I'm a second year CS student who's worked really hard to build and expand my skills. I've spent the past week now trying to find a place to volunteer (i.e. work for FREE) so I can get a little bit of in-the-door experience with web development. I have a portfolio with several decent projects, a handful of languages and other hard/soft skills that employers constantly say they're clamoring for.
I can't even get people to take my calls. This is me offering to work for them for FREE, remember. I'm in a reputable program at a respected school, get decent grades and...yeah, I've worked really hard to be presentable.
On the rare occassions I actually get to speak to somebody at a design firm they hedge and do everything they can to get me off the phone. Nobody's ever expressed even the slightest interest in taking me on.
The answer to the experience problem is supposed to be "you need to spend a year or two building up a big portfolio of projects on your own" so that employers will be impressed. I've done that. Websites, standalone apps, etc.. Nobody will even look at my resume, though.
Question: Why does there seem to be so little interest in taking on upaid interns in the world of IT?
Update: Sorry you all think I'm too aggressive or angry. It wasn't my intent to be a jerk to people while asking them for their opinions. That said, how would you feel if employer after employer turned you down cold when you offered yourself to them without asking for remuneration? One can't even get an unpaid job in this economy now, it seems.
How am I going about my search? I find web firms in my area and contact them via email with a brief sales pitch of myself and a resume attached. Then a couple of days later I follow up with a phone contact. Nobody--anywhere--is advertising for interns of any kind. If there were I'm sure there'd be about 500 resumes per position, even unpaid. I've had good experiences in the past with cold-calling firms for actual paid jobs in other industries (hiring is a pain in the ass process and a call like this can show initiative while reducing a busy employer's need to do all the hiring overhead work), so I thought volunteering would work at least as well.
My skills are pretty good for a CS student and include the usual suspects: HTML/CSS/Javascript, Python, Java, C, C#/.Net etc etc. I made a point on my resume to tie each ability claim to a project as well.
Oh, and regarding the "working for free still costs the employer money" argument: that's an excellent point I hadn't though of. But it means...what? I have to pay the employer for the privilege of working there now?
