Why internships are more important than part-time or seasonal jobs

At College Recruiter, which believes that every student and recent graduate deserves a great career, we’re often asked by employers why students care so much about landing an internship before graduation. In short, because it matters. A lot.

Nulab, a software company that provides online collaboration tools, recently shared with College Recruiter its survey of 600+ former interns and 350+ people who have not completed an internship:

• 63 percent work in a career field relevant to their internship experience;
• 40 percent have been hired by a company they previously interned with; 26 percent were hired immediately upon graduating, while 13 percent were hired at a later point;
• Nearly 68 percent that completed an internship believe it was more valuable to their career than school;
• The most hired majors after interning were: business (51 percent), science, math, and technology (49 percent), health and medicine (40.5 percent), and public and social services (40 percent); and
• People who completed internships secured jobs faster than those who did not.

Employers large and small advertise their part-time, seasonal, entry-level, and, yes, internship job opportunities with College Recruiter as more than 2.5 million students and recent grads use our site a year.