Would you participate in an unpaid internship?
With help from the rad dudes at Streamtime, Andy Wright and Paddy Morgan - Outfit recently hosted the first community-driven Never Not Creative event in Brisbane, furthering the discussion around internships.
There was a great turnout of attendees from freelancers, employees and business owners, each offering their thoughts and perspectives. The event kicked off with guests writing their experiences from both sides of the discussion: hiring an intern and taking an internship.
After some introductions and a short discussion, we broke off into separate groups to discuss internship pros and cons. It was a robust discussion, and refreshing to see each person taking on board a view different to theirs - employees and employers openly discussing the advantages and roadblocks of both paid and unpaid internships.
Where to from here?
The results from the posters clearly show that there is a risk and reward for both employers and interns. While we won’t solve all the problems within the industry overnight, we can take action today. By making small changes and openly discussing current issues we can improve employment standards while offering invaluable experiences to those entering the workplace.
Do
- Value your work and stand up for what you’re worth
- Discuss clear objectives and end goals
- Set a date for the length of the internship
- Ask questions when you are not sure
- Speak up if it is affecting your mental health
Don't
- Take internships that are using you to do menial day-to-day tasks - an internship should build your working knowledge
- Let businesses use you for work they are getting paid for
- Don’t undersell yourself
Also a big thanks to Matt Haynes from The Design Conference for supplying pizza and beer for the event.
Pre-sale tickets for next year’s conference go on sale the first week in December, with the lineup announced Monday 5 November.
Never Not Creative Pledge
The Never Not Creative Pledge is available now to reinforce and shape how we work in the design community. The work to produce the final Creatives Pledge was a phenomenal community effort and worth reading through to chart the journey.
To find out more information head over to nevernotcreative.org, and search ‘Never Not Creative’ on Facebook to join the discussion.
