Editor’s note: This article was first published in August 2012; it was written during Spain’s youth unemployment crisis. The rules on internships in Spain have changed since, for example with Social Security registration of interns, including unpaid ones, from 2024.
We have reached the point where finding a job is a real stroke of luck. And if we are talking about a young, newly qualified graduate, luck and the gods have to join forces to win an employer’s trust and get a job, when the candidate is young, inexperienced and has never worked before.
Read the other way round, a young graduate cannot work in the profession they spent a diploma or degree preparing for without previous experience. First they need to have applied the theory taught in the classroom to the real production processes of the job.
So… work for free? YES.
Grants (with small stipends) and internships are the official tools that allow young students to apply what they have learned in the labour market. They are set up through an Educational Cooperation Agreement (Convenio de Cooperación Educativa) signed by the student, the university and the company that takes on the grant holder or intern.
It is a tool with several professional goals:
- Adapting knowledge to real production processes.
- Testing the theory students have been taught.
- Talent spotting by companies.
- Professional experience for the student.
- Strengthening the candidate’s position when applying for a job.
- Uncovering the candidate’s weaknesses so they can improve their skills.
It is true that working for free is annoying, above all because my alarm goes off at the same time as my colleague’s, I do similar tasks and work the same hours, only to end up just as tired. Even so, whatever the student’s level of responsibility, the greatest benefit they get from the working day is what they learn.
A student who is really keen on their placement can be “a limitless sponge, soaking up knowledge and real experience of the working world”. That will be their biggest reward during a grant or internship; not for nothing is this option taken up by 60% of students.
We have always written that work experience is what sets one candidate apart from another when the two are similar or equal. Whoever has to choose someone for a post, faced with two similar or equal options, will pick the one who brings work experience. It is productive training time that the employer saves, and the student gains their first experience.
For many companies, taking on grant holders and interns becomes a launch pad for finding talent. The selection process stretches over the length of the agreement signed with the university, which lets them get to know the student, with all their strengths and weaknesses, and make a better-informed decision about choosing them as a new colleague.
Not for nothing is there a job portal that specialises in people looking for their first experience through grants and internships, and it shows that most of the demand for students comes from the technology, media and economics sectors.
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