We identify the causal effects of three types of internships (mandatory intra-curricular, voluntary intra-curricular, and voluntary extra-curricular) among university graduates on job interview and hiring chances, and explore the mechanisms underlying these effects. To this end, we perform a vignette experiment among HR professionals in Belgium. Our results indicate that internships improve one’s job interview and hiring chances, with voluntary extra-curricular internships having the strongest effect. With respect to the mechanisms, we find that internships improve employers’ perceptions about the job seekers’ skills acquired during the educational career, their pre-existing abilities and motivations, and their knowledge of the job content and working conditions. The first two types of perceptions are also found to be strong predictors of the hiring outcomes. The effects of internships on hiring chances are not found to be reduced or reinforced by the presence of other work experiences (student work, volunteering). © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.
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