“Job” Opportunities

~ Clarissa

My colleagues constantly send me “job” opportunities for students. These “jobs” are unpaid, “resume-building” activities. I never share these opportunities with students, however.

I understand that they are adults who can make their own decisions as to whether they want to donate their labor for free. However, I’m also an adult who is entitled to make my own decision. And it is my decision not to participate in this form of exploitative labor practices. 

In the same vein, it has been suggested to me that I can “employ” several unpaid research assistants alongside with my one paid RA. I refused because I’ll be damned if I ever exploit a worker in this way. The way it was explained to me is that spending time with me and learning about my research is already so valuable that students don’t need to be paid for helping me with my research. The good news is that I’m not deluded and self-centered enough to take this approach.

 

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Published by Clarissa

71 thoughts on ““Job” Opportunities”

  1. How do you feel about a semester of student teaching? This is work that not only does not pay, but the student must pay tuition to do it. There is a lot of instruction built into it, of course.

    Yet, it is impossible to get a teacher certification without doing it, at least in this country, as far as I know.

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    1. Between you and me, this is precisely why I keep as far away as possible from having anything to do with training student teachers. I can’t change the state requirements, obviously, but at least I can avoid being part of this.

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  2. As one of those students who hates job hunting because it’s becoming increasingly difficult to sift the paying jobs from the unpaid “experience”, “resume building” or “exposure” jobs, I just want to say, thank you! Seriously.

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    1. I find it absolutely appalling how many such “job” opportunities are cropping up these days. I don’t remember anything of the kind happening even just 10 years ago.

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      1. The Bank of Canada Governor recently suggested that young unemployed people should just work for free.
        Sure, if my rent, groceries, tuition, clothes and toiletries magically become free for me, I might consider it. Currently though? Fuck you for not valuing my labour just because I’m young.

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        1. “The Bank of Canada Governor recently suggested that young unemployed people should just work for free.”

          – What a stupid piece of shit. I think Mr. Poloz should be made to work for free just to show us all an example. It’s not like the public is deriving a lot of good from his work.

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      2. The US department of justice has free interns – they’re mostly first year law students. Most of these opportunities are illegal anyway as they clearly displace paid workers.

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        1. “Maybe all the Asperger’s losers (except yourself, of course) should work for free because they have a so bad personality!”

          – Actually, many people with Asperger’s come off as extremely charming. And if we take a shy, quiet person with low people’s skills, that person will be perfect for an employer who is like that or prefers to be around such people. There is no uniform “bad” or “good” personality. What’s good for me, might be very bad for you. People are different.

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      4. Asperger success stories are always worth looking at, keeping in mind the “ex post whatever” considerations and all. Nevertheless, sometimes the future looks to my own jaded and otherwise biased perspective like staring into the barrel of a loaded gun:

        From the Knowledge Economy to the Human Economy

        I know I desperately need a “Human Operating System” upgrade. Psychoanalysis somehow seems expensive, but that’s because I’ve been told (perhaps by people I shouldn’t listen to) that real psychoanalysis is at least three 50-minute hours a week for something like five years, at with a practitioner with an MD, plus psychiatry residency, plus being psychoanalyzed, plus training in psychoanalyis. OTOH, 93 hours, pro-rated over the number of years I’ve been reading Clarissa’s blog, almost sounds like something even I might be able to afford. Or maybe I should hold out until the Autism Speaks types find the cure they’ve been fundraising for.

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  3. Alternative view:

    (1) Being unemployed looks awful on a resume.

    (2) If someone is unemployed and the unpaid assignment does not impair a person’s ability to look for work, how is that exploitative?

    (3) You can always reward someone for good work in some way, even if it has to be out of pocket. (For a faculty member, that’s a deductible business expense.) If under $600, it doesn’t have to be reported as income to the student.

    Aside: I recall one faculty member who was very careful with documenting his spending on work-related books, and then depreciating them on his tax return. There are numerous tax benefits available, of which, hopefully, you are aware.

    Corporate internships do impair the ability to look for work, and that to me is what makes them truly problematic. Many corps. treat interns as go-fers, and the students swallow it in the hope of getting a job there.

    In the co-op programs at Northeastern and Drexel, students receive regular salaries when working; corporations can’t participate unless they agree to that. From what I’ve seen, those are awesome programs.

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    1. “If someone is unemployed and the unpaid assignment does not impair a person’s ability to look for work, how is that exploitative?”

