BicycleNSW seeking Marketing and Coms Intern

[AUbicycles]

This advert is now out - BicycleNSW are located in Homebush at Sydney Olympic Park - a very nice location and environment. As an intern, this is a role for someone seeking experience and interested in the field. Contact and application details are below - I recommend calling them if you have specific questions and are considering.


------- Job Description -------

Bicycle NSW is seeking an innovative and energetic person who wants to gain experience in the Marketing field.

The Marketing Intern will learn about being responsible for maintaining a strong sense of engagement within a community. They need to be a go-getter, resourceful, well organised, have a positive attitude and a team player.

Education

Obtaining tertiary qualifications or equivalent industry experience in marketing, communications, media or writing are potentially relevant.

Skills (not everything is needed but we do require a willingness to learn)

Ability to apply theory to real world implementation of marketing strategies
Excellent writing and communications skills
Keen eye for attention grabbing photographs
Understanding of Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
Ability to problem solve and to generate workable solutions
Ability to work in a team, and a commitment to collaborative working approaches
Attention to detail and accuracy of work


!!! Broken link to job removed

[zebee]

Note: Salary Voluntary

So this is basically an unpaid position, so anyone going for it needs to be able to support themselves.

Given then have it labelled as an internship this means they will expect 9-5 and so unless you can find outside normal working hours work and survive on 3 hours sleep you will have to have rich parents.

[AUbicycles]

All fair points, the advantage is experience and generally responsibility which ‘may’ be otherwise hard. The trade-off is volunteering so important to be aware of pros, cons and how or if it can help in a career.

My own recommendation for experience is to keep it part time or limited to a time frame of (say) 3 months.

[zebee]

There are serious problems with "internships". They are supposed to be to help with student education meaning they should have education aspects and not be free labour for the company that they'd otherwise have to pay for. So if they are actually teaching the student something, and helping them do the work, supervising them as a teacher would, then it's just about privileging rich kids.

But the job ad looks to me like them wanting unpaid labour. "The Marketing Intern will learn about being responsible for maintaining a strong sense of engagement within a community" is weasel wording to make it sound like an internship but the rest of the wishlist is all about what you can do for them.

Nothing at all about what they can do for you.

So all the evidence is pointing to BicycleNSW wanting valuable skills and work for nothing. Sure, someone might get something useful on a marketing resume providing they have most of the skills already and they have rich parents. These unpaid internships contribute to people whose parents are not in the top 10% of incomes not being able to get work in a lot of fields.

I'd feel a lot better towards them if they didn't dress it up as internship but straight out called it volunteer labour. Else if they were a lot more upfront about the educational aspects and how they will be teaching. (Willing to learn is not will be taught. Again, who is doing the work here?) Generally internships like apprenticeships should cost the employer time and money.

[g-boaf]

There are serious problems with "internships". They are supposed to be to help with student education meaning they should have education aspects and not be free labour for the company that they'd otherwise have to pay for. So if they are actually teaching the student something, and helping them do the work, supervising them as a teacher would, then it's just about privileging rich kids.

But the job ad looks to me like them wanting unpaid labour. "The Marketing Intern will learn about being responsible for maintaining a strong sense of engagement within a community" is weasel wording to make it sound like an internship but the rest of the wishlist is all about what you can do for them.

Nothing at all about what they can do for you.

So all the evidence is pointing to BicycleNSW wanting valuable skills and work for nothing. Sure, someone might get something useful on a marketing resume providing they have most of the skills already and they have rich parents. These unpaid internships contribute to people whose parents are not in the top 10% of incomes not being able to get work in a lot of fields.

I'd feel a lot better towards them if they didn't dress it up as internship but straight out called it volunteer labour. Else if they were a lot more upfront about the educational aspects and how they will be teaching. (Willing to learn is not will be taught. Again, who is doing the work here?) Generally internships like apprenticeships should cost the employer time and money.

I have rather the same feelings as you. These kinds of jobs when they are paid tend to be paid fairly well.

The skills they want are what I have, but I'd likely be more senior than whoever I'd be "reporting" to. I'd be picking their comms plans apart. That wouldn't work out.

[find_bruce]

Relevant article on ABC News Unpaid internships: How working for free went mainstream. An extract from the article

Unpaid internships have the greatest potential for exploitation, experts say. Australia’s only nationally-representative study of internships, published in 2016, found 58 per cent of Australians aged between 18 and 29 had participated in “at least one episode of UWE [unpaid work experience] in the last five years”.

One in five had undertaken five or more.

“We found significant hardship amongst some young people participating in unpaid work,” Paula McDonald, one of the report’s co-authors and Professor of Work and Organisation at Queensland University of Technology’s business school, said.

[Thoglette]

My industry has "interns" but they get paid (at least minimum wage) and the period is long enough to both learn and to contribute.

Hmm - original link now 404's