Internship scheme abuse

tractorist

So I've been checking "jobs.ie" to get a feel of what the job market is like today and found this:

http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1184398
(House of Ireland Web Developer Internship)

Technical Skills:

• At least 3 years' experience in application and web based development
• Excellent knowledge of PHP 5 and MySQL. Strong programming capability and ability to upgrade and maintain back-end functionality
• Online experience of customising open source e-commerce platforms - in particular experience of Magento would be a distinct advantage
• Experience of front-end web design (page layout, promotional images & banners) with portfolio examples
• Strong knowledge of Adobe Creative Suite, especially Photoshop
• Understanding of HTML, CSS, especially in respect of web standards and image presentation, image mapping etc
• Knowledge of XHTML, JavaScript, Ajax, jQuery, JAVA, & open source content management systems would be beneficial
• Web testing experience: usability, security, fixing bugs etc

You should be able to quickly understand the workings of the current OS Commerce based system.

This is not an internship.

There is a big difference between making unemployed people LEARN a new profession on the job
-- AND --
Making already experienced folks work for free!

In my opinion a person taking a "job" like this just pisses in the pool; makes working conditions worse for everybody.

Shame on people who advertise these scams, shame on those who apply, shame on the government for allowing this. Shame on them all! Am I the only person who sees this?

Someone should start a public campaign against internship scheme abuse and stir up the pot. Local employers will use every trick possible to make a quick profit. I've seen all kinds of HR shenanigans even before the recession started and nobody ever gets fined or goes to prison!

Advertising an actual job as internship = your ass goes to jail, employer gets fined.

murphaph

tractorist wrote: »

In my opinion a person taking a "job" like this just pisses in the pool; makes working conditions worse for everybody

I can't amagine a single person with those skills not being able to find a real paying job, so House of Ireland will have few applicants.

I agree with the general sentiment of your post: an internship can be a great way of getting experience. In that sort of work (development) you really are dead weight during the learning phase as the learning curve is usually long and steep but once you learn some skills, you become very useful.

An internship for any job that can be learned inside a week should not be covered by any government sponsored schemes whatsoever as it is just cheap exploitative labour.

user.name

I completely agree with what you are saying. In today's economy, companies like Google are complaining of the lack of IT skilled people in this country. Jobs.ie is flooded with computer based jobs and not many of them require you to have experience in a computer work place, they are only happy if you have the skills for the job.
Anyone would be mad to apply for this. It is abuse of the system, they shouldn't even be allowed advertise that 'internship'.

Cookie_Monster

report it if you have a problem with it, it's the only way it'll get dealt with.

christmas2012

its places like job bridge and fas that create unemployment blackspots,by hogging up , job blocking what could have been a paid job advertised,and its also used to misrepresent dole stats not to mention the huge burden to the tax payer,making SW bill more expensive,one of the reasons we got our dole cut..

StillWaters

I agree that that job spec is totally unrealistic. However I had a meeting recently with a local enterprise park, hosting and metoring micro start up businesses. They had 70 interns/jobbridges of which 50 had led to a paid job, most of which it has to be said were part time.

I think in any-ones books thats a win win, both for the businesses involved, the interns and the economy. I don't know if those stats bear out across the entire scheme of course.

RichardAnd

An internship is a great way to learn but an intern is also useful to the company in that they can be used to do less complicated work thus leaving more experienced workers free for more demanding tasks. Also, taking in a young worker, training them and paying them will result (most of the time) in a loyal and valuable employee. The Jobsbridge places an individual in an environment where they will know that their co-workers are paid whilst they are not and that is a truly odious thing for a person's self confidence and self esteem and will imbue them with bitterness towards the company. I certainly couldn't do that and if I tried, I know I would only become despondent and depressed.

Voluntary work is a great thing but it should never be used in private industry. I find it morally wrong for a profitable company to have interns that they do not pay for themselves, a situation made all the worse by the state subsidising the act. In my opinion, the realm of volunteering should be that to which the word "volunteer" is traditionally taken to apply. By this, I mean helping the elderly, the poor, animals or any other area where aid might be lent. Helping another for no reward other than the pleasure of lending aid is a truly wonderful feeling and to me, scheme like this only pervert such a thing.

