Working for free may sound counter-productive, but a new study has confirmed what many already suspected - that the practice across Australia is widespread.
Professor Andrew Stewart is one of the researchers of the report.
He says unpaid work placements are particularly common among young people.
"A lot of people are doing unpaid work to try and get a chance at getting a job in what is a very tight labour market. So young people in particular - those under 30. More than half of those have done at least one internship or placement in the last five years and many of them have done more than that".
Professor Stewart says while unpaid internships can offer a chance for students to observe and learn in a practical setting, some employers may be exploiting them.
"Where you're doing real work that's valuable to the organisation, where you're working and its not connected with education or training, that's potentially in breach of the Fair Work Act, and we've seen a number of examples in recent years of businesses being taken to the Fair Work Ombudsman and fined for using unpaid interns as cheap labour."
The survey found most participants felt positive about their unpaid work, and believed it would lead to better work opportunities.
Clara Jordan-Baird is the Policy Director from Interns Australia.
She says there are many benefits of internships, such as learning new skills and potentially making contacts in competitive industries.
"However the problem is when organisations takes work which would usually be paid, such as doing admin, or other actuivites like that, market it as an internship and them lure unsuspecting people into doing it. So the risks are that young people who are vulnerable, who have no idea of the value of their work are lured into a workplace with the potential of someday getting a job, and find themselves picking up drycleaning, getting coffees, and doing work they're not actually learning anything from."
Ms Jordan-Baird says her organisation wants a national inquiry into unpaid internships, which she says could potentially lead to paid employees being paid less.
And she says it may also reinforce inequality, because those from rural areas or lower socio-economic backgrounds are less able to access internships.
"The only people who can afford to do internships are the people are people who are able to work for free. So you'll notice that many of these internships which are in more prestigious fields like in media, law... many of these high paid more competitive areas, will be going to the people who are able to do internships. So we'll making it more and more difficult for people from a variety of backgrounds to get these prestigious careers."
