Spotlight for Career Services Professionals
Spotlight for Recruiting Professionals

More than 40% of employers are planning to hold a hybrid internship program this summer, according to current results of NACE’s Spring 2021 Quick Poll on Internships and Fall Recruiting.

Among employers that are planning to have either an exclusively virtual or exclusively in-person internship program this summer, three times as many will have a virtual program. (See Figure 1.)

In terms of career fairs for the fall, the highest percentage of responding recruiters not only prefer attending both in person and virtual, but feel this is the most likely case. (See Figure 2.)

Nearly one-third of respondents prefer to attend virtual career fairs exclusively; more than 40% feel this is most likely. While 13% of recruiters would rather exclusively attend career fairs in person, none feel that this is likely.

NACE is polling employer members and nonmembers on their plans for their summer internship programs and for engaging in fall 2021 recruiting, in light of the pandemic. The poll examines whether employers plan to hold their internships in person, virtually, or in a hybrid format, and how that will influence interaction with interns. The poll also looks at how employers will engage in recruiting in fall 2021, e.g., in person or virtually, and what that means for traditional recruiting activities, such as career fairs. The poll runs until April 30; results are in real time.

Figure 1: Primary plans for 2021 internship program

Figure 2: Recruiters' preferred and most likely way for attending career fairs in fall 2021