‘This guy should be ashamed’: Civitatis International interns charged £300 for reference

AS IF they didn’t have it bad enough already — one company has sparked outrage for charging former unpaid interns nearly $600 for job references.

‘He should be ashamed’: $600 for a reference

SO YOU thought fetching coffees and photocopying the phone book was demeaning?

A UK company has sparked outrage for charging former unpaid interns nearly $600 for job references.

The Guardian reports that Civitatis International, a think tank run by former political aide Jan Mortier, is under fire for offering employment references for “£300 ($A560) a go”.

The trainees had been part of Civitatis International’s “junior associates” program — a three-month, £1600 ($A3000) “unique experience in project management training” in the policy sector.

A tip-off to careers blog Graduate Fog revealed Mr Mortier, 37, was writing to those who had been on the program to inform them they must pay a fee each time they want an employment reference.

Mr Mortier is a former consultant to Liberal Democrat peer Lord Timothy Garden, a one-time defence spokesman for Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg.

He has defended the charge as a “fair administrative fee”, claiming the former “unpaid trainees” were not interns as they had been “trained directly” by him.

The think tank also invites “successful” junior associates to pay $750 to $1100 a year to become fellows of the organisation, and has recently started a $750-a-week “summer school” billed as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for students around the world to gain employable skills”.

While Civitatis International’s website claims “for a decade” it has been coaching its junior associates to get policy jobs “paying £24-£32,000 ($A45-60,000) per year with a 100 per cent success rate”, Mr Mortier admitted to The Guardian that “one or two” might not have got there yet.

Graduate Fog’s De Grunwald said: “Employing unpaid interns is bad enough, but charging them for a reference when they leave is appalling.

“We keep being assured that the graduate job market is picking up, but this case shows that there are still dark corners of it where unscrupulous employers find they can take advantage of young jobseekers’ desperation and naivety. This guy should be ashamed.”

Originally published as ‘This guy should be ashamed’: Civitatis International interns charged £300 for reference