What gives a new college grad an edge in the job market? Internship experience, say employers responding to a recent survey conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Employers taking part in NACE’s Job Outlook 2010 survey expressed a strong preference for candidates who had taken part in an internship.
More than three-quarters of responding employers said they prefer candidates with the kind of relevant work experience gained through an internship. In comparison, 16 percent said they were interested in candidates with any type of work experience, and 2.5 percent said work experience didn’t factor into their hiring decisions.
“Regardless of the state of the job market, employers consistently report a preference for candidates who have relevant work experience,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director. “Over the years, our surveys have shown a trend toward hiring new college graduates with internship experience.”
In the current job market, with employers having fewer opportunities and a larger pool of candidates to consider, that internship experience is crucial. “Taking part in an internship will not guarantee a new graduate a job, but it certainly boosts the candidate’s marketability,” says Mackes. In fact, in addition to relevant work experience, employers have a fairly extensive list of skills, qualities, and attributes they seek in job candidates.
“Communication skills, a strong work ethic, a high GPA, teamwork and interpersonal skills, and proven leadership abilities are among the skills and qualities that employers want their new hires to bring to the table,” says Mackes. “An internship can help a student develop many of these skills; in addition, the internship gives the student a track record that he or she can present to a potential employer as evidence of these abilities.”
According to NACE’s 2010 Student Survey, new graduates who took part in an internship program are more likely to have received a job offer than their peers who decided to forgo the experience.
The National Association of Colleges and Employers' Student Survey shows 42.3 percent of the seniors who had internship experience and applied for a job received at least one job offer. Conversely, only 30.7 percent of seniors without internship experience who applied for a job received an offer.
The study also found that those who had an internship were more likely to accept the offer—and have a job to go to following graduation. More than one-quarter of the intern group with offers accepted them; less than 20 percent of the non-intern group did so. One possibility for interns’ higher acceptance rate: a higher salary than the average offered their non-intern counterparts.
“Results of our study show the median accepted salary offer for seniors with an internship was $45,301—nearly 31 percent higher than the $34,601 median accepted salary offer to non-intern seniors,” says Marilyn Mackes, NACE executive director.
NACE’s 2010 Internship & Co-op Survey, conducted January 11 – March 5, 2010 found eighty percent of 884 employers said the primary focus of their internship or co-op programs is to feed their full-time hiring program. On the job, interns and co-ops spent most of their time engaged in business core functions, the survey found,
Among respondents, there is little change in the percentage of respondents with plans to hire interns and co-ops this year. Approximately 92 percent expect to hire interns and co-ops in 2010. Overall, respondents expect to bring in 2.9 percent more interns this year than last. A significant turnaround from 2009, when the intern hiring rate dropped by more than 20 percent. Co-op hiring remains depressed, and respondents expect to hire 2.8 percent fewer in 2010 than they did in 2009.
Career fairs were ranked as the most effective activity for recruiting interns, while on-campus recruiting earned top honors for co-op recruiting. Online networking and job listings on commercial web sites fell at the bottom of the rankings for both interns and co-ops. On average, employers take just over three weeks to extend an offer or inform a student that he/she is not being considered for an intern or co-op position. Employers select schools at which to hire interns and co-ops based on their recruiting experience with the school.
Despite the recent media attention given to unpaid internships, unpaid internships are a rarity among respondents to the survey. More than 90 percent pay all of their interns. Overall, the average percentage of paid internships is 98.6 percent. Overall, the average intern wage rate at the bachelor’s degree level is $17.00, down slightly from last year’s average ($17.13).
Not surprisingly, wage rates are affected by major, year of study, and degree level. Seniors, for example, earn an average hourly wage of $18.40, while freshmen earn $14.39. The most commonly offered benefits to interns and co-ops are planned social activities, paid holidays, and counting experiential education work time as service time if hired for a full-time position.
Approximately 51 percent of respondents offer relocation assistance to their interns, and about 46 percent provide this to their co-op students. Overall, respondents reported converting 53.3 percent of eligible interns into full-time hires.
That’s down from 56.6 percent last year. The conversion rate for co-ops, on the other hand, reached a near all-time high— 60.4 percent, outpaced only by the 2006 conversion rate of 64 percent. Of the students hired from the Class of 2009, 44.6 percent came from employers’internship programs and 34.9 percent came from their co-op programs. This is a significant increase in the reliance employers place on such programs to find new full-time college hires.
Students who have taken part in an internship are a better “risk” in terms of retention. Within one year of hire, nearly 86 percent of those that have taken part in an internship at the hiring organization (and 85 percent of those who served an internship elsewhere) are still on the job, compared with about 81 percent of those who didn’t do an internship.
