Navigating the Internship Squeeze: Challenges for College Graduates in 2024

For students prepping for life after college, it’s an agonizing challenge: Internships are becoming more critical to landing that first job—yet are getting harder to come by. 🔗 https://on.wsj.com/4vTnQ3F

Even as graduate hiring shows early glimmers of a rebound, summer internship opportunities appear to be getting scarcer.

Internship postings on early-career job platform Handshake were down 16% earlier this year, continuing a decline since 2023, its data show.

Competition for those internships, meanwhile, is only getting more intense: Internships posted on Handshake during the 2024-25 academic year drew an average of 109 applicants, up from 62 the year prior and more than double the number in 2023.

Much of the intensifying scramble has to do with the ever-higher stakes of landing a solid job out of college, a feat that’s grown more difficult as employers slow hiring and AI reshapes many entry-level roles.

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