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Career Opportunity & Relevance Top Internship Attributes
Out of a host of factors, students deem opportunities for long-term career advancement and relevance
of a position to their majors or minors to be the most important when thinking about internships.
Both received “very important” ratings among more than two-thirds of respondents. Second-tier
factors include access to executives and mentors, work-life balance, clearly-defined assignments and
compensation. Towards the bottom of the list are access to personal social media, casual dress and
working off-site one day a week.
Importance of internship attributes
(% very important)
Work/life balance
Much has been written about the importance of work/life balance among Millennials. While not
a top-tier attribute, work/life balance does easily make the top five with 49.2 percent of students
considering a good work/life balance when doing internships very important. Female students place
greater emphasis on work/life balance, at 50.9 percent, versus 46.9 percent of males.
Career advancement opportunities
• Career-oriented majors such as accounting and business administration place more importance on
internships that offer long-term job and career opportunities, at 69.4 percent versus 60.9 percent
among academic-oriented majors (which include English, foreign languages, etc). Likewise,
career-oriented majors are much more focused on finding opportunities that match their major/
minor at 69.4 percent versus 56.4 percent.
• Career opportunities are more important for interns in junior and senior years, than those in the
first couple of years of college. For example, 61.6 percent of combined freshman and sophomore
respondents find long-term career opportunities very important versus 68.6 percent of seniors and
73.2 percent of graduate students.
© InternMatch | State of Internships 2014 Page | 7
Out of a host of factors, students deem opportunities for long-term career advancement and relevance
of a position to their majors or minors to be the most important when thinking about internships.
Both received “very important” ratings among more than two-thirds of respondents. Second-tier
factors include access to executives and mentors, work-life balance, clearly-defined assignments and
compensation. Towards the bottom of the list are access to personal social media, casual dress and
working off-site one day a week.
Importance of internship attributes
(% very important)
Work/life balance
Much has been written about the importance of work/life balance among Millennials. While not
a top-tier attribute, work/life balance does easily make the top five with 49.2 percent of students
considering a good work/life balance when doing internships very important. Female students place
greater emphasis on work/life balance, at 50.9 percent, versus 46.9 percent of males.
Career advancement opportunities
• Career-oriented majors such as accounting and business administration place more importance on
internships that offer long-term job and career opportunities, at 69.4 percent versus 60.9 percent
among academic-oriented majors (which include English, foreign languages, etc). Likewise,
career-oriented majors are much more focused on finding opportunities that match their major/
minor at 69.4 percent versus 56.4 percent.
• Career opportunities are more important for interns in junior and senior years, than those in the
first couple of years of college. For example, 61.6 percent of combined freshman and sophomore
respondents find long-term career opportunities very important versus 68.6 percent of seniors and
73.2 percent of graduate students.
© InternMatch | State of Internships 2014 Page | 7
