"I went to the business listings and I just started calling up companies and asking them if they had internships available and that I would be willing to work for free.”
It worked. Mathur’s first foot in the door of employment was at the travel firm Travelocity during her first summer at the University of Texas. She did admin and research for its general council—all for free.
I wonder how the money worked at that stage in her life. Was she living off loans? Was she living off wealth from another source?
Highly likely that there was some connections to grease a bit of the wheels of commerce.
All these “i worked as an intern” usually have some connections that “picked” them from that intern pool. The other interns usually tend to be the fall guys. “So sorry all of you missed out but this person is the bestest!”. While being the son/daughter/friend/family of someone in that company.
I used to work at an insurance company, and I ran the internship program for my department once. When we were doing the interviews, one of the candidates was from my geographic area, which is pretty rural and not many of my coworkers were from anywhere near there. He’d launched a free tutoring program at his high school and carried it on a few hours a week through his first couple years of university until that point. For paid work experience, he had mostly agricultural work, because he had to support his family.
I’m realizing now that I may have been a little naïve about it, but no one else even wanted to consider him compared to the students who were able to do many more extracurricular activities and were able to dedicate more hours to non paid work.
What I’m trying to say is that even if nobody is actively corrupt, it’s a structurally classist system.
Immediately I don’t trust whatever advice she’s dispensing. You can’t just “call places” or “walk in with a resume” anymore. The phone numbers are all automated systems that will never put you in front of people who can hire you. You need a badge to get in anywhere that’ll give you an internship which you can’t get if you don’t work there, and if you did somehow talk to someone they’d just shrug and say “I don’t know how that works, just go to our website and apply there”
Even ignoring the “let them eat cake attitude” it’s obvious she doesn’t even realize how hiring works at her own company. I guarantee you that her advice would not work at Squarespace
Sure. If you want to climb the corporate ladder, chasing money and power, that’s the way it works.
If you want to paint houses for a living, or take X-rays, or something simple that just allows you to comfortably pay your bills, this is fucking stupid.
OP’s talking about the necessary grind, not working for free. Though that can be part of success.
20-years ago I was grinding on my computers non-stop. That got me a tech support job. Few jobs later, I’m grinding on my home lab to learn more for what I wanted to do at work. That packed my resume and I doubled my pay and benefits on the next job.
Bruhh... if my internships = career movers, then yes
But there is so much parasitic "business owners" out there... looks like they are activating again. They got lucky in early 2010s when millennials were desperate for jobs because there were not enough boomers retiring. These parasite are looking for a similar set up, demographics are different.
You wouldn’t get the picture from any finance or economic article because they never quote labor leaders, always executives, and can’t tell the truth about a union to save their life, but labor organizing is on the rise after big victories last year that continue to impact negotiations and forming new labor unions. Never work for free, always value your time and labor at least as much as the wealth class values their capital.
Even a halfway decent journalist would have asked how she could have afforded to do all those internships for free or how she thinks young people might afford-to now…