Volunteering and the ... Class Barrier?

What with the job market being an employer's market at the moment, volunteering seems to be the best way to get yourself into employment especially in the mid range skilled jobs.

Examples:

• PR
• Fashion
• Media
• And my chosen field, journalism 

Now, high-skilled jobs like doctors, lawyers and technical jobs such as engineering and computer science based positions won't generally have this problem. When you need a doctor you don't want someone who isn't employed, either privately or by the NHS. When you hire a lawyer you don't want someone who is so desperate for work they will take your case for free. You would think, there must a reason no-one has hired this guy. Plus, doctors and lawyers are always in demand somewhere. Though graduates are having to go further and further afield these days to get the position they want. 

So back onto the jobs that are demanding volunteering. Are these jobs JUST open to wealthy people? Of course not, but graduates who don't have that much money are less likely to have the time to volunteer. They may have a part time job to tide them over. They may even have dependants. 

Those like me who are lucky enough to have supportive parents who can afford to financially sustain them while we work towards a stable career are more likely to be able to take up volunteer work and are therefore more likely to get jobs. But am I middle class? Are my parents wealthy?

No and NO.

I live in a modest household and have done my entire life. My parents both came from working class families living on the salaries of butchers and factory workers. This probably taught them the value of money and also the value of a good education as most children left school at 16 in the 70s. My parents must have spent at least a part of their working lives thinking, "What could I have been if I had been educated to a higher level?"

So it doesn't seem to be a class barrier. The barriers seem to be different with each person. Whether you have a part time job, or a child, or the inability to travel, or lack of funds, it seems to be a personal struggle rather than a class struggle. 

Still, lets not pretend that wealthier families don't have to contend with these barriers less, but I am betting that the daughter of an NHS doctor might have some barriers of her own to volunteering. Her dad could probably afford to support her but is he unwilling to for whatever reason? Does she have children? Or a disability? Or maybe her family CAN'T financially support her due to debt. 

Whatever the reason, volunteering is not a class barrier to skilled jobs but it is an unfair system that employers are taking advantage of. Some employers will take on volunteers, knowing that they are not even going to consider them for a position at the end. They look at it with an attitude that speaks of, "We are the ones doing you a favour here. Why should we give you anything? You can put US on your CV. That is all the payment you need."

Am I against volunteering?

Certainly not, I think it's a great way for young professionals to get out there and learn their industry without the added pressure of the 'wage-for-effort-bargain' (as Human Resource professionals call it). I, as a matter of fact have just gotten myself a meeting for a little volunteer position myself that I think will be highly beneficial to my career. 

But something has got to change in the way it is exploited and some of those non-class barriers we talked about, have to be dropped.