Internship -5 years experience

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

I took a glance at ASLA Joblink today.I noticed a summer internship that requires four to five years experience with high level skills.   … I guess it isn’t easy out there!

 

[nca]

Thats crazy.

 

I’ve seen a number of ads looking for ‘entry levels’ with 1-3 years which is hard enough in this econmy, but five…ridiculous.

[Brent Jacobsen]

I guess it remains a “buyer’s market” for employers.  Ditto on the crazy.

[mauiBob]

That’s what you call getting experience and paying them with intern salary! Those are the firms you stay away from on long term basis. 

 

For me, the South Carolina Planner job is worst! The only person able to fit in that candidate description lives in someone’s imagination. I showed a few co-workers and everyone laughed.

[Jeffrey Trojanowski,]

If you have 4-5 years experience, do you really need to be an intern.  Most internships are no pay.

 

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

This one does pay, but with four or five years of experience and the type of experience required, one would think that it is similar to calling a fourth year football player who has made the Pro Bowl a rookie.

[Thomas J. Johnson]

How is our profession going to attract new talent when, after going to school for 5 years and working for another 6, amassing vast technical abilities, project management skills, artistic, creative and spacial visualization talent, you can make a whopping $45k/yr?

You’d be better off going to mechanics school for two years… Chevy mechanics make $50k easy, Porsche mechanics make six figures… or you could spend those 5 years going to med school and doing your residency. If I can memorize and identify 400 plants and their scientific name, I sure as heck can do medicine…

Thank you for reminding me of the depressing nature of our field… hard-work, dedication, technical abilities with low pay and no job security. Not to mention dealing with the “personalities” of employers, peers and clients alike, you can add “the ability to absorb an infinite amount of $h!t” to the list of required skills. Sweet. Where do I sign up…? 

[Thomas J. Johnson]

Lombardi does do exceptional work though… he’s definitely practicing at the very peak of residential design. I’m sure that you’d learn a ton working for him, 5 years of experience or not.

 

[Zach Watson]

Well I guess it is a good think that I have 3 years of work experience for a LA and am currently working for an EE who works on parks, street lighting, among other things.

[Andrew Garulay, RLA]

That is a fact. I’ve been on a couple of sites and helped price one out with a contractor once as well. We’ve got one in the CE office currently, as a matter of fact. No knock on him, just the state of the profession when such experience is required for an internship.

[Christopher Patzke]

Morning Andrew.  I didn’t know you had already posted on this!! 

 

I live in the Boston area and the firm posting the position is a well known, high-end, award winning residential firm.  I know I will never work for Lombardi now but once I saw the posting I immediately contacted the JobLink administrator and the Executive Committee of the ASLA with the following e-mail:

 

“I had to write to express my utter shock and dismay that the ASLA would allow a job posting for an INTERNSHIP that requires a degree AND 4-5 years of professional experience. In these tough economic times this posting seems blatantly exploitive. For an organization that was founded to promote the profession of Landscape Architecture, how can the ASLA post a job listing, from a member, that fundamentally demeans the education and experience of those desperate to find work?  For shame!!”

 

I received two follow-up e-mails from Ann Looper Pryor, the publisher of Landscape Architecture Magazine:

“Thank you for bringing this posting to our attention. We will remove the posting and notify the firm that internships cannot require professional level experience.”

“Thanks for giving us the heads up—it’s an automated system, so we don’t pre-approve the copy.  Most firms are well within the limits on their internship postings, but this one was definitely inappropriate.”

 

[Christopher Patzke]

If we don’t advocate for ourselves no one will.  ASLA is supposed to help us but sometimes someone needs to raise their voice. 

[Elizabeth Renton]

Thanks for contacting them about it. I’m glad they agreed with you and removed the post.

[alland]

This is the typical b.s. you see, now likely in all sectors. It existed before, but now its just beyond ridiculous. There is no recourse for the candidates. It existed before, with work sometimes able to sustain the employee. Now its just a free for all. Companies will cut to the bone and practically lay you off before you get the job, its quite disheartening. Project oriented work is so unstable, that the culture of any design or development firm is fickle. very fickle.

[Andrew Spiering]

Posting internships to the JobLink were free at one point.  It may have been their way of avoiding paying the $600 to advertise the job opening…  just a thought.

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