Competition for summer internships has reached new heights in 2025.
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Unlimited questions
Ignacio Estella — Avangrid’s senior vice president of innovation, talent and equal opportunity — said interns are viewed as “stewards of the company.” Avangrid places great value on their ideas and creativity, and interns often offer original ideas and creative solutions, unencumbered by entrenched thinking, he explained. Interns are encouraged to ask questions about anything to anyone. “We give that privilege to our interns because they are strategic investments,” Estella said. “We give our interns the No. 1 most valuable management tool in any company, which is to ask questions unlimitedly.”
The chosen few
For interns like Scott Lowder, who returned for his second summer at Avangrid this year, the company’s offerings are an ideal match.
Fewer internships
Over the last two years, internship postings on the career website Handshake declined by more than 15% between January 2023 and January 2025, while internship applications surged, the website operator said in a recent report. The average applications per internship rose to 96 in January, compared to 56 in January 2024, and 32 in January 2023.
Historically, the number of internships available dropped between 2008 and 2012, during the Great Recession, she said. As the economy recovered, so did the number of internship opportunities.
The pandemic caused another downward slump in 2020 and 2021, she said. But the availability of internships bounced back from 2022 to 2024.
Generally, internship programs with high rates of conversion to full-time employment tend to be among the most attractive to students, according to Settje. Employers also compete on wages and other benefits, such as providing intern housing.
Most internships for college students are paid. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires interns to be compensated when they are considered an employee, meaning their employer is the “primary beneficiary” of their work.
Certain internships that mainly provide education training, or are tied to formal education, may be unpaid under certain circumstances, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.
When employers screen interns, Settje said they are increasingly looking for those with essential skills, which are crucial for career readiness.
A recent report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers states that nearly two-thirds (64%) of employers used skills-based hiring practices for new hires.
Meantime, industry experience has become more vital to future employment, with 84.4% of employers saying an internship is a crucial factor in evaluating new hires — the second most important consideration next to academic major.
Grade point average has plummeted in terms of importance for new hires. According to NACE’s spring report, only about 40% of employers said they were recruiting based on GPA. That’s down from a peak of 73% in 2019.
“This doesn’t mean students should get Cs in all their classes,” Settje said. “They should still aspire for the best grades possible. But employers, consistently, for quite a long time, not just the last couple years, have said … a 4.0 GPA does not always translate into being a 4.0 employee.”