If you work in a role adjacent to young people’s careers, you often receive requests from organisations wanting you to spread the word about internships, courses or work experience. Many requests are legitimate and I’m happy to help when I can.
Many are not.
Many are trying to get me to promote an unpaid job, dressed up as an “opportunity”. I imagine some such opportunities have been rejected by job sites and or perhaps their unwillingness to pay their workers extend to an unwillingness to pay to advertise their illegal employment practices.
I got one the other day from a “music agency” in South London. Here – with redactions to preserve their blushes and a couple of edits to quote directly from the accompanying poster – it is:
Hey
REF: INTERNSHIP OPPORTUNITY FOR YOUR YOUNG PEOPLE
We are happy to announce that applications are now open for our June-July 2026 Internship with [REDACTED], Founder at [REDACTED] – for music students and graduates, entrepreneurs, freelancers and self-employed.
Internship Summary: 2 months / 9 Weeks, Every Wednesday, at [REDACTED], 12pm-6pm
Job Title: ‘Music Promotions Assistant’
Job Role: Assist in promoting the assets (artists) of the company
Internship Outcomes and Learnings:
- job reference from us for life
- knowing how to research
- building and managing databases
- connecting with stakeholders
- planning and strategising
- knowing how to have business relationships
- achieving business and personal objectives
- supporting and helping company, team and personal growth
- taking orders, following instructions and being cooperative
- working alone and in a team
- but most importantly, intern gets work experience
Interns will require:
- Laptop or Desktop Computer
- Microsoft Office; Word, PowerPoint, Excel – Offline version
- Internet access
- Access to email
- Note book and pen
- A desire to break into the booking agent space
- A GOOD ATTITUDE!
Applicants were invited to send a CV. The signature at the bottom of the email boasted of a “UK Enterprise Award”.
That unpaid “internship” saves the company over £550 per person assuming the 18-20 minimum wage rates – or nearly £750 at the London Living Wage. The intern gets no formal qualification, no expenses, no workers’ rights – not even a pen.
I could ignore it. There’s plenty of this sort of exploitation, especially in the creative industries where young people pretty much accept that they will need to work for nothing doing stuff they already know how to do and will be treated badly in order to ‘get a break’. In fact, being given a potentially illegal and abusive ‘opportunity’ is often regarded as landing an exciting shot.
But how does letting it slide help anyone? This agency probably aren’t evil slave drivers. They probably get loads of people begging for a chance and genuinely think they’re doing some young people a good turn by styling their unpaid labour as an internship.
So I decide to respond. Here’s what I wrote:
The role you’re asking me to promote involves set hours, “taking orders, following instructions” and it has a “job title”. There is also clearly a selective recruitment process. In what ways – other than it is appears to be unpaid – is this different from a short-term job?
If it is a job as opposed to clear voluntary work experience (where the volunteer can turn up when they want by agreement and refuse tasks they don’t want to do), then you are legally bound by minimum wage legislation. Even if you can legally justify it as an internship, ethical employers always offer payment (albeit minimum wage) for interns. Unpaid internships are exploitative, especially when they offer no permanent job prospects, no expenses and require the worker to provide their own equipment.
Being an agency in the music industry, I appreciate that you are probably inundated with people willing and wanting to work for free and you may genuinely believe you are creating opportunities while getting free unskilled labour. However, the law on minimum wages exists to stop exploitation and to ensure that everyone, regardless of their ability to work for no salary, experiences at least some fairness when trying to get a break into a competitive industry. In a world where who you know counts for so much, there is already little enough fairness for those who don’t have connections, so these legal protections are really important to stop opportunities being something you can, in effect, buy. Working in the music industry, I’m sure you recognise that.
May I suggest you check with a legal expert whether your “internship opportunity” is legally complaint with labour laws? I fear it isn’t and you may find yourself facing legal penalties or reputational damage in the long run. Instead, you may like to consider:
• Offering a Living Wage salary for the role.
• Establishing an apprenticeship: as a small employer, you will get government support to pay the low wages of apprentices who you can legally instruct, train and expect to “take orders”. You might want to contact a local college and they can probably help you set up an apprenticeship.
• Offering a T level work placement: this is usually 45 days where a young person (usually 16-19) is placed with you by a school or college. Not only does it cost you nothing, you might even get financial support for agreeing to offer a placement. There are a number of relevant T levels (such as marketing).
These three options are all legal, less complicated that they sound and you’ll have the support of professional educators helping you deliver an apprenticeship or T level placement that works for you and for the learner. In years to come people who have gone through the scheme with you will talk about how you helped make their career, which, I trust, is your intention, rather than either talking about how they learned not to be taken advantage of at work or perpetuating the same unfair practices for future generations.
Good luck.
Within a few minutes, I got a response back from the “founder” himself, defending his intentions and track record, but also offering to engage in a chat about “best practices”. I think that’s an invitation I’ll follow up. There are three possible outcomes:
If his unpaid internship is the opportunity he claims, maybe I cal suggest ways he can promote it so that it doesn’t encourage others to exploit young people.
If it’s not, but his intentions are good, I might be able to help him turn it into a genuinely supportive opportunity.
And if he is a modern-day Bounderby who I’ve just scared into thinking he’s about to get exposed and he’s just trying to fob me off, then maybe his bluff will get called.