Career and Internship Services
This University of Minnesota office provides a vital service to our students, assisting and preparing them in a variety of ways to make the right career choices. The mission of Career and Internship Services is to engage students in meaningful career development activities that help them maximize their life experience by providing opportunities to build the skills required for success in life and career and being a facilitator of information as well as a provider of skills related to job, internship, and graduate school planning.
Main website: careerhelp.umn.edu; specific Construction Management career resources page.
Career and Internship Services maintains close collaboration with our program and our industry contacts, planning career events, guiding students on their searches for jobs or internships, and maintaining Handshake, a free job posting and search site where employers can connect with students/alumni.
The Career and Internship Services program and its dedicated advisor, Ms. Elizabeth Hruska, were identified as a “strength of the program” in the program’s ACCE accreditation site visit report. Ms. Hruska received the highest University honor for advising, the Tate Award, in 2012.
Graduation Satisfaction Survey Results
Each year, our graduating students are offered a survey to track their career destination and satisfaction six months after graduation. This information helps us to track trends in our student placement and job satisfaction.
Results from the most recent 2021–22 Grad Survey are available online here.
Results for Construction Management graduates are as follows: 78% of CMGT graduates (21 out of 27) completed the survey. All of those who responded are in paid full- or part-time employment following graduation, 85% of them in a job moderately or extremely related to their major. All of those who responded reported being satisfied or very satisfied with their occupation. The mean income of respondents was $82,166, with a range of $52,000–$130,000.
Internships
Internships are an integral part of the Construction Management program and an important step in career-building for our students, many of whom receive offers of employment following their internship. Degree-seeking students are required to complete 200 hours of internship employment, or about 5 weeks of full-time employment, although typically internships last for three or four months. An academic class is taken alongside the internship employment under the guidance of the faculty advisor, Peter Hilger. Students complete a weekly discussion post shared with their intern peers, reflecting on their employment experience, along with two online essay questions. At the end of their internship, students present on a research topic of their choice to peers and industry guests, hosted at the offices of one of our Advisory Board members.
To secure an internship, students conduct their own job search, supported by the University Handshake job posting website. If an employer notifies the department of an employment opportunity, these are also shared with all students in the program.
Virtual Career Fair
In addition, in February each year, the department facilitates a ‘virtual career fair’ in the form of a PDF of student resumes distributed to company contacts seeking to hire interns. Students seeking summer and fall internships work with Career and Internship Services to prepare a professional resume. Resumes and a cover letter are then shared with a database that contains over 800 industry contacts, maintained through constant networking by Faculty Director, Peter Hilger. Since its inception in fall 2010, this virtual fair has had a significant impact on student hiring and networking.
The following chart shows our internship students for the past five years, along with the number of student candidates in the virtual career fair.
Internship Hires
| Internship Enrollment Data | AY 2019−20 | AY 2020−21 | AY 2021−22 | AY 2022–23 | AY 2023–24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fall Enrolled | 9 | 10 | 11 | 3 | 7 |
| Spring Enrolled | 4 | 7 | 3 | 6 | 3 |
| Summer Enrolled | –* | 22 | 21 | 19 | 17 |
| Total | 13* | 39 | 35 | 28 | 27 |
Student Candidates in the Virtual Career Fair
| Spring Virtual Career Fair | AY 2019−20 | AY 2020−21 | AY 2021–22 | AY 2022–23 | AY 2023–24 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resumes | 15 | 36 | 19 | 20 | 10 |
* No internships in summer 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Since spring 2004, there have been a total of 662 internships with 306 firms, 90 (29%) of which have hired more than one intern. The breadth of employers is one way to measure how well the program is perceived within the industry; further, repeat hiring indicates a confidence in the value of our interns. Therefore, a higher percentage of student interns by firms hiring on multiple occasions indicates confidence in the program.
Internship Density Analysis
| Cumulative Data from 2004 | to 2020** | to 2021 | to 2022 | to 2023 | to 2024 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Total Internships to Date | 535 | 572 | 607 | 635 | 662 |
| Total Students | 444 | 480 | 513 | 538 | 563 |
| Total Companies | 259 | 275 | 287 | 297 | 306 |
| Students with 2+ Internships | 81 (18%) | 81 (17%) | 83 (16%) | 86 (16%) | 87 (15%) |
| Companies Hosting 2+ Interns | 75 (29%) | 78 (28%) | 84 (29%) | 87 (29%) | 90 (29%) |
| Companies Hosting 3+ Interns | 38 (15%) | 42 (15%) | 46 (16%) | 48 (16%) | 53 (17%) |
| Companies Hosting 6+ Interns | 18 (7%) | 20 (7%) | 21 (7%) | 23 (8%) | 24 (8%) |
| Internships in Companies Hosting 2+ Interns | 351 (66%) | 375 (66%) | 404 (67%) | 425 (67%) | 446 (67%) |
| Internships in Companies Hosting 6+ Interns | 205 (38%) | 228 (40%) | 243 (40%) | 265 (42%) | 278 (42%) |
| Top Three Hiring Companies: Ryan, JE Dunn, McGough | 73 (14%) | 79 (14%) | 79 (13%) | 83 (13%) | 85 (13%) |
| Retention Rate (% Job Offer/Evaluation Responses)* | 110 (69%) | 115 (70%) | 122 (70%) | 125 (70%) | 125 (70%) |
* Since 2006; retention data is drawn from internship evaluations, self-reported.