Delancey

The Jobridge Internship scheme was meant to never displace ' real ' jobs , on that basis alone it's a disaster.

[Jackass]

murphaph wrote: »

I can't amagine a single person with those skills not being able to find a real paying job, so House of Ireland will have few applicants.

Sadly, you'd be wrong, as someone who works in a different industry, with over 5 years experience, supervisor and management experience, good degree in related field, two diplomas and great references and taking on a second specialised degree, I can't even get a job cleaning an office, never mind working in one.

You'd be amazed how qualified the people serving your big mac are these days.

I agree with the OP that there is a big difference in looking to take advantage of people out of work - and these ads are a dime a dozen and wouldn't be there unless they get filled by the type of people they're looking for, mainly because they might look for the offer of staying on as a paid employee, maybe getting a "thank you" paynebt at the end, or trying to keep their CV recent and relevant and get a good reference - and the proper adverts of looking for a mutually beneficial scheme, where you get a free employee to help complete tasks in exchange for investing some time in training them into a new skill and giving them experience in it.

It's a terrible abuse of vunerable and desperate people and I do believe strong guidelines and a watch dog should be introduced.

IRISHREDSTAR

The internship could only ever work in the short term and if the Goverment had done more to create jobs it is pointless without job creation.
If the European and world economies began to a huge tiger style rally tomorrow it would have very little difference on the Irish economy. Yet this seems to be the plan the only plan our great leaders have, to hope things pick up elsewhere so we might get some investment and our young people would have place to emigrate to. We need to solve our own problems no Chinese, US, euro help is coming. (If we leave out the banker’s and public spending) We all have idea’s to create jobs.
Yet the Government of Ireland has done sod all
Why do workers in Ireland work 20% more hours than the Germans, why so much overtime in Ireland apart from reducing the working week and adding some more holiday’s (which would end unemployment overnight) a special tax on overtime could greatly reduce unemployment.
And this would make the workforce more productive overnight we get a lot more work from two people working 6 hours each than one working 12 hours. And of course overall we could then pay less tax.

Reduce working Hours to create jobs

tractorist

One would expect a business in a first world country to pay a living wage to its employees. That's just my opinion.

NoelJ

This scheme has been a complete disaster. As a recent graduate who has moved away, the internships have resulted in people having to work for one year as an intern just to get the job instead of someone just being employed directly as a graduate. The scheme is being abused in order to have free labour for the business.

I can understand the internship schemes during University summers but these jobs are being taken by actual graduates now which is ridiculous. If they need this person to run their business then they should employ them.

poeticseraphim

tractorist wrote: »

So I've been checking "jobs.ie" to get a feel of what the job market is like today and found this:

http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1184398
(House of Ireland Web Developer Internship)

This is not an internship.

There is a big difference between making unemployed people LEARN a new profession on the job
-- AND --
Making already experienced folks work for free!

In my opinion a person taking a "job" like this just pisses in the pool; makes working conditions worse for everybody.

Shame on people who advertise these scams, shame on those who apply, shame on the government for allowing this. Shame on them all! Am I the only person who sees this?

Someone should start a public campaign against internship scheme abuse and stir up the pot. Local employers will use every trick possible to make a quick profit. I've seen all kinds of HR shenanigans even before the recession started and nobody ever gets fined or goes to prison!

Advertising an actual job as internship = your ass goes to jail, employer gets fined.

This scheme supposedly is to be expanded. From what you have posted it appears to need more rigorous conditions and enforcements.

Apparantly many disabilty organisations hate jobridge as it does not allow those who are on disability allowance to take part. Which is a shame as i think many people there would benefit as they suffer discrimination and stereoptyping and having experience on their c.v may hep dispell that.


But unionised professions tend to cause less social mobilty and it it is hard to see how one could generate the power to make changes on this level of the private sector.

