Fresh College Grads: Get Real-World Experience With a Job Training Program - Essay Sample

Introduction

College students and graduates are hired in companies where they are to obtain experience in work. They are fresh from college where they only have theoretical knowledge and not practical skills of the jobs they are supposed to carry out. Hiring these individuals in a company is taken as a way to help them gain experience rather than working fully for the firm. The company considers itself working to meet their career goals and they are designed to provide job training only. Thus, to them, it is that they are actually helping out the individual and it is right for them to pay low salary wages to the students and graduates because they have no experience. However, there are rights for these college students and graduates where they are entitled to national minimum wages as they work for firms.

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It is essential to gain work experience more so because it is crucial in getting a graduate job. College students are exploring professions that interest them in that it may increase their chances of a graduate job with employers if it is a big organization (Barreiro, 2018). The common and obvious perception in the employment sector is that employers tend to take on the economics of unpaid internships because they are desperate for cheap work.

The workers are also desperate for anything such that they are willing to negotiate their wages down to zero. It is not right that students and graduates be paid low salaries because they are providing their best in the workplace where they can.

Under the laws existing in the world today, it is illegal for employers not to pay workers which include the interns (Repa & Guerin 2014). They need to be paid the minimum wages because they are investing their time to work in the company. College in recent days is rather expensive and it would only be fair if the students spend to get paid when they are in their long holidays.

A graduate has already undergone the internship period which was a requirement for them to graduate hence deserve pay for the job done. The cost to move to an environment of work where there is no money tends to eliminate quite a number of individuals because they cannot afford to gain experience and still survive on nothing because of low wages and other cases of no pay.

The minimum wage prescribed for the workers is supposed to take care of their essentials but employers offer low salaries in the name of helping them gain experience. The laws also dictate that the employers do not have to pay their interns if the nature of the time they spend at the workplace can be defined in a certain way.

It is thus important for the employees to know their rights before getting into any kinds of internships or work experience. Employers are required to pay the national minimum wage if:

There is the promise of a future work contract with the intern- if the college student is promised that the company will consider a work contract with them, the employer is required to pay the national minimum wage to them.

The intern is counted as a worker. The things that make one a worker, whether a college student or a graduate include having a contract whether written or verbal and being required to turn up even when you do not want to. If the student or graduate counts as a worker in the company and not other events of gaining experience or college prescription, there is a need for the employer to pay them.

However, there are other instances when the employer does not have to pay the intern the minimum wage set by the nation (Barreiro, 2018). These are such as if:

The student or graduate is only considered to be work-shadowing. If they are only observing an employee do their work and not necessarily carrying out the work themselves, the employer is not entitled to pay them for anything. Actually, it is the company that is doing them a favor to gain some experience from them.

The college student is required to do an internship which will be part of the higher education course. In many cases, college students are required to do an internship for three months in a company that offers such opportunities. In that case, the firm is not entitled to pay them as it is part of their education and it is to help them train on the jobs they have interest in before their main course jobs.

The graduate or college student is working for a charity or voluntary organization. In this case, the student may be receiving limited expenses such as food and also travel. This way, the employer needs not to pay such a worker.

However, in the event that they are receiving money that cannot be regarded as reimbursement of the expenses, it will count as payment and the employer will then need to pay them the national minimum wage.

The reason why it is wrong to pay extremely low salaries to these college students and graduates is that it amounts to exploitation. It is very unfair for the employer to continue benefiting from workers when they do not pay for the work being done. It is ridiculous that a company will give an excuse for providing experience to the individual so that they will not pay for work done.

The employers are getting free labor to utilize the skills which are not the right of employees (Yamada, 2002). A good instance is where a college student is taking a photography class and acquires the skill necessary to do jobs in that field. Majority of these students work during the long holidays, mostly summer. In the event that they will get a job at a photography firm, the employers will be making use of their skills to produce great content.

If it was the company giving instructions to a complete amateur, there would be value added and no need for pay. However, the requirements are that the skill of photography is needed to get even an internship in the first place. There will be no point in learning the skill then use it for no gains. It is thus wrong for the student or graduate to pay to gain the skills and work for free. It is exploitive to have to pay low wages to the technical abilities being provided.

There is also the reason that low wages for the students and graduates have an impact in that they are barriers to social mobility. It is to mean that it will be unfair for the ones from wealthier backgrounds can benefit from the unpaid internships while there are so many others who cannot afford it. There are many of them struggling to keep up with the daily routines of work with less or no pay because the families are not able to support them financially as they work.

The nature of economics in the present days is that people value what they pay for more so for employers. If a company has a financial investment in an employee such as paying them salaries, they will be more inclined to gaining full returns on that investment. The employers expect that the employees will provide their maximum productivity in terms of their output for the company.

The employers will thus be keen to differentiate the committed interns and the lackluster ones. That way, they will show no real interest in the professional development of the individual and any personal growth; hence they do not pay for the job done. However, if they are providing payments, they totally have an interest in this particular worker. In the corporate environment, interns are seen to take all the risk while there is absolutely no risk taken by the employees.

Low wages and unpaid internships have been the order of the day and it has been considered the new entry-level position (Alemanno, Feuerstein, Khuong, Yazgi, & Morrow, 2017). The companies are offering to give experience concerning certain positions in the companies such as accounting and procurement and in return get free labor from the worker, who in this case is the student or college graduate.

College students and graduates are on the side that they will take on the chance to do unpaid jobs if they will help them get their dream graduate jobs and they have the means to achieve their careers (Grant-Smith & McDonald 2018). Most firms ask for experience from the job applicants for the workers to get their first job. This way, the students and graduates will prefer to work for free for some time before they can get a job.

One could consider doing a short period of unpaid experience in work such a fortnight or a month of they will get something out of it, if it does not break the law and if it is flexible enough to give them time to do other important things like studying.

College students and graduates should consider good internships where they will benefit fully. The recruiting of the interns should be through open adverts same as employees, they need to be given full responsibility and diversity in work, should have appropriate induction, interns need to have mentors and at the end, the firm needs to provide the intern with a reference letter ((Alemanno et al., 207).

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is not permissible for a company to hire college students and graduates who are without experience and pay them a low salary. Workers should be aware of their rights and firms should be considerate of the technical abilities and skills that they are gaining from the particular individual. More experience in a career can be gained through volunteering, participating in extracurricular activities, doing part-time jobs and temp work among others. Paid and unpaid internships are not the only ways to gain relevant experience for one to draw on in their graduate job applications.

References

Alemanno, A., Feuerstein, B., Khuong, K., Yazgi, E., & Morrow, P. (2017). The Problem of Unpaid Internships: Legal Guide to Complaints Under the European Social Charter (No. 1233). HEC Paris.

Barreiro, S. (2018). Your Rights in the Workplace. Nolo.

Grant-Smith, D., & McDonald, P. (2018). Planning to work for free: Building the graduate employability of planners through unpaid work. Journal of Youth Studies, 21(2), 161-177.

Repa, B. K., & Guerin, L. (2014). Your rights in the workplace. Nolo.

Yamada, D. C. (2002). The employment law rights of student interns. Conn. L. Rev., 35, 215.