Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals
The recruiting methods for interns and co-ops that employers use the most and find the most useful go hand in hand, according to results of NACE’s 2019 Internship & Co-op Survey Report.
Career/job fairs, job listings both on career center websites and on corporate websites, and referrals from current or former interns and co-ops are the most used recruiting techniques. Other in-person methods—such as on-campus recruiting and information sessions—follow closely behind. (See Figure 1.)
In terms of effectiveness, the top recruiting techniques that employers rate “very” to “extremely effective” are on-campus recruiting, career/job fairs, and job listings on corporate website.
Data for the 2019 Internship & Co-op Survey Reportwere collected from December 3, 2018, to February 22, 2019, from NACE employer members; there were 262 respondents representing 28.2 percent of all eligible respondents. The report will be available later this spring.
Figure 1: Usage, effectiveness percentages of recruiting techniques for interns, co-ops
| Recruiting technique |
Use |
Effectiveness |
| Career/job fairs |
97.0% |
74.9% |
| Job listings: career center websites |
96.1% |
57.4% |
| Job listings: corporate websites |
95.4% |
70.3% |
| Referrals from current/former interns |
93.3% |
56.8% |
| On-campus recruiting |
92.1% |
78.2% |
| On-campus information sessions |
89.0% |
49.7% |
| Outreach to student groups |
85.6% |
44.8% |
| Cultivating key faculty |
82.4% |
33.9% |
| Alumni referrals |
80.5% |
34.6% |
| Online networking |
56.1% |
21.3% |
| Recruitment advertising |
53.9% |
13.0% |
| Open houses |
43.0% |
18.1% |
| Advertising in campus newspapers |
12.7% |
2.2% |
Source: 2019 Internship & Co-op Survey Report, National Association of Colleges and Employers