      – I don’t know a better definition of the word “exploitation” than using people’s labor and not paying for their services. My ancestors were slaves, just in case. I have a very profound response to free labor being extorted out of people.

      “(For a faculty member, that’s a deductible business expense.”

      – I have no deductible expenses. Even the $6,000 I used for books and research materials out of my own pocket last year were not deductible.

      “You can always reward someone for good work in some way, even if it has to be out of pocket.”

      – Of course, if I choose to hire people on my own account, I will pay them.

      ” I recall one faculty member who was very careful with documenting his spending on work-related books, and then depreciating them on his tax return. There are numerous tax benefits available, of which, hopefully, you are aware.”

      – Every year, I bring a stack of bills for all kinds of things to the accountant: research expenses, work-related travel expenses, uncovered medical bills. And every year the accountant returns them to me saying that they don’t amount to anything and are not deductible.

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    2. Being unemployed may look bad on a resume, but an unpaid job or internship isn’t even remotely a solution. Many students can’t afford to go unpaid–should that give them any less of a chance in the workplace? Absolutely not.

      And coming from a student who’s worked with volunteer researchers: many times, that unpaid assignment is the equivalent of a full-time or part-time job. If a student is “hired” through the college for an unpaid research position, they often can’t apply for a job, either because they don’t have the time to work another one or because they have maxed out on their available work hours (often 24 hrs/wk for full-time students). So, yes, it’s completely exploitative. Most of the time, students in volunteer or otherwise unpaid positions don’t get compensated monetarily at all, even out-of-pocket.

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      1. ” So, yes, it’s completely exploitative. Most of the time, students in volunteer or otherwise unpaid positions don’t get compensated monetarily at all, even out-of-pocket.”

        – And you know what really bugs me? Only too often the professors who exploit this unpaid labor are all about Marxist theory and social justice, etc. How they manage not to see the glaring contradiction is a mystery.

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  4. The same thing happened to me as a small business owner in Britain. I never experienced anything like this before, but it seems to be a standard thing in western countries (or at least in the UK and US). Once I needed a proof-reader, and I posted a job ad. I was approached by a girl who said she would have worked for free in exchange for a reference. I didn’t dare hire her, as I would have felt myself as a slave-keeper, plus I think people are only accountable for their work if they are paid. Accountability is important for me, as I usually need a quality work. So I told her I would have given her a salary a little lower than the average because of the lack of experience PLUS the reference she wanted, but she refused and kept insisting on working for free. I still don’t understand her motives, but it was a real culture shock for me. Luckily I could find someone else who wanted the money, and I’m sure she also found someone who let her work for free, so finally the story finished with a happy ending.

    Job Centre Plus also regularly sends me emails to hire unemployed people as unpaid trainees, or as a part of the unpaid work trial program (usually young people, but also people who were out of the job market for a longer period). It’s easier to just post the ads on regular jobsites, at least I don’t have to waste my time on the hilarious “incentives” of Job Centre Plus. It’s not an incentive for a normal businessperson to hire undermotivated unpaid slaves who need tons of emotional management (which is absolutely understandable as I would also be frustrated in their situation). So it’s not always the companies who want unpaid labour (however I can imagine that many of them abuses the system, and it’s just sad that the government supports this shame with MONEY).

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    1. “It’s not an incentive for a normal businessperson to hire undermotivated unpaid slaves who need tons of emotional management (which is absolutely understandable as I would also be frustrated in their situation). So it’s not always the companies who want unpaid labour (however I can imagine that many of them abuses the system, and it’s just sad that the government supports this shame with MONEY).”

      – Golden words. Truly golden. And the worst argument in support of this system is, “But everybody is doing it!” It’s the same excuse I used to hear in Ukraine in relation to bribery and corruption.

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      1. “But everybody is doing it!”

        Yes, this is always the excuse, but the governments could stop the whole thing with one single law if they wanted. However the problem that young people without references can’t find jobs is still out there. The reference-based job market (which is prevalent in the English-speaking countries) is what should be changed to a skill-based job market. This is what we used in Central-Europe and I still keep using it in the UK, and it’s much better for both the potential employee and the employer. Job interviews should be rather like exams in universities, the applicant who scores the best gets the job (and in many cases it’s the fresh graduate, as they have the most recent knowledge). The reference-based job market is unfair, and that’s one of the reasons why the social mobility is that low in Britain. Usually people from better background or those with more flexible spines will get better references, not those who are the better workers.

