The Internship, this summer’s movie that reunites comic partners Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson (see Wedding Crashers) is billed as a comedy and can be quite funny. But it also struck me as art imitating life, to a frighteningly realistic degree when it comes to job hunting.

A movie where art imitates life.

The main characters are salesman put out of work by technology (sound familiar) who try to reinvent themselves as Google interns. I’m assuming Google cooperated with the film, given the prominence of its name throughout. I can only wonder why though.

The process shown for its summer interns seems grueling at best and clearly demonstrates how tough jobs are to come by these days. The old (perhaps in their 30s but they could also be today’s workers in their 40s, 50s or 60s trying to stay relevant in a changing workplace) interns are hopelessly outclassed in tech skills by the young. But rather than feel secure, the young are seeing the world through recession-colored glasses. No one in this film seems confident about getting or keeping a job.

The movie is a sad, but accurate, commentary on today’s job market and just reinforces the message of my book, namely, always be job hunting, there is no job security today.
John N. Frank