Aistí have had concerns about tne abuse of the scheme http://www.asti.ie/pay-and-conditions/conditions-of-work/internship-jobbridge/


The thing is these people are taken off the live reg (i think) statistics...they get paid by the GOVT to do these jobs...whatever there welfare allowance would be...plus an extra 50 Euro....so the Govt and the taxpayer is being ripped off too. And the dishonest employer gets a free worker (fair enough if it is a genuine internship) and the Govt pays that person an internship allowance. And it looks (figures wise) good.

There are certain terms..the emloyer is not allowed lay anyone off to take on a subsidised worker.

But it is flawed.

tractorist

Long story short the likes of "House of Ireland" make you pay "wages" of employees that they would previously have to hire. But hey it's just the money you paid in taxes; it comes from your pocket. This diminishes the overall quality of life for everyone, but who cares anyway.

Sociopathic corporate pigs that suck the government tit should be publicly exposed for what they are.

I can provide tar and feathers. Bring your own pitchforks. :cool:

Laminations

http://jobbridgetonowhere.tumblr.com/

This blog was great at highlighting sham ads but unfortunately it's gone quiet of late.

StillWaters

IRISHREDSTAR wrote: »

If the European and world economies began to a huge tiger style rally tomorrow it would have very little difference on the Irish economy.

I'm curious as to why you say that, I would think it's the opposite with us being an open economy.

tractorist

The state has nothing to gain from making sure employers don't abuse the job bridge scheme. In fact the more crooked businesses fill in positions with slave interns the prettier government figures look like! What I see here is an obvious conflict of interest. It's like making a fox guard the hen house.

The most effective way of dealing with this type of abuse is exposing it publicly. House of Ireland pulled the ad now.

Just in case here it is again in its full glory. Attached as PDF to this post. Pure scam. Captured.

Stheno

[Jackass] wrote: »

Sadly, you'd be wrong, as someone who works in a different industry, with over 5 years experience, supervisor and management experience, good degree in related field, two diplomas and great references and taking on a second specialised degree, I can't even get a job cleaning an office, never mind working in one.

IT is a very different monster, someone with those skills would be either incredibly lazy, or terribly unskilled at what they do to be unemployed.

Chancers on that ad in my opinion.

RichardAnd

Stheno wrote: »

IT is a very different monster, someone with those skills would be either incredibly lazy, or terribly unskilled at what they do to be unemployed.

Not necessarily. I work in IT and I have about 3 years of experience yet I was let go from my job a few months ago for no real fault of mine but rather, as a result of "strategic downsizing", as I was told at the time. Now I did get a new job within a few weeks but still, that could have been pure luck so my opinion is that anyone can loose their job.

Dave!

^I don't think it's luck that got you a job soon after losing one. Anyone can lose a job for sure, but the IT industry is still ticking along at the moment and there are plenty of vacancies, so if you have good experience and relevant skills then you're pretty likely to find something relatively quickly. Nobody with the skills requested in this Jobbridge ad needs to take an internship, they should be paid by the employer.

jimmycrackcorm

I have to suspect that the OP advert is actually a lazy hr publishing the standard of type of job spec for an internship.

I cannot believe that anyone with those qualifications would have to work for free so it must be a mistake!

pseudofax

Dave! wrote: »

^I don't think it's luck that got you a job soon after losing one. Anyone can lose a job for sure, but the IT industry is still ticking along at the moment and there are plenty of vacancies, so if you have good experience and relevant skills then you're pretty likely to find something relatively quickly. Nobody with the skills requested in this Jobbridge ad needs to take an internship, they should be paid by the employer.

Got any hard evidence to back this up, or does conjecture qualify as evidence to you

jimmycrackcorm

pseudofax wrote: »

Got any hard evidence to back this up, or does conjecture qualify as evidence to you

My company has expanded IT recently. I conducted some of the interviews and was told not to waste any time moving to second round interviews because good candidates would be snapped up within days.

tractorist

tractorist wrote: »

So I've been checking "jobs.ie" to get a feel of what the job market is like today and found this:

http://www.jobs.ie/ApplyForJob.aspx?Id=1184398
(House of Ireland Web Developer Internship)

This is not an internship.

