Why the Intern Model Is Broken (And What to Do about It!)

A flurry of raised hands at the UK Creative Festival today showed that internships have been an experience shared by many in the creative industries. Which is potentially concerning, considering the stereotypes that spring to mind.

Kicking off the panel, chair L A Ronayne, group creative director at Anomaly LDN, asked each of the speakers to lay out their prejudices about what internships have traditionally looked like. Debbie Ellison, global chief digital officer at VMLY&R COMMERCE, invoked the familiar story of “‘sons and daughters of senior clients’, and graduates from comfortable backgrounds who can afford to work for free, while Katie Thomson-Greene, MD of Creative Mentor Network, highlighted the assumption that people wanting to get into the creative industries “‘had to do an internship’.”

Hannah Belill – global head of Stink Rising and music videos at the production company Stink – recalled her own internship, which was unusual:  a paid placement as part of her degree with a London living wage.“I was able to exist comfortably,” she said. “That is not the norm.” Also intriguingly, it was with the Ministry of Defence, she added.

To move away from these unsustainable norms, the panel agreed that access needs to be formalised, with measurable progress and development metrics needing to be built into programmes. Doing this would be the key to ensuring the industry is recruiting from a more diverse pool of talent – an imperative for British creativity to continue to thrive. But, as Katie – who spends her days thinking about redressing this balance – stressed, it’s often not one person’s job to run an internship scheme, but a structure that’s shared between various people with other day jobs to get on with. 

One of many recommendations from Katie was a kind of buddy system of mentorships, with people who aren’t line managers there to advise interns and newer employees, so there’s someone there with a more holistic view of how they develop.

While the stereotype is that a placement at a creative agency is often a year, Katie advocated for three month placements, which are more accessible. She also pushed the importance of giving people a chance to move around depts – all factors that need to be formalised, rather than addressed ad hoc.

Implementing such change is  important to the communication business because, as Debbie says, if creative agencies don’t get this right, the talent will go elsewhere or start their own businesses. “That’s our problem,” she said. “We’re the ones that are losing out.”

That’s a problem that begins earlier, at the “traditional education” stage, the panel agreed. People growing up don’t know the jobs that are out there, even if businesses have good, formalised internship schemes. And teachers aren’t equipped to inspire creative children and show them the routes into careers that exist.

Katie noted that myriad organisations like Creative Mentor Network exist, that companies can use to bridge this gap, stressing the importance of getting young people to understand the labour market.

Coming from a filmmaking perspective, Hannah turned to the specifics of how set-based experience can work to give people meaningful contact with comercial level crew in filmmaking, recounting how just a day or two on set shadowing various kinds of crew on a shoot can be the beginnings of a young person building a network that they can use moving through a career.

Crucially, she also stated the obvious point which still unfortunately needs to be made: You should pay people. Stink Rising pays the London living wage to all people on placements, which is fundamental to making the experience accessible to a more diverse range of people.

Debbie spoke about how some creative businesses use internships to “tick the diversity box,” something she says really “gets [her] goat” – a thought that prompted Katie to advise businesses to make sure their internships come from a consideration of why they’re doing it. It needs to be for the right reasons, or it’s a waste of both the company and intern’s time.

“You need to make sure that any internship programme or initiative is coupled with business transformation as well,” stressed Debbie. People from minority backgrounds need to see people like them in the business, otherwise they won’t feel included and, as Katie put it, “they’re not going to stick around.”

Post-pandemic hybrid working has its up- and downsides in this space. “It is really important that junior talent is in the office,” said Katie. Although she conceded that Zoom is helpful for opening up conversations across geographic barriers. She noted the value that “being gobby” and chatting to people in the office kitchen helped her, something that Debbie also backed up, remembering the corridor conversations that had helped her grow.

From the employers perspective, the panel touched on what skillsets they’re keen to find among interns. Hannah suggested this industry can find the right fit for any kind of person, mentioning the “many nooks and crannies in this industry for one to find themself in.” No matter your skills or tendencies, there’s probably a useful space for them somewhere.

Debbie considered that for her as a business leader, she’s looking to stimulate whatever helps someone reach their potential. “What is the value I can give to them,” she said. “The thing that gives me the dopamine hit.”

She added that ‘culture fit’ needs to be approached the right way. “They don’t need to be like everyone else. Actually, they should be different,” she said. The question should be: “Are they culture fit or are they culture add?”

Finally, the panel provided a helpful call to action. Businesses don’t have to build these structures from the ground up. If they want to diversify who they’re giving placements to, there are organisations like Creative Mentor Network, or programmes with local schools that welcome knowledge from the creative industry job market. There’s Uptreee, which connects employers and young people from across the country. Then there are schools like the Brixton Finishing School, University of East London and SCA 2.0, which bigger organisations can start relationships with to get “first dibs” on talent emerging from those courses. Being proactive in these areas as a company can, as Debbie put it, “drive transformation” for a creative business. So why aren’t we all doing it?