Sounds like a great idea, doesn’t it? Lots of lovely free labour and in return, you show them exactly how to do the job you’re not paying them for. You’ll pay them their expenses, won’t you, to make sure they’re not out of pocket. In the meantime, you’ll moan about clients who expect you to put design briefs together, attend numerous meetings and generally carry out work for which they have no intention of paying you. Oh. Is that the sound of the proverbial penny dropping?
No one likes doing work they’re not going to get paid for unless they’re a volunteer. Normally if that’s the case then the person volunteering does so for a good cause, not solely to line someone else’s pockets. Most people consider that to be exploitation.
Unfortunately, we appear to have gained a culture of unpaid internships here in the UK. I’ve heard stories of airlines having pilots work for them for free as they need to keep up their flying hours for their licences while they look for work. It’s well known that unpaid internships are rife in the publishing industry and also in the fashion industry. I’ve heard that some employers use excuses for free labour like “you must be self-employed” and “we only pay expenses for work experience”.


We all have them. Those things that if a client or customer just did differently, or didn’t do at all, would make our lives so much easier. Leaving aside for a moment the fact that if these issues were addressed we’d be living in Utopia and would have nothing to moan about (heaven forbid!), here’s the top 3 on my HR Christmas wish list:
I’m busy. You’re busy. We’re all busy people. You’re probably thinking you’re too busy to read this.
Lots of people use application forms when recruiting and why not? They can be great for collecting the information you need, not just the information the candidate wants you to have. It’s also useful to have details submitted in a standard format so you always know where to look for the candidate’s date of birth, for example. 