There is a big difference between making unemployed people LEARN a new profession on the job
-- AND --
Making already experienced folks work for free!

In my opinion a person taking a "job" like this just pisses in the pool; makes working conditions worse for everybody.

Shame on people who advertise these scams, shame on those who apply, shame on the government for allowing this. Shame on them all! Am I the only person who sees this?

Someone should start a public campaign against internship scheme abuse and stir up the pot. Local employers will use every trick possible to make a quick profit. I've seen all kinds of HR shenanigans even before the recession started and nobody ever gets fined or goes to prison!

Advertising an actual job as internship = your ass goes to jail, employer gets fined.

Just because they advertise the internship does not mean that it's going to be filled. If you're stupid enough to take on a project like that for 50quid a week, then that's your own problem.

pseudofax

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

My company has expanded IT recently. I conducted some of the interviews and was told not to waste any time moving to second round interviews because good candidates would be snapped up within days.

Conjecture tbh. I've known people to operate a business from a garage aswell. Politics, not pure skill determines who gets a job in most large organisations. I've seen enough of it to pretend otherwise.

Manach

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

My company has expanded IT recently. I conducted some of the interviews and was told not to waste any time moving to second round interviews because good candidates would be snapped up within days.

Somewhat similar within the org. I'm working in.

rodento

tractorist wrote: »

The state has nothing to gain from making sure employers don't abuse the job bridge scheme. In fact the more crooked businesses fill in positions with slave interns the prettier government figures look like! What I see here is an obvious conflict of interest. It's like making a fox guard the hen house.

The most effective way of dealing with this type of abuse is exposing it publicly. House of Ireland pulled the ad now.

Just in case here it is again in its full glory. Attached as PDF to this post. Pure scam. Captured.

They'd be mad to get an intern to design their website

Degsy

NoelJ wrote: »

the internships have resulted in people having to work for one year as an intern just to get the job instead of someone just being employed directly as a graduate..

Yes..its called "work experience"...whats the point in hiring somebody straight from college who knows diddly squat about how the real world works?

I sort CV's like this..Ten postgrad qualifications,never actually worked...straight in the bin.

One year's experience(or a summers worth)in the relevant field (or maybe just worked in a shop over the summer)..called for interview.

RichardAnd

pseudofax wrote: »

Got any hard evidence to back this up, or does conjecture qualify as evidence to you

What is collectively know as the "IT industry" is doing well here, for now. However, what many people do not know and what many state officials continually do not grasp is that IT is a vastly broad concept.

If you look on IrishJobs and limit you search to "IT", you will get back a great many openings and I would wager that most of them would be real positions, and not simply agencies or time wasters. The untrained eye would stop here and adduce their findings to the support of the good old adage "Shure that's where the jobs are now!" This is true, but only in a certain light.

If one looks at the prerequisites for the said jobs, the truth of the matter will come to light. One job might require 3+ years of php experience, another 4+ years of Java experience and yet another might need Oracle certification and a few years of database experience. Each of these positions would indeed fall under the label of "IT" but each is in fact, a totally different job requiring a very different set of skills. Thus, we arrive at the conclusion that of the thousands of IT positions available, an individual might only find a handful that would suit his skills and experience.

What I'm getting at is that the IT industry is not a place wherein a person is assured of finding employment. With the right skills, you're laughing but if you're highly specialised and have alot of esoteric experience, you might be in trouble. Still, I'd rather be an unemployed programmer than an out of work brickie at the moment . . .

Degsy

RichardAnd wrote: »

Still, I'd rather be an unemployed programmer than an out of work brickie at the moment . . .

But both are on the dole...what difference does it make?

RichardAnd

Degsy wrote: »

But both are on the dole...what difference does it make?

Whilst they are on the dole, very little difference. However, the potential to be employed as a good programmer is many, many times greater than it would be for a brick layer. Both are skilled jobs but it's all about demand.