Ryan Cassery, a Junior Marketing major at Stonehill, attended a career fair run by the Stonehill career development center called “Meet the Firms” during his sophomore year.
This fair brought together over 30 hiring companies for students looking for internship and job opportunities. “I was able to talk to each company at the event and gave my resume to about 10 of the ones I connected with the most,” Cassery said.
After the career fair Cassery reached out to one of the companies and was asked to apply directly through their website. He is now a paid fall semester sales intern at ALKU.
ALKU is a staffing firm that matches individuals and companies to personal consultants. Cassery said his role is mostly “cold calling to hiring managers, trying to see if they are hiring pharmaceutical consultants.” Cassery also applied to Black Diamond, the Red Sox organization, Aflac, and LabCorp on Stonehill’s Job search site handshake. He did not end up following through with these after receiving his ALKU offer.
The National Association of College and Employers (NACE), a market research company, reported in its 2023 student survey that of 2,307 respondents who were graduating, 62% of 2023 graduating seniors who had an internship during college, of that, 59% percent were paid internships. The NACE said this was a great indicator “our research consistently shows that students who participate in paid internships not only get more job offers than peers in unpaid internships, but we also see a relationship between a paid internship and a higher starting salary,” the report found.
The results of the 2023 student survey showed paid interns averaged 1.4 job offers and unpaid interns averaged 0.9. Paid interns also earned larger starting salary’s reporting a median of $67,500 at start to unpaid interns $45,000 at start.
The director of career development at Stonehill College, Andrew Leahy, said the NACE serves sort of like the governing body for the Stonehill Career Development Centers research.
“Whatever article or study the NACE puts out, I would put 100% of my trust that it is an accurate and reliable outcome,” he said.
The Stonehill Career Development Center has yet to study the aspect of paid internships on job offers and higher starting salaries for graduates. Leahy believes it is often out of the student’s control on whether they are paid and how much. In certain industries, paid interns are less common due to the high job demand and limited supply of opportunities. In more competitive industries with many qualified candidates, it is more common for employers to pay to attract talent, Leahy said.
“We can’t hold the students accountable if their internship is to be paid or not,” he said. However, Leahy and his team believe internships should be paid and always advise their students to pursue paid internships. Leahy said paid internships will give graduating students more negotiating opportunities for jobs post college.
Stonehill Career Development Center works with students early in their internship search, and as well as those who have already interned and secured a job after graduation. Sophomore Brady Nickerson, a double major in education and math hopes to eventually secure an internship. He said he plans on signing up for a pre practicum during winter break, after he was advised to by the education department. Zachery Dangle, a senior Business Management major, interned at TJX during the summer of his junior year. He learned about this opportunity and applied when he had to “prepare an elevator pitch for marketing principles on an internship we wanted.”
After a successful summer internship, he accepted a full-time job offer to return after graduation.
Leahy said his office is open to meet with all prospective students to pull together all their possible career options. This is to ensure Stonehill students are able to have the knowledge to drive the momentum of their future, Leahy said.
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