Why Internships Are Crucial for Career Readiness: Insights from the NACE Report
/Advancing Experiential Learning Opportunities
Understanding the importance of Career Readiness, we are keen to promote experiential learning opportunities as an ideal way for our students to develop workplace skills. Internships, externships, case competitions, policy debates, professional work simulations, and volunteerism are just some of the experiential learning opportunities that many employers offer.
Internships, in particular, hold a unique place in a student’s career journey. According to the NACE 2022 Job Outlook Handbook, employers rank internship experience as the most influential hiring decision criterion “...when choosing between two otherwise equally qualified candidates.” Decades of research confirm the positive correlation between students’ participation in internships and their obtaining full-time employment shortly before or after graduation.
Internship Experience: The Key Factor in Hiring Decisions
When employers face a choice between two equally qualified candidates, having completed an internship either with the hiring organization or within its industry is often the deciding factor, according to NACE's Job Outlook 2022 report.
These two attributes are the only ones that employers consider to have a strong influence on their hiring decisions. Although this trend has remained consistent over the past few years, the significance of these factors has slightly decreased since 2020.
The Job Outlook survey provides insights into employers' hiring intentions regarding new college graduates. The data for the 2022 survey were collected from mid-August to early October 2021. The survey received responses from a mix of NACE employer members and nonmembers, totaling 157 participants. The full Job Outlook 2022 report is available through MyNACE.
Influence of Various Attributes on Hiring Decisions (Average Influence Rating)
Internship with the organization: High influence 🔥
Internship experience in the industry: High influence 🔥
Major: Moderate influence
Leadership experience: Moderate influence
General work experience: Moderate influence
Involvement in extracurricular activities: Moderate
High GPA (3.0 or above): Lower influence
No work experience: Lower influence
Volunteer work: Low influence
School attended: Low influence 🤯
Fluency in a foreign language: Minimal influence
Studied abroad: Minimal influence 😂
