Yesterday my boyfriend emailed me a job posting.

I saw a keyword that piqued my interest, and I dove directly into the job description.

My heart started beating faster. It was perfect. It described my current job, along with a list of other duties that I either knew how to do or could figure out easily. I was eager to send in an application, and scrolled to the top to reread the job title.

I couldn’t believe what I saw.

It was an internship. Unpaid, at that.

He sent it as a joke.

And the joke was on me.

Sometime in the economic downturn, corporations started hiring mountains of interns instead of paying for qualified, educated, experienced people to fill those jobs. The tradeoff is insurmountable.

There’s no denying college interns bring with them an intoxicating energy and drive. And internships can provide an important part of the educational experience. But replacing full-time employees with interns is simply bad business. Leaning on them is dangerous, given the atrocious learning curve, high turnover and lack of institutional knowledge.

This morning I came across a job posting in my field that targeted interns. It listed no less than 34 (!!!) bulleted job duties. Clearly, some were intern-oriented skills (like setting up tables at job fairs) but others clearly were not.

My current place of employment relies heavily upon interns. My observation is that it takes a while to get them all up to speed, then we lose them (and their knowledge) at the end of the term. I’d much rather trade four or five interns for a full-time employee (or even a talented part-time one at that).

In the meantime, I may consider going back to school.

I hear the internship opportunities are amazing.