Hybrid and in-person remain the preferred work modalities of employers for both their overall and entry-level positions, which matches the ways students prefer to work, NACE research has found. 

According to NACE’s Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update, 49% of entry-level job positions are hybrid and 45% are fully in person. Just 6% are fully remote. (See Figure 1.)

For overall positions, fully virtual positions bump up slightly—to 10%—but the bulk of positions remain in hybrid (47%) and fully in person (43%) modalities. 

Employers responding to NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op Survey also favor a hybrid work environment for their interns. Roughly three out of five (61.3%) plan to provide a hybrid experience for their 2024-25 intern cohort, reflecting the idea that the blend of in-person and remote work fits for Gen Z. (See Figure 2.)

Nearly 35% will hold their 2024-25 internships exclusively in person, while 0.9% expect to host a program that is exclusively virtual. 

This aligns with student preferences for the modality of their professional work: In NACE’s 2024 Student Survey Report, respondents decidedly prefer to have some level of in-person work, perhaps to feel better connected to their employer and its culture and to their colleagues. 

More than half of student respondents indicate they prefer to work exclusively in person (51%), slightly more than prefer to work in a hybrid arrangement (43%). On the other hand, just 6% denoted their preference for working in an entirely virtual arrangement (6%). 

The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was conducted from February 18 – March 21, 2025. Of the 216 total respondents, 176 were NACE employer members, representing 22.2% of eligible member respondents. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update survey was also distributed to nonmember companies; this group provided an additional 40 responses. The survey updates hiring projections for the Class of 2025; those projections were collected from NACE employer members from August 5 – September 16, 2024, and were reported in Job Outlook 2025, which was published in November 2024. The Job Outlook 2025 Spring Update is available on NACEWeb.

NACE conducted the survey for its 2025 Internship & Co-op Report from October 16, 2024, to January 2, 2025. Overall, 247 organizations took part in the survey, including 208 NACE member organizations, representing 24.8% of eligible member organizations, and 39 nonmember companies. NACE’s 2025 Internship & Co-op Report is available on NACEWeb. It is free to all survey participants in MyNACE.

NACE’s 2024 Student Survey, sponsored by Indeed, was conducted March 13 through May 15, 2024; a total of 20,482 college students took part, including 2,281 graduating seniors earning bachelor’s degrees. Participants can access the report and dashboard through MyNACE. The report and dashboard are also available in the NACE Store.