Spotlight Online for Career Services Professionals, May 26, 2010

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, according to results of NACE’s 2010 Student Survey. 

The study found that 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. Survey results 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. 

The 2010 Student Survey was conducted February 9, 2010, through April 30, 2010. More than 31,470 students representing more than 400 colleges and universities nationwide took part; more than 13,000 of those were graduating seniors. A final report on the study’s findings will be available later this year.