You realize the article specifically highlighted that as one of the bad pieces of advice proffered on the Internet.
However, presenting in front of a peer group does do a couple things. First, you have to prepare, which helps you realize what skill you actually have. Secondly you end up building a lot of self confidence, especially on the topics that you are presenting on.
Which in my case somehow worked major magic. When I was last unemployed for about 4 months, I seemed to have flubbed a couple interviews. Well, I went to some Linux user group meetings, presented on a couple technical topics I was passionate about, and then offered to help anyone with problems that they were having on any of their environments (this was related to things like iptables configurations, clustering, virtualization, etc). The following week I went into an interview, and it was like I was watching myself on auto-pilot. Identifying problems and offering possible solutions, picking up on what was working or not based on body language, dynamically adjusting my message to fit what the interviewer was looking for, and I landed the job and started the next day.
Sorry, you're right. I read that bit in the linked article about getting a job with no connections.[1]
> However, presenting in front of a peer group does do a couple things. First, you have to prepare, which helps you realize what skill you actually have. Secondly you end up building a lot of self confidence, especially on the topics that you are presenting on.
I think you are definitely right on that. The more experience you get explaining things to strangers, the better you will do in interviews. I took the "free work" section of the article as being more focused on audition than practice, though.
[1] http://cultivatedculture.com/how-to-get-a-job-anywhere-no-co...
Tell that to all the unpaid interns out there.
The fashion and journalism industries are rife with them.
Really? What law is this?
It's a basic consequence of having minimum wage laws. Unless you're being picky and want to hear that it's illegal to have someone work for you for free.
Basically, the intern is supposed to be learning a trade with some incidental work output, and what really happens is that they are given junior-level labor and some guidance and pointers (i.e. the same thing you'd do with a PAID junior level worker).
Unpaid wages are one of the few offenses that can "pierce the corporate veil" and leave founders/owners personally liable.