It s nearly summer, and college graduates are sobering up to the realities of the work world while employers scramble to capture the best of the freshly minted workforce. With the economy humming along, some firms are finding the market for brand new professionals more competitive than in recent years. Should internships be part of the sourcing solution?

The majority of our respondents say yes. They have a formal student intern program at their companies, and the majority believes the program contributes to the long-term development of the workforce.

As expected, larger firms are more likely to have intern programs: Respondents who report they have a program work in firms with 4,400 employees on average, while those without interns have about 1,600 on the payroll. But having interns isn t merely an outgrowth of company size: Firms that believe in interns give high priority to finding quality candidates, and feel they currently have a labor shortage.

Those having a hard time finding quality workers value interns. General college recruiting - as opposed to internship programs, specifically - only ranks in the middle of the pack of potential sources for candidate quality.

Because those who are content with their college recruiting programs also tend to be satisfied with the results of job fairs and online postings (the least targeted and highest volume of the sourcing methods we measured), it may be that the firms that don t feel the pinch for college candidates are valuing quantity over quality.