Wanted: Student or graduate intern. The role is unpaid, however travel fees will be reimbursed and an allowance of one set of lingerie per month will be available. Please only reply if you can commit to a minimum of six months.

This is one of the more generous work experience placements currently on offer. But surely most graduates dream of the financial security they expect to follow the obligatory student years of ultra-cheap living, nightmare bar jobs and begging phone calls to parents, so who would work for free (or knickers)?

Adam Butcher, 21, has spent much of his time since graduating with a first class degree going through the motions as a film production runner. Does he feel as if he has been chewed up and spat out by the work experience machine?

Adam was astonished from the outset by how difficult it was to secure unpaid work. “It feels like there is an infinite amount of people seeking even the unpaid work at the decent companies so there’s a lot of competition and you have to have a little bit of an edge.”

Adam eventually used a mixture of charm, contacts and determination to secure placements, including at film production company Working Title. Who you know is also an important aspect of the struggle.

It may seem unfair but a middle-class student with professional parents is far more likely to have a diary full of useful contacts than someone from a more modest background. It’s a well known fact that Tory leader David Cameron secured his first job as a party researcher - after initially being rejected for it - when a relative working for the Queen put in a quick phone call on his behalf.

Rachel Johnson, writer and self-proclaimed Yummy Mummy, admits that having a parent like her can trump merely having worked hard. She says the system cheats less privileged students who support themselves through university, “only to find out when they leave the glittering prizes have already been handed out, at a ceremony they never knew was taking place, to the undergraduate with the best connections.”

Even after the initial stress of getting in, interns often end up acting the dogsbody or having little chance to prove themselves, making it seem less essential experience and more cynical exploitation. Adam says: “People said thank you enough, but it was more you wanted people to take just a slight interest in who you were outside of coffee making.”

And if you have got that all-important edge, for how long can you afford to work for free? A study on work experience and exploitation by the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) found some interns at magazines and newspapers were asked to commit for a minimum of six months, and many were there, unpaid, for eight months or longer.

So the class divide rears its ugly head again. In Adam’s view, people who are financially secure or from privileged backgrounds have an undeniable advantage. He says: “I wouldn’t know what I’d do if my parents didn’t live in London, or if I wasn’t from a relatively wealthy background. I would have struggled certainly.”

The government made at least a notional gesture towards addressing the class division in January when John Denham, secretary of state for innovation, universities and skills, announced a government sponsored internship scheme. Even so, participants will not receive a proper salary, but a nominal sum roughly equivalent to the combined student loan and grant.

But, even if you are tempted to think meritocracy's death knell sounded last December when a week’s unpaid work at ITV Productions fetched £1,260 at auction, Adam's advice is to “leave your ego at the door” and find (or buy) that placement while you can.