Work for Free With young people nearly shut out of the market
by recession, regulation, child labor laws and ghastly minimum wage laws, I would like
to suggest the unthinkable.
Young people should work for free wherever they can and whenever they can.
The reason is to acquire a good reputation and earn a good recommendation.
A person who will give you a positive reference on demand is worth gold, and certainly far
more than the money you might otherwise earn.
Many of the essays in my book, Bourbon for Breakfast, turn out to have forecasted both
the current mess and this solution.
But first, let me tell a story of two cases in point.
The first, an example of the worst possible kind of worker, and the second, an example
of brilliant foresight.
The first case comes from a job I had in my teens.
I was standing around with a few other employees in a clothing shop.
The boss walked by and said to my co-worker,
"'Please straighten these ties on this table.'"
My co-worker waited until the boss walked away, and then he muttered under his breath,
"'I'm not doing that for a minimum wage.'"
That comment seared right through me, and I thought about it a very long time.
The worker was effectively asking for money upfront before working, even though he was
employed to do things like straighten ties.
This was even worse than in subordination.
He had this idea that the value he contributes to the firm should never exceed the value
of the money he is earning in exchange.
If that must be true, one wonders why anyone should ever hire him.
The goal of every employer is to gain more value from workers than the firm pays out
in wages, otherwise there is no growth, no advance and no advantage for the employer.
Conversely, the goal of every employee should be to contribute more to the firm than he
or she receives in wages, and thereby provide a solid rationale for receiving raises and
advancement in the firm.
I don't need to tell you that the refuse, Nick, didn't last long in this job.
In contrast, here is a story from last week.
My phone rang.
It was the employment division of a major university.
The man on the phone was inquiring about the performance of a person who did some site
work on Mises.org last year.
I was able to tell him about a remarkable young man who swung into action during a crisis
and how he worked three 19-hour days, three days in a row, how he learned new software
with diligence, how he kept his cool, how he navigated his way with grace and expertise
amidst some 80 different third-party plugins and databases, how he saw his way around the
inevitable problems, how he assumed responsibility for the results, and much more.
What I didn't tell the interviewer was that this person did all this without asking for
any payment.
Did that fact influence my report on his performance?
I'm not entirely sure, but the interviewer probably sensed in my voice, my sense of awe
towards what this person had done for the Mises Institute.
The interviewer told me that he had written down 15 different questions to ask me, but
that I had answered them all already in the course of my monologue, and that he was thrilled
to hear all these specifics.
The person who was offered the job, he had done a very wise thing.
He had earned a devotee for life.
The harder the economic times, the more employers need to know what they are getting when they
hire someone.
The job applications poured in by the buckets, all padded with degrees and made to look as
impressive as possible, it's all just paper.
What matters today is what a person can do for a firm.
The resume becomes pro forma, but not decisive under these conditions.
But for a former boss or manager to rave about you to a potential employer, that's worth
everything.
Sadly, many young people who can't get jobs have no work experience to show for themselves
at all.
They have been wildly misled all their lives about the great glories that await anyone
who stays in school and gets great grades.
There are innumerable aerospace engineers, mathematicians and even lawyers who are in
In this situation, to say nothing of sociologists, historians and people with degrees in communications
and marketing.
Adding to the problem today is the burden of student loans.
Kids are graduating today with six figures in debt that they will immediately be forced
to service if they accept employment.
But with no prospects, outside Walmart and Starbucks, they opt to stay in school and
and get yet another degree hoping all the while that the labor market will turn around.
This is a terrible trap.
They have structured their lives around the speculation that a high-paying job awaits
following graduation, but there is no such thing.
A low-paying job isn't even enough to pay the rent plus debt service.
It was a very bad speculation.
Their dreams are being killed by a desperately tight labor market for anyone without work
Work Experience, or any kind of work reference at all.
Under these conditions, the solution is to gain that thing of highest value.
That means volunteering.
The state can't come after you to start paying the student loan debt, and yet you gain people
who will become your benefactors later.
Where to volunteer?
A nonprofit such as a church or educational group would be fine.
But also find might be a local plant nursery, lawn service, mail house or printer, or even
at a law firm.
You can make an application informally, but be clear that you want no payment.
If there are legal issues, try to work around them.
If you are accepted, not a foregone conclusion, set hours for yourself and stick with them.
Make yourself super useful, super dependable.
Get to know as many people as possible.
The time will come when one of the people you came to know will receive a phone call.
He or she will be asked their opinion of you and your work.
That's when the whole of your life can change for the better.
Is that six months to one year of volunteer work worth it at that moment?
It is worth everything.
On the other hand, you can spend your life refusing to straighten ties because you aren't
paid enough to do that.
That person will never be paid to do anything.