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International Rescue Committee Employee Reviews about "internship"
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David Miliband
447 Ratings
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Top Review Highlights by Sentiment
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Pros
Cons
- "Poor management, overworked caseworkers do not have time to properly train their interns" (in 40 reviews)
- "The only downside is that it's an unpaid internship and it caters more to privileged individuals who can afford an unpaid internship." (in 35 reviews)
- "long hours even though it is an internship (depending on office and who you are working for)" (in 18 reviews)
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Found 82 of over 2K reviews
Updated Sep 22, 2023
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Reviews about "internship"
Return to all Reviews- 2.0May 26, 2009Public OutreachCurrent EmployeeNew York, NY
Pros
Organization has prestigious name and history. The humanitarian aid side of things seems to be run very well. On the field work side of things, the IRC has a huge scope of work and provides a lot more services than most other humanitarian agencies. But also many chances to network with other humanitarian agencies. It would probably be a good place to do an internship to get experience for work in the field. For other areas (external outreach, HR etc.) you can probably get a lot of mileage from the name on your resume. Good office location and compensation is about equal to that of similar sized humanitarian agencies.
Cons
As former reviewer posted, be prepared to be over-worked and under-appreciated. Very little personal training and reluctance to invest in employee development in any way. Impossibly high expectations at times for lower and mid-level employees. Very stressful. Very strange dynamics going on here - levels of micromanagement all the way to the top but complete lack of project ownership until something goes well. Blame inevitably trickles down. Many internal struggles between senior staff that make doing ones job very, very difficult. Process for promotions and hiring does not seem fair and organization is generally 'top heavy'. Organization announced a non-essential hiring/promotion freeze less than a week after promoting 6 most senior staff members and a number of employees at employment level. Benefits program is not good - they do not even have maternity leave and coverage by healthcare plan is less than basic.
11 - 4.0Aug 22, 2014Employment SpecialistFormer Intern, less than 1 yearSan Diego, CA
Pros
The staff at the San Diego branch of the IRC were friendly, very willing to answer questions and provide feedback, and professional. I really enjoyed getting to interact with such a great group of people in the office as I went about my internship duties. The office culture was more casual, and the staff and interns were expected to dress in business casual. The internship, which was mainly helping refugees create a resume, understand more about the American work sector, and how to apply for jobs. The clients were all very friendly and although it was difficult for them to understand at times since many were still learning English, they adapted and often appointments to help them find jobs were filled with a lot of light humor and cheery patience.
Cons
The internship was difficult in the beginning because, given the nature of the internship, much of the training in learning how to interact with clients and navigate learning how to explain sometimes abstract terminology in a way they could grasp, since the majority of the clients were in the process of learning English. As well, sometimes I did not feel like I had much to do, and needed to be proactive in finding other things to do during my scheduled time there.
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