the work environment.