Marketing Internships: Expectations and Perceptions of Students and Internship Providers

Abstract

Internships are three-way partnerships between the educational institution, the student intern, and the company where the intern takes on the challenges of a program of systematic experiential learning. An intern is someone who is involved in a part-time or full-time work experience that is related to the student’s career goal or major, who may be paid or unpaid, may or may not be receiving academic credit for the internship, but who is a temporary employee (Tovey 2001). The lack of relevant work experience and/or internships is a key complaint of employers, and a determining factor in employment decisions with one-third of firms in a recent study indicating that job candidates with an internship experience are strongly preferred over those lacking this credential (NACE 2007). Accordingly, as marketing educators continue to move to more experiential learning pedagogies, the internship has become more widely employed (Karns 2005). As such, it is important that the realities of the employment market are aligned strategically with marketing internship programs. Specifically, input from business organizations “can help ensure that the expectations of our off-campus partners are being met in ways that are both consistent with our academic missions and meaningful to future employers” (Sapp and Zhang 2009, p. 277).