Il tirocinio per gli studenti di Economia di Rimini: matching di volontà reciproche? [Internship for economics students in Rimini: a match of mutual interests?]

In Italy, internship has been added only recently to programs of study at universities. Notwithstanding its relevance in bringing university students closer to the world of work, internship does not easily succeed in its aims. Internship can be used inappropriately in many situations. Therefore, it is important to analyze in depth the experience of internship. In particular, the two subjects that are matched in internships have to be investigated: students and companies. The novel dataset used in the analysis is composed by information about students of Economics in Rimini and about the companies where they worked during the internship. Principal component analysis shows that there is a major component explaining the majority of the variability of the internship quality perceived by the student. The number of interns hired by a company is positively related to female students, front-office duties, a good evaluation in terms of interest and motivation of the internship and good relation with superiors in rank. Internship is not used as a substitute of seasonal/temporary work for firms that hire more interns. Interns that evaluate positively their experience are female and those having experienced a good relation with their superiors. A proper matching (i.e. a match between good students, in terms of marks, and good companies, in terms of number of interns, open-ended and fixed-term contracts) occurred with higher distances between residence and place of work and with a higher degree of overlapping between the sector of studies of the intern and the field of activities of the company.