Join/Renew
The average intern conversion rate is the highest it has been in five years, according to results of NACE’s 2026 Internship & Co-op Survey.
The conversion rate has surged to 63.1% for 2024-25 interns, a steep climb of nearly 13% from the rate for 2023-24 interns. (See Figure 1.)
Other key metrics for internship programs—namely offer and acceptance rates—increased as well. The offer rate climbed nearly 10% from 2023-24, while the acceptance rate reached 88.3% among 2024-25 interns, up from 82.8% for their 2023-24 counterparts.
This climb underscores the value and importance of internships for both employers and students, especially in a tight job market. For employers, the gains show that internships are an effective means of identifying and building relationships with potential employees. For students, it demonstrates that internships are a path to a first career position.
Several strategies organizations report using to accelerate their intern conversion are to:
- Focus on demand planning and workforce planning—Make sure there are opportunities and ensure your internship program is the right size. If you are hiring too many interns and are not able to integrate them into your work force, you are setting yourself up for failure.
- Not view intern engagement only as a 10-week summer pursuit—Instead, engagement must gain momentum through recruiting and pre-internship, accelerate during the internship itself, and be maintained after interns return to campus. Consider internships as being from a year before interns come in and then a year from when they go out. Keep them engaged with regular digital newsletters apprising students about developments in the organization and industry, inclusion in company events, small gifts during midterms/finals, virtual games and polls to get them connected and involved, and more.
- Be intentional about relationships—Identify who has contact with interns during the summer and the kinds of key relationships they have. This includes recruiters, hiring managers, buddies, mentors, coaches, and others. Make sure that relationship programs are designed and set up with overall engagement goals in mind and that the organization’s participants are trained to meet their responsibilities effectively.
- Keep interns excited about career prospects—Offer valuable work experiences that mirror those of the positions they are seeking, keep them informed about the organization and its industry, seek their input, offer them regular feedback from their managers, and treat them as professionals throughout. Provide the knowledge and tools managers need to give interns a top-notch experience.
NACE surveys its employer members yearly to gather benchmarks on internship and co-op programs. NACE conducted the survey for the 2026 Internship & Co-op Report, sponsored by 12twenty, from October 15, 2025, to January 4, 2026. A total of 284 organizations took part, including 192 NACE member organizations (26.1% of eligible member organizations), 48 12twenty member organizations, and 44 other companies. Participants can access the NACE’s 2026 Internship & Co-op Report and dashboard in MyNACE.
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