The Internship Gap: The Relationship Between Internship Salary and the Probability of Receiving a Job Offer

Abstract

Despite the ubiquity of internships in college life, there is little empirical research that examines their value in the job market. What little research has been done tends to agree that there is a strong, positive relationship between having internship experience on a college student’s resume and receiving a job offer upon graduation. This study seeks to go one step further, examining if the probability of receiving a job offer varies by whether the student completed a paid or unpaid internship. The results indicate that completing a paid internship (as opposed to completing an unpaid internship) is associated with a 14.2 percent increase in the probability of receiving a job offer, holding other factors included in the model constant.. Encouraging college students to pursue paid internship experiences is expected to improve their prospects in the labor market upon graduation.