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        1. “Job interviews should be rather like exams in universities, the applicant who scores the best gets the job (and in many cases it’s the fresh graduate, as they have the most recent knowledge).”

          – Good employers hire not on the strength of either references or exams. They tend to end up hiring on the basis of personal impressions. Right now, I have found myself in the unusual (for me) capacity of having to hire an employee for myself. And I’m not basing my decision on either qualifications or recommendations. I’m not even going to look at recommendations (even though they are being provided) because the person I will be able to work with is not necessarily the same person my colleagues have worked with successfully. There needs to be a personal “click.”

          As for qualifications, my candidate will acquire them in the process. I will offer training and assistance.

          My sister who owns a job recruitment agency tells me my hiring procedure is exactly right. But my colleagues are criticizing me for relying too much on personality in my hiring process.

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      2. “They tend to end up hiring on the basis of personal impressions.”

        Yes, personal impressions and the matching of characters are also crucial, but you just can’t openly admit that without the charges of discrimination. You can’t say that I hire this person because I like him or her the best :).

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    2. –I’m guessing the proofreader was so beaten down or had so little knowledge of the value of her work or so little confidence that she didn’t think anyone would pay her? Or she had to get an “internship” for a university program that forbade her from accepting money? I don’t get that either; in her position I’d be thrilled and just accept and say thank you. How small is your business? In the small businesses I’ve worked in (less than 50 people) the owners often work directly with employees, so yes, emotional management would be a huge drain on productivity. In addition, there’s no real extra leeway for someone to be incompetent or checked out. I suspect the businesses which use Job Centre Plus are not what you’d think of as a “small business” but are considered small businesses by the government. Of course the businesses I worked for were so small that they didn’t have real separation of duties.

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      1. “I’m guessing the proofreader was so beaten down or had so little knowledge of the value of her work or so little confidence that she didn’t think anyone would pay her?”

        – There can be a gazillion reasons for that sort of thing. Everybody’s individual situation is different. Maybe she can’t accept payment for tax reasons or because of a contract with her grad school, maybe she is part of a psychological study, maybe she is a journalist in disguise, maybe she comes from money, maybe she’s doing this on a dare, maybe she wants to spite her father – the possibilities are endless.

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  5. The traditional system of wage slavery, where you need, as a wageslave, to gain the approval and blessing of every employer you pass through, no matter what their psychological problems may be, or you end up with bad papers, signifying your bad wageslave pedigree, has to go. Psychological subservience only plays into sado-masochistic dynamics and perpetuates a sick system, but the traditional model of wage-slavery demands that you present your papers to indicate your track record in subservience.

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    1. Let’s ve careful with our terminology. If there’s a wage, it’s not slavery. As I explained, I have a very profound response to the word slavery and it bothers me more than I can describe to hear it used like this. I have the same response to the word starvation.

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      1. Oh, that’s nice. After I was bullied at work and my health ruined, of course my papers were ruined in that process as well, so I could have emitted quite a few expletives, and that would have been more than appropriate. Even now, when people speak about their minor setbacks due to race or gender, I cannot grock it.

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          1. Well I think your views are very nice and hopeful and your efforts to amend the language laudible. One day, I would like people to address the deeper issues relating to some of these structural equalities as well. But first they need o address their feelings about colonialism!

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            1. I also have powerful feelings about colonialism, of course. More specifically, Russian colonialism. It would be easier for me to address these feelings if the Russians stopped invading already.

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              1. Yes, I’ve heard everyone’s feelings about colonialism for many years now. That is why I say I am a shamanic initiate, because I have absorbed all of their evil feelings and I understand them all.

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        3. Also, why is every news channel here showing the story of the Australian newscaster and his suit? It’s pretty much the only story about Australia I’ve seen on American TV. Is nothing else happening on your continent?

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            1. The news anchor from Australia supposedly wore the same suit every day for a year. So he started stinking. And his coworkers are complaining. A very bizarre story especially since it was shown right after the story about another beheading by ISIS.

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      1. “So, financing graduate students should be about personalities only?”

        – I don’t understand the question. Graduate students usually receive the same amount in funding before anybody even meets them. Research Assistanships are usually bonuses grad students get on top of the regular funding.

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        1. “So, Research Assistanships should be about personalities only?”

          – They usually are. Can you imagine working in very close contact, mostly in one-on-one settings with somebody who makes you uncomfortable? Somebody you just don’t get? What will be the use of that for anybody?

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        1. “So, a student must choose his advisors mainly (or almost entirely) on personalities, right?”

