Conversation Starter: The Challenges of Remote Internships
Daniel Zhao
Chief Economist at Glassdoor | Apr 25, 2024
As the end of the school year approaches, many students are gearing up for summer internships. Glassdoor recently released the 25 best companies for interns, highlighting companies that offer high-paying internships and strong career opportunities based on feedback from interns themselves.
One aspect of internship programs that has changed over the last 4 years is remote work. As the pandemic opened up remote work opportunities, some companies have found remote internship programs have helped increase access to students around the country.
However, remote work is not without its challenges, especially for interns. Many interns report feeling disappointed by the remote experience as they had less opportunities to learn from mentors and build connections with peers. In fact, 1 in 2 (50%) mentions of remote work in intern reviews on Glassdoor in 2023 were negative, compared to just 1 in 4 (26%) for other employees.
Even internship reviews that were positive overall still often cited the challenges of remote work as the quotes below show.
- “The only downside would be working mostly remote, as I enjoy being able to communicate face-to-face and getting immediate feedback.”
- “Being fully remote as an intern isn't ideal- I would've liked some more in-person connection, but was still a great experience.”
- “Being a remote job, I felt sometimes that my mentor/manager forgot about me, and I did a lot of heavy lifting and taking initiative in order to be given real work to do.”
- “A lot of remote workers so its difficult to make any connections, many days I was the only one in the entire office.”
- “Due to the internship being remote, I feel like there was a lack of face-to-face connection. I feel that one can learn so much just by being in an office setting and learning from their surroundings.”
Methodology
Glassdoor ratings are from U.S. full-time, part-time, contract or intern workers submitted between January 1, 2019 and April 23, 2024 for jobs held from 2019 through 2023. Reviews are identified using remote work related terms like “remote work”, “hybrid” or “work from home”. Mentions of remote work in the “pros” section of reviews are categorized as positive, while mentions in the “cons” are categorized as negative.
Conversation Starters are a periodic series of charts and data points from Glassdoor’s Economic Research team aimed at sparking conversations on timely trends in employee satisfaction, workplace community, the future of work, and the labor market more broadly.
Daniel Zhao
Daniel Zhao is Chief Economist at Glassdoor. On Glassdoor's Economic Research team, he has conducted research using Glassdoor's unique data on a variety of topics affecting job seekers and employers ranging from the health of the job market to pay transparency to employee engagement & retention. His work has been cited in publications like the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review and more. Prior to joining the Economic Research team, he also worked on improving the user experience for Glassdoor’s consumer jobs product and mobile app. He holds a bachelor's degree in applied mathematics and economics from Harvard College.
Tags:Internshipsremote/hybrid-work
