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Recruiting interns
招募实习生
All work and no pay?
只给工作，不付报酬？
Finding good interns is hard. Agencies can help
寻觅优秀实习生不易，代理公司来帮忙
YOUNGSTERS enter the office of Inspiring Interns through what looks like a wardrobe door. The reference to C.S. Lewis’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” is deliberate: the company wants them to feel transported into a magical new world where they might actually find a job.
年轻人们进入Inspiring Interns公司办公室之前，要进过一处貌似衣橱门的地方。这是参照C?S?刘易斯的小说《狮子?女巫?魔衣橱》1 有意为之：这家公司想让年轻人觉得，他们就像是穿越到一个充满魔力的新世界中，在这里他们也许真能找到一份工作。
With unemployment rife throughout the rich world, more and more young people are seeking internships. Many firms, nervous about the future, are reluctant to hire permanent staff until they have tested them. Intern-recruitment agencies are popping up to help. Inspiring Interns, a London firm, boasts that it can provide competent interns within three days. It processes 300 applicants a day, and claims that 65% of the interns it has placed have been hired.
随着失业潮在富裕国家蔓延，越来越多的年轻人正在寻找实习机会。很多对未来感到紧张忧虑的公司，不愿意雇佣长期职员，除非那人已经是久经考验。实习招聘代理公司应运而生，为此事助力。Inspiring Interns这家位于伦敦的公司，自夸它可以在三天内提供能胜任岗位的实习生。它每天要经手300个求职者，并声称由它安排的实习生中65%已被雇佣。
Many intern candidates have no previous job experience and only a vague notion of what work involves. Inspiring Interns screens them with personality tests, coaches them on interview technique and urges them to make a video-clip curriculum vitae. Many internships are unpaid; the firm charges employers ￡500 ($779) a month for each intern plus 10% of the starting salary if an intern is hired permanently. Ben Rosen, who founded Inspiring Interns with ￡20,000, says it grossed around ￡1m last year.
很多实习应聘者没有先前的工作经验，对于工作只有一个模糊的概念。Inspiring Interns通过个性测试对应聘者进行筛选，对他们的面试技巧进行指导，并督促他们制作一个视频简历。大量的实习工作是没有工资的，因此这家公司按照每个实习生每月500英镑（779美元）向雇主收取费用，如果实习生被雇为长期职员，另外加收首月工资的10%。本?罗斯以2万英镑创立了Inspiring Interns，他说公司去年税前收入约为100万英镑。
Other intern agencies are more specialised. Instant Impact Interns, a British start-up, focuses on students from Oxford, Cambridge and other leading universities. It keeps its fees flexible so that small businesses and charities can afford them. It also insists that its interns are paid. Rob Blythe, one of the founders, predicts it will reap ￡100,000 in its first financial year.
其他实习招聘代理公司更加专业化。Instant Impact Interns是英国的一家新兴企业，专注于代理牛津、剑桥及其它一流大学的学生实习业务。它坚持弹性收费制，以便使小公司和慈善组织能够承受。它也坚持它介绍的实习生应该得到报酬。公司创始人之一的罗布?布莱斯预测，公司第一财年的收入将达到10万英镑。
The intern market is more developed in America. Intern Bridge, a Texan firm founded in 2005 by Richard Bottner, himself a former intern, claims to have worked with 80% of Fortune 100 firms. It helps them design internships, and conducts surveys of interns. It found last year that 77% of unpaid interns were forced to take second jobs, which could have affected their performance.
美国的实习市场更加成熟。理查德?巴特纳于2005年在德克萨斯州创立了Intern Bridge公司，他自己也曾做过实习生，公司称与《财富》杂志100强公司中的80%有合作关系。它帮助这些公司设计实习工作，并考察实习生。它发现，去年没有薪酬的实习生中77%不得不从事兼职，这使得他们的工作表现受到了影响。
Softies such as Ross Perlin, the author of “Intern Nation: How to Earn Nothing and Learn Little in the Brave New Economy”, complain that unpaid internships are exploitative. They also fret that only well-heeled youngsters can afford to work for nothing. If an internship is the first rung on the career ladder, the less affluent will never climb it.
诸如《实习生国度：美好新经济下如何没收入没收获》2 一书作者罗斯?佩林这样菩萨心肠的人抱怨道，没有薪酬的实习工作是种剥削。他们也为此感到焦躁不安，因为只有家境富裕的年轻人才能负担得起光工作零收入。如果说实习工作是职业阶梯的第一步，那么出身困窘家庭的人将永远无法攀爬上去。
Others disagree. “Anything that gives people an opportunity to gain experience is a good thing,” shrugs Jim Tapper of Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann, a headhunter. Official statistics about internships are scanty, but surveys by the National Association of Colleges and Employers suggest that they work quite well. The average hourly wage for an intern studying for a bachelor’s degree in America is $16.21, though arty organisations typically pay nothing.
另一些人不同意了。“能够给你机会获得经验的，就是好事，”猎头公司Korn/Ferry Whitehead Mann的吉姆?坦铂耸耸肩说到。关于实习的官方统计数据较为稀缺，但是美国全国大学与雇主协会的调查显示，实习生的表现非常不错。在美国，尽管艺术类组织一般不付工资，拥有本科学位的实习生平均小时工资还是达到了16.21美元。
Most important, more than 60% of interns in America are eventually offered full-time jobs. Staff who first work as interns are also more likely to stick around than those who do not. Companies benefit by knowing the people they hire. And youngsters benefit from knowing their employers. Had C.S. Lewis’s Edmund first interned for the White Witch, he might never have agreed to work for her.
最为重要的是，美国超过60%的实习生最终得到了全职工作。由实习生做起的职员与那些没有实习过的相比，留在公司的可能性也更大。公司得利，因为了解了雇员。年轻人获益，因为了解了雇主。要是C?S?刘易斯笔下的爱德蒙一开始在白女巫手下实习过，他就绝不会同意为她卖命了。
注释：
[1]本书是英国作家C?S?路易斯（C. S. Lewis）于1950年代所著纳尼亚传奇系列小说的第一集。曾被《时代》周刊评为1923至2005年百部最佳英文小说，也曾于2005年搬上大银幕。后文提及的爱德蒙和白女巫都是其中主要角色，爱德蒙遭蛊惑，背离兄弟姐妹，加入邪恶的白女巫一方，后清醒回归。
[2]本书是Ross Perlin的第一本书，出版于2011年，作者用四年时间对实习这一职场惯例做了深入的调查研究，涵盖了实习的经济影响力、实习在年轻人生活中的角色以及对特定产业的作用等内容，引起了西方媒体广泛关注。 |
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