Internship impact on career consideration among business students

The purpose of this paper is to report on the impact of the internship experience on business students’ career intentions in regard to pursuing a career path in the same job function or industry as their internship.

After completing and reflecting on an internship, 198 undergraduate students responded to the prompt: “discuss the impact of the internship on your career consideration.” Responses were analyzed using a content analysis methodology in order to determine whether or not interns would pursue the same job functions (e.g. sales) or industry (e.g. non-profit) as their internship in their post-graduation job search.

Across the job functions and industries identified within the internships, 54 and 45 percent of interns confirmed their expectations of career fit, respectively. The implications of confirming and disconfirming these expectations for students are discussed.

Given the value of internships to business students, surprisingly few studies have examined their influence on undergraduates’ career considerations. Students select internships with the intention of learning about job functions or industries for possible career fit, yet the authors know little about whether the experience confirms or disconfirms their expectations. This study seeks to address this gap. The authors suggest that internships, as experiential activities, merit greater attention as they provide students opportunities to learn what they do or do not want to do, where they do or do not want to work and whether their self-concept fits a possible career path – saving themselves and potential employers the cost of job dissatisfaction and turnover.