          – Yes, and if only I had known this when I was choosing mine! Maybe my example will serve as warning to other people.

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        1. David: you don’t have a simple, superficial personality. You are complex. And that’s not bad at all. I like your personality, and there are other people who will, too. Bonne chance!

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    1. “So, they should not offer you tenure because of your bad personality induced by Aspeger’s?”

      – Of course, tenure decisions are enormously influenced by whether your colleagues at the department want to keep you around permanently. That is only right because being forced to remain in a very interdependent relationship with somebody who just doesn’t click with you would be counterproductive.

      And my colleagues absolutely adore me. I’ve had 93 hours of psychoanalysis so far. This means that I’m an absolute joy to be around. 🙂

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  9. Yuppie Nuremberg Defense: “I’ve got a mortgage”

    Precariat Nuremberg Defense: “I need the experience”

    Nothing good will result from this trend.

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      1. “But you have a bad personality, you should by a poor loser for the remaining of your life! ”

        – There is no good personality that is good for everyone or bad that is bad for everyone. Different employers click with different workers. The person I’m planning to hire would not be most people’s first choice. What “clicks” with me is not even remotely what “clicks” with everybody on this planet.

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    3. “Precariat Nuremberg Defense: “I need the experience””

      – What I hate much more is “THEY need the experience so I’m doing them a service by stealing their labor.” Bleh.

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  10. In a matter of fact, I’ve been excluded of my Ph. D. program today just because I wanted to re-start a new thesis from the beginning and because they don’t like my personality.

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    1. Universities and employers don’t really like a certain kind of personality. Slave mentality in the school system is intended to prepare students to the slave mentality of (most) workplaces. Subservience or at least the pretence of it is usually necessary, however there are always exceptions, but the general rule says bow down to the holder of the power or GTFO. If you return to your previous thesis, can’t you go back?

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      2. “Slave mentality in the school system is intended to prepare students to the slave mentality of (most) workplaces. Subservience or at least the pretence of it is usually necessary”

        – I have lived on two continents, in 3 countries, worked at many different workplaces, hear about recruitment trends in great detail every day, etc. and haven’t encountered anything of the kind even once. The outspoken, loud, uncomfortable people always win, and the mousy little wallflowers who agree with everything always lose. Fake, slavish personalities are an anathema on the job market.

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      3. @clarissa
        The mousy little wallflowers are only at the bottom of the subordinance pyramid. The outspoken, loud, uncomfortable people only win if they are outspoken, loud and uncomfortable in the right way, otherwise they are swept away within a second. And it’s not them who decide what is the right way. They just adapt (or at least pretend to adapt) to the current power schemes, but they still have to move on the same chessboard as the wallflowers if they want something. Wallflowers are the pawns, the loud outspokens are the knights, but all of them have to wear the same black or white uniform. But what if someone doesn’t want to play chess? They leave the board, or the others kick them off, but they can’t change the rules. Not until they are the king or the queen, but those positions can be only reached through tons of subservience (or pretence of subservience which is almost the same). The most subservient people are usually those on the top of every organization.

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        1. “The most subservient people are usually those on the top of every organization.”

          – If they are at the top, who are they subservient to? 🙂

          “The outspoken, loud, uncomfortable people only win if they are outspoken, loud and uncomfortable in the right way, otherwise they are swept away within a second. And it’s not them who decide what is the right way. They just adapt (or at least pretend to adapt) to the current power schemes, but they still have to move on the same chessboard as the wallflowers if they want something. Wallflowers are the pawns, the loud outspokens are the knights, but all of them have to wear the same black or white uniform. But what if someone doesn’t want to play chess? They leave the board, or the others kick them off, but they can’t change the rules.”

          – I’ve always had a very good relationship with the male line of my family.

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      4. – If they are at the top, who are they subservient to? 🙂

        That’s easy, they just turn their two sided Subservience-Oppression medal they wear around their neck, then they will be subservient to their own fear that one day they will have to turn it back. When it’s likely to happen, they will implode, and commit suicide like Hitler, or the stupid multimillionaires who lost some of their wealth during the financial crisis. Maybe it’s not that easy to turn that medal back. Well, now I’m confused.

        – I’ve always had a very good relationship with the male line of my family.

        Haha, not me. Most likely I have a negative father complex 🙂

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    2. “In a matter of fact, I’ve been excluded of my Ph. D. program today just because I wanted to re-start a new thesis from the beginning and because they don’t like my personality.”

      – Je suis tellement désolée!

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