Trends in Industry Supervisor Feedback on Business Communication Internships

The purpose of this empirical study is to explore expectations of industry insiders and identify how student interns are performing in relation to those expectations as defined by 11 performance areas. The results of a survey of 238 industry supervisors were collected over a 5-year period in the departments of English and communication at a private university in the Northeast. While the results suggest that student interns tend to meet their supervisors’ expectations in many areas, performance categories such as initiative, writing skills, and oral communication skills require increased attention in the ways we prepare students for their internships and post-graduation employment and, perhaps, the ways we help onsite supervisors develop expectations for and evaluate our interns.