Survey: Students Likely to Accept Job Offer from Internship Employers

A survey from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) says that nearly two-thirds of students who completed an internship indicated they “definitely would” (36 percent) or “probably would” (26 percent) accept an offer for a full-time position from their most recent internship employers.

Out of those who responded to NACE’s 2011 Student Survey, 18.7 percent of students who had an internship said they would likely turn down an offer of full-time employment with their latest employers.

“Typically, if the intern’s work experience is substantive and the individual is engaged in meaningful work, chances are greater that individual will want to join the organization on a full-time basis,” NACE Executive Director Marilyn Mackes said. “If the work is more clerical or not related to professional goals, it is more likely the intern will reject the job offer and look for work elsewhere, regardless of whether the internship was offered by a for-profit, nonprofit, federal government, or state/local government employer.”

Student interns who would reject offers of full-time employment spent more than one-third of their time, on average, on clerical or nonprofessional tasks. Those who would accept offers spent an average of just over one-fifth of their time on such tasks.