Becoming an Intern … Again

Would you be willing to work as an intern if you couldn’t find a full-time job? Well four women who have years of experience in publishing are willing, and have decided to work as interns for wowOwow, a start-up Web site targeted at women over 40, to gain some new skills and stay current in their business.

All of the interns are in their 40s and 50s and have worked in various positions in publishing. A couple of them were featured on the “Today” show and talked about how doing the unpaid internships allows them to learn more about working for an Internet company.

Intern Ann Hodgman said, “You really need to be willing to say, ‘Even at my ancient age, I can be a beginner, I can learn again.’ You have to be just terribly willing to take that leap and to embarrass yourself in front of people who are younger than you, which is not that easy to do.”

For many older workers, technology has changed a great deal since they first entered the workplace. So in many cases when people are laid off, it’s difficult to find the same position at another firm because that particular job just doesn’t exist. Internships can help older workers straddle the technology gap and gain the skills they need to be competitive in today’s job market. More companies are likely to consider this approach as the number of unemployed workers continues to swell.

If you’ve exhausted your search for a full-time job, maybe it’s time to offer up your services as an intern to gain some new skills, make contacts and keep your morale up. While you probably won’t get a salary for an internship, you will make yourself more competitive as you continue to hunt for work.

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 12:23 pm and is filed under Reverse Mortgage . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.