February 2019

IZA DP No. 12183: Student Internships and Employment Opportunities after Graduation: A Field Experiment

revised version published in: Economics of Education Review, 2021, 83, 102141

Internships during tertiary education have become substantially more common over the past decades in many industrialised countries. This study examines the impact of a voluntary intra-curricular internship experience during university studies on the probability of being invited to a job interview. To estimate a causal relationship, we conducted a randomised field experiment in which we sent 1,248 fictitious, but realistic, resumes to real job openings. We find that applicants with internship experience have, on average, a 12.6% higher probability of being invited to a job interview.