Ask the Recruiter

Q.  Where have the summer intern applicants gone?

This is my fourth year as an intern program director. In those years, I've had 110, 150 and 125 applicants for summer internships, with at least as many inquiries from students after our deadline.

This time, I've received 85.

I've got the usual seven paid spots, and I'll fill them with quality students, I'm sure. But I am curious about the reasons for the decrease.

Are students being scared away from applying because of all that's going on in the news biz?

Are the students changing career paths and aspirations for the same reason?

Is the economy causing students to try for internships closer to home or in locales with less expensive costs of living?

Dennis Foley
Reader engagement editor
Orange County (Calif.) Register

A. I think all of the above are true, Dennis.

Journalism school enrollment is holding up, but word is out that traditional media are suffering and are not as secure as they once were as career choices. I and other classroom instructors are encouraging students to look well beyond newspapers and to even develop their own opportunities by becoming more entrepreneurial.

Some, I suspect, anticipate a dry summer and are planning to spend it in classrooms rather than newsrooms. I have heard of several newspapers that have cut their internships, sometimes late in the hiring season, and a few that have converted to non-paid internships.

Richard Prince, who writes the online "Journal-isms" column for the Maynard Institute, has done the best report I have seen so far this season on the situation. He wrote about internships here.

He found:

The Dow Jones Newspaper Fund, which selected and trained 102 interns last summer, expects about 75 this year.

The Freedom Forum, which runs several internship programs, is getting fewer requests for the interns it trains, but is preserving its core programs in hopes of a better situation in the future.

Uncertainty is widespread. Administrators of several programs are still figuring out what to do. Depending on how those decisions go, this could result in some late offers.

Coming Thursday: The implosion of his newspaper pushed him out of journalism. He is in marketing now, but wants to get into multimedia storytelling. Can he make it back?

Explaining why you left your last job: Read this archived Poynter live chat.