Methodology
The aim of the Top Intern Programs list is to recognise those organisations which provide the most positive experience for their interns as determined by the interns themselves.
The Top Intern Programs list was created from a survey of over 1800 undergraduates which was conducted in February and March 2023.
The survey participants are all current undergraduates who were part of their employer's intern program sometime in 2022/2023.Therefore, respondents have first hand knowledge of the employer's intern program.
The survey is completed anonymously and interns are asked to rate their employer on around 15 different categories including:
-
Induction and training
-
Content of work
-
Ability to work on different projects or in different areas of the organisation
-
Quality of supervision provided by manager
-
Amount of responsibility
-
Access to senior management
-
Feedback on performance
-
Social life
-
Organisation's culture and values
All the individual responses from interns at a particular employer are combined and used to determine an overall average rating for that organisation. This same process is followed for each separate employer to produce an overall average rating for each organisation based on the responses of its own interns. All of these overall average ratings are then compared and ranked to produce a list of the Top Intern Programs - the 50 employers with the highest overall average rating are shown on this website.
This analysis of responses from interns in relation to 15 different categories provides a comprehensive measurement of each employer's performance across a broad range of criteria.
The use of overall average ratings (subject to a minimum number of responses) results in a fair and objective list which does not discriminate against either small, medium or large organisations.
The Top 50 list doesn't include every employer that is operating an intern program in the Australian market. Some employers didn't participate in the intern survey and therefore we have no data to determine a rating. Other employers did participate in this survey but didn't have a sufficiently high response to be included in the Top 50.
The survey is conducted by the Australian Association of Graduate Employers (AAGE), the peak industry body for the graduate recruitment and development market.
Definition
An "Intern" is a person who spends a short period of time carrying out work experience with an employer. This period of work experience is often called an "internship" or "placement" or "clerkship" or "vacation program". Participants are usually undergraduate students.
Participants in these programs are described in various ways including: "interns", "vacation students", "work experience students", "summer clerks", "winter clerks", "seasonal clerks" etc.
These programs usually take place during student vacations and can typically last between 2 and 10 weeks. Successful intern program participants may be offered a permanent job with the employer upon graduation.