As someone who did the whole college thing and internships—one of which involved watching a reality show be filmed about being an intern at said magazine that didn’t reveal how the real interns stayed in a windowless back room—I’m fairly offended by this.
It’s pretty fucking hypocritical to call your book Third World America and then your own company asks for all applicants, if given the position, to be an intern for a trial month. It’s fantastic that you’re paying them. It really is. But decrying government screwing over the middle class ideal and then asking for candidates to work for reduced rate as a trial to a job they might not even get? That’s fucked up.
I interned for four years while going to school. I’ve had six jobs since I graduated. I don’t need to be your fucking intern for one month to prove I can efficiently do your job better than the editor of Website X.
If that sounds pretentious, I’m sorry. But at a certain point, it’s pointless to work for free. And that point is when you’re in your mid-20s trying to find a full-time job after traveling back and forth across the country for work while hiring managers tell you that you’re too over-qualified to be an assistant editor or editor or senior editor or writer but maybe if you worked for free for the site a little bit…
Or maybe that’s just me. Who knows.