More Good Reasons to do an Internship

Results from National Association of Colleges & Employer’s (NACE) Student Survey conducted between February and April of this year, shows that 19.7% of 2009 grads who have applied for jobs have actually been hired as full-time employees. An interesting note is that the survey also showed that only 59% of this year’s class have actually begun their job search compared to 66% of the class of 2008 by this time last year. Students applying directly to grad school is also up 3%, 27% as compared to 24% of last year’s graduates.

The survey also revealed that of the new graduates who have accepted job offers, 73% had completed one or more internships over the course of their college career. In today’s BusinessWeek online, they list the best places for college students to look for internships in today’s tough economy as well as an interactive table of the 50 best places to intern.

According to BusinessWeek, the Big 4 Accounting firms (Pricewaterhousecoopers, KPMG, Deloitte, Ernst & Young) the number of internships available for 2009 is expected to drop from last year by 8.6% or from 8,975 to 8,200 interns. Although this is a significant number, it does illustrate that there are still internships and jobs available, but the competitions is much tougher. Of these firms, 47% to 90% of all new hires in 2008 were previous interns of these companies.

• Making Your Internship a Success
• How to Turn an Internship Into a Job
• Getting Along With Your Boss