Accounting, semiconductors and management consulting are the industries where interns are most likely to turn into full-time employees, according to LinkedIn.
Just over half of LinkedIn users who applied for an accounting internship last year landed a full-time gig, said the company. For the semiconductors category, which features companies like Intel, the retention rate was 43 per cent. In management consulting, 38 per cent of LinkedIn applicants who got the internship stayed on.
Here’s the full list:
The data refers to the U.S. market alone, but offers some useful insights to Canadians, as well.
At least three of the above categories — semiconductors, computer software and information technology and services — can be construed to belong to that broad universe known as “the tech industry.” And the tech industry is a top employer for young Canadians, too.
According to a study by Toronto-based Brookfield Institute, the share of workers between the ages of 25 and 44 in Canada’s tech industry is nearly 54 per cent, compared to around 42 per cent for Canada’s workforce overall.
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But Americans and Canadians alike should take the LinkedIn stats with a grain of salt.
Clicking on the industry headings to check out the internships available in each sector reveals that LinkedIn’s categories are at times too broad to be useful. Under “Internet,” for example, you’ll find anything from a software engineering co-op at software developer HubSpot to a gig as a video intern at BuzzFeed. Needless to say, the two jobs require rather different skillsets.
And far from being a collection of sales-oriented jobs, LinkedIn’s Retail listing features one internship (at digital photo company Shutterfly) that requires financial modelling skills, one (at auctions giant Christie’s) that presumes candidates are on their way to earning a law degree, and another (at greeting cards behemoth American Greetings) where creative writing is the name of the game.
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This isn’t entirely’s LinkedIn’s fault. The link between industry and skillset is becoming ever more tenuous in a number of sectors, and the trend will continue as the role of technology becomes more pervasive across sectors and job roles. Search for a job at one of Canada’s big banks, for example, and you’ll see a lot of openings for data scientists and web designers. The same coding and analytical skills could also land you a career at Loblaws.
Students and newly-minted graduates might be better off trying to figure out which skills — rather than which industries — feature the higher conversion rate of internships to jobs.
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