In-person activities are the most widely used and effective means for recruiting interns, according to results of NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op survey.
Following the pandemic, when travel and in-person contact restrictions prompted an increase in virtual connections between employers and candidates for internships, employers have increasingly returned to face-to-face interactions with students to recruit
potential interns.
In 2023-24, in-person fairs and on-campus recruiting were not only widely used but also were viewed as effective by more than two-thirds of respondents.
In contrast, use of virtual fairs and virtual recruiting eroded, and less than one-fifth of respondents deemed them effective. (See Figures 1 and 2.)
To illustrate the shift away from virtual, in 2021, 94.2% of employers reported participating in virtual career/job/internships fairs. However, that percentage dipped to 74.0% in 2023 and 58.8% in 2024.
NACE surveys its employer members yearly to gather benchmarks on internship and co-op programs. For the 2025 Internship & Co-op Report, NACE conducted the survey from October 16, 2024, to January 2, 2025. Overall, 247 organizations took part in the
survey, including 208 NACE member organizations, representing 24.8% of eligible member organizations, and 39 nonmember companies. NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op Report is available on NACEWeb. It is free to all survey participants in MyNACE.
Strengthen Your Campus to Career Pipeline
NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op Report offers hiring data for the 2024-25 academic year plus various benchmarks (like the recruiting techniques above). Use the included interactive dashboard to drill down by region, company size, industry, and more to see how your program measures up.
SEE WHAT'S IN THIS YEAR'S REPORT
The companion report, Guide to Compensation for Interns & Co-ops, provides supporting compensation information. (Save by bundling the guide, report, and dashboard!)
Kevin Gray is an associate editor at NACE. He can be reached at 
