Unfortunately it wasn’t an internship, it was all about handing out real tasks for building a company website. If the matter was volunteer work better than internship described.
Was in the exact same shoes back then, it’s better than nothing on your resume. In fact, a lot better.
Try your best to produce some good work, but not to a point that takes over your life and leaves you no time for self-study and job hunting. Keep applying for other internships or full-time once you have this position for over a month on your resume.
I wouldn’t call an exploitive, zero pay “internship” better than nothing. It’s literally a company giving you absolutely nothing while trying to use you for their profit.
Some people are fortunate enough to be on the side that makes demands with their skillsets and proven track record to back them up, some aren’t. It’s sad to say, but for the people who are starting from scratch with lackluster projects & background, they are portrait as negative assets in the world of the tech labor market. Good luck with passing the resume screening with any reputable company, let alone paying you a pile of cash to intern at their place.
I am not disagreeing on companies exploitive free labor is a bad practice that we should not be promoting, but at the same time, everyone gotta start somewhere. This “free labor” could be leverage to stack the odds on their side, even it might only tip the balance a little bit but every little bit counts.
We see different sides of the same thing based on where we sit. Without knowing the original poster’s details background, we could all be disconnected from the reality he is facing and any advice is subjective to the individual’s past experience.
Companies choosing to exploit people who are down on their luck and saying it’s good for the exploited person does not justify exploitation. Taking an unpaid internship is simply a bad idea.
The time spent in an exploitative unpaid internship can be better spent using free resources to improve your skills and portfolio while searching for a job from ethical employers.