Inspiring Business by Sharing Success

Nottingham-based recruiter launches new programme to tackle unpaid internships

Nottingham-based recruiter launches new programme to tackle unpaid internships

Carrington, Nottingham, January 30th – Step Recruitment, a student and graduate recruitment agency is relaunching their paid internship programme, first seen in 1986, to create more paid opportunities and combat unpaid internships.

“Unpaid internships are visible across many industries. They are deeply unfair, damaging to social mobility and create inequalities in the job market.” Tamsin Millns, Director at Step said. “Despite the great work being done by the likes of Lord Chris Holmes MBE, many employers still feel it’s acceptable not to pay their interns within minimum wage guidelines.”

Step was originally established over 30 years ago as part of a Shell UK initiative designed to connect university students and smaller businesses in order to complete business critical projects through short-term paid internships.

Step is now an independent business and has expanded it’s offering to include year-in-industry placements and permanent graduate employment services.

“We’ve been offering fair, ethical, paid internships for 30 years and we’ve always been passionate about the benefits a paid internship brings to students and businesses.”  Tamsin said, “This year we are relaunching our undergraduate internship offering, making it simpler, more cost-effective and adding training opportunities to ensure that the interns and the employers get true value out of the experience.”

As part of this new offering, as well as assisting with the recruitment of an intern, Step will also provide in-depth inductions and employability support for the student to develop their work readiness. Areas covered include: Health and Safety, GDPR, Social Media usage and HR Principles.

Tamsin and the Step team hope that this offering will encourage businesses to use paid internships as a pipeline for developing and retaining talent in their business and go some way to ending unpaid internships.

 


< Back