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Exploitation or education?: Internships become increasingly questionable
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A stepping stone: Young people are competing to get an internship in an attempt to secure a better chance at finding a full-time job. (Unsplash/Jaime Lopes) (Unsplash/Jaime Lopes)
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em>Criticism of internship programs has become the norm; from small companies to large ones, the term now carries a stigma. Is it all bad?
Internships in Indonesia are popular for those looking to embark on a pilgrimage of the so-called “professional” or “executive” aspect of becoming a working, responsible adult.
The terms of internship vary and depending on which expert weighs in, the definition might change. However, the concurring theme is a limited amount of time or period offered by the employer, mostly for students and fresh graduates with little to no professional working experience -- to give them a “taste test” of how a professional working environment could be.
“I signed up for these internships because I saw that it is important to build a lot of experience. I think that going through the internship process will make the process easier for me later when I become a full-time employee,” said Grace, not her real name, a 22-year-old intern from Surabaya, who has been taking internships while waiting for her bachelor's diploma to be officially awarded so that she can apply for full time.
These days, getting a job as a fresh graduate is a tall hurdle. Many companies freeze their recruitment. Twitter account @Ecommurz, which acts as a hub for discourse surrounding corporate gossip, also recently revealed massive layoffs from big-name companies. Young Indonesians are left to choose from applying to fresh graduate vacancies, which sometimes ask for one to two years of working experience, or internship programs.
“Looking at the reality of today's workforce, which requires people with previous experience, it’s a big factor,” Grace said. “This factor also influences us to think that the internship program nowadays is mandatory because, like it or not, we need it so we can compete in the working world.”
According to Nicholas Joy, VP of online investment platform OneAset with eight years of experience in human resources, the reason internship programs are being used so often, by long-standing corporate companies and startups alike, is the benefits they can provide for both parties.
