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Mid-career job seekers turn to internships, volunteer positions

By Laura Casey, San Jose Mercury News, Source: MCT News Service

SAN JOSE, Calif. _ A commercial pilot with more than 20 years of work experience, Jagpal Mandaher saw work dry up shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. He decided a career change was in order, and in his late 30s he did something usually associated with college students: He took an internship.

The Santa Clara, Calif., resident, now 44, held a low-paying intern's position with Sensitel Inc., a Sunnyvale, Calif.-based software company, for about 10 months. There he worked in all areas of the company's business including finance and making sales calls. Now employed at Logitech in a finance role, he says the internship "set me up for this job."

Not only did he get his first taste of a white-collar job, but he gained insight into what part of the field most interested him.

"I actually learned a lot," Mandaher said. "The internship helped me realize I felt more comfortable in a financial analyst role than I would have felt in accounting. "

With unemployment still high, mid- to late-career adults are increasingly turning to internships _ both paid and unpaid _ or are doing what is being called "career volunteerism" to fill in gaps between jobs, learn new skills and network. These workers say the low-paid or unpaid work helps keep their minds active, and it gives them something to talk about when they do land job interviews.

Although there are no statistics available, a perusal of more than 500 internships recently advertised on Craigslist reveals that while many were for students, some specifically sought out professionals with more than a few years of experience. These positions are often unpaid, but those that did pay usually offered a stipend or salary that was at least a little higher than minimum wage.

Career experts say there are few downsides to working an internship or volunteer position to learn skills if you can make ends meet in the meantime.

"It's great if you can economically afford to do it," said Hilary Romanoff, a career counselor at the Bay Area Career Center in San Francisco.

Romanoff holds career counseling groups at the Bay Area Career Center and says the topic of mid-career internships comes up frequently these days. Applicants are getting "creative," she adds, sometimes shadowing workers in another field or asking to help in an office for a few hours a week to gain new skills to put on a resume.

Mid-career internships can be a good path those anyone interested in working in a new field or jumping back into the workforce after time off for whatever reason, including layoffs, said Heather R. Huhman, author of "Lies, Damned Lies and Internships."

"I think people these days don't see the market the same way they used to," she said. "An internship is not seen as a lesser position anymore. It's seen as an investment in your future career."

For employers, mid-career professionals are attractive because they've likely already proven that they're reliable, can work well in an office setting and can provide some level of expertise, even if he or she is not an expert in the field.

For-profit companies aren't the only ones willing to take on mid-career interns.

After Jim Dean of San Ramon, Calif., was laid off from his information technology management job a year ago, he didn't just want to apply for IT job after IT job. He wanted to cast a wider net. So he decided to go back to work, even if he wasn't paid.

Dean turned to the Volunteer Center of the East Bay, which set him up with a position as a software trainer helping other unemployed San Francisco Bay Area residents learn how to use LinkedIn and JibberJobber websites.

The 61-year-old now spreads his time between looking for work and actually working, perfecting new training skills so he can, hopefully, get a similar position in the future.

"Being unemployed, that experience is so difficult," he said. "It's depressing. It's demoralizing. It challenges your self-worth."

Working, even in a volunteer capacity, has brightened his outlook. "I tell people I am no longer unemployed. I am just doing whatever I can to prepare for my next position. If I never get a job because of it, I still really believe I am better off because it gives me the positive attitude."

Toni Littlestone, a veteran career counselor in Berkeley, Calif., said many older adults like Dean are basically doing internships. But in the nonprofit sector, it's called "career volunteerism."

"They go in for a minimum of 15 to 20 hours per week and act like a real worker and receive assignments and are involved in real work," she said. These volunteer positions are also flexible but are not paid, she says. If a volunteer ends up landing a job mid-assignment, the efforts are still appreciated.

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But worker beware: Any work can jeopardize unemployment insurance benefits.

Beatriz Sandoval of California's Employment Development Department said via email that an employee must be "able to work, available to work and must be willing to accept work ... (and) be actively seeking work" to be eligible for unemployment insurance. Decided on a case-by-case basis, an intern or a volunteer "could be potentially restricting his/her availability to work" and "therefore, a potential eligibility issue exists that must be resolved before UI benefits can be paid."

And although there are several listings on online job websites for unpaid internship opportunities, if a for-profit company does not pay at least a training wage, they could be in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which says employees are entitled to minimum wage.

"There are laws in place to protect people, so they do at least get basic protection," Maureen Clark of the Menlo Park, Calif.-based Clark Associates Human Resources Consulting Firm. "From a career management point of view, it is very sensible to just get experience and do it. But the problem is that it is hard to do that legitimately without being paid for it."

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A company that wants to hire unpaid interns must follow criteria laid out by the U.S. Department of Labor which include: The position must be supervised and similar to a training education environment, and it has to benefit the intern. Interns also cannot displace other workers. And the internship doesn't guarantee future employment.

Romanoff of the Bay Area Career Center said her clients gain many positives from interning.

"People are expanding their concept of work. They're expanding what they are willing to do and they are changing their idea of what work is," she said. "People have to do that in order to maintain a positive attitude."

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(c)2011 the San Jose Mercury News (San Jose, Calif.)

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PHOTOS (from MCT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): WRK-MIDCAREER-INTERNS