The Cost of an Unpaid Apprenticeship

A MUA apprenticeship is absolutely the best way to learn the business inside out and gain the real world experience you need to be really good at your job. It’s easy to imagine that you are being taken advantage of when you are working without pay, but there are several reasons that apprenticeship opportunities are scarce - it isn’t just free labor. Hiring and grooming an apprentice takes a lot of time, money, and energy, and carries significant potential risk to my business. Here’s what it costs me.

Time: Teaching someone on the job takes time, and makes the job itself take longer. Not to mention the time spent on orientations, outside lessons, researching a candidate that will meet the criteria, interviews, and skill reviews.

Money: I provide extra supplies, or they end up using mine, because they are just beginning in the makeup industry. Even if they are in school, school kits are woefully insufficient for our needs, so I end up donating product to the apprentice. Apprentices also tend to see how much money I can make (of course without the context of my expenses) and start asking when I’m going to start paying them. The answer is always “When you're no longer my apprentice and you land your first job on your own.” Then if I do decide to hire them for a job, they're usually disappointed that I am still making more. I always tell them upfront that they will not earn 50% of profits, they get a pay rate. Never mind the fact that years of experience translate to higher pay rates in virtually every job - I don't even pay fellow professionals with as much experience as I have that I hire for my clients half of profits, because I earn a fee for doing the administrative work.

Competition: It's hard to justify training someone to take your jobs when it's hard enough to make ends meet as a full time freelance MUA. Especially if that person is overly ambitious and has no problem later undercutting your rates, stealing your clients, and/or otherwise acting unethically, which damages my reputation by association.

Reliability: Chances are they are also in school and working another job, so they're not always available when I need them to be, which affects my business. It sometimes feels to me like they are getting all the benefits of the teaching, but not reciprocating the work when it's needed.

I offer apprenticeships to help new artists become skilled and ethical artists because I believe that is crucial to the value of my craft, not because I want to take advantage of free labor. Apprentice labor is anything but free.