What Happens Before Full-Time Employment? Internships as a Mechanism of Anticipatory Socialization

Abstract

Although internships help prospective employees develop realistic expectations (Barnett, 2012), research has yet to explore how internships shape full-time employees’ organizational and vocational socialization experiences. To understand the impact of internships, semistructured interview and questionnaire data were collected over 15 months (before internships, after internships, and upon full-time employment). Results show that internships may provide more realistic perceptions than traditional means of anticipatory socialization, like recruitment or vocational messages. Whereas previous research has described anticipatory socialization as beneficial for prospective employees, this study reveals how internships can deter prospective employees from certain future full-time positions.

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