How Much Your Major Matters Versus Internships and School for Your First Job

Three inputs into one hiring decision

Your first job out of college comes from some mix of your major, your internship experience, and your school's name and network. Employer survey data points to a clear order among these three, and it puts skills and experience ahead of the major title or school reputation.

What employers say they screen for

NACE's 2026 Job Outlook survey finds that employers screening entry-level resumes look first for evidence of teamwork, problem-solving, and communication skills, followed by technical skills, work ethic, and analytical or quantitative skills, according to NACE . None of these attributes come from a major title alone. A political science major and a biology major can both demonstrate the same problem-solving and communication skills through coursework, projects, or work experience, and employers respond to the evidence, not the label on the diploma.

Skill-based hiring itself keeps growing. Seventy percent of employers in the NACE survey report using skill-based hiring practices, up from 65 percent a year earlier, and 71 percent of those employers use this approach at least half the time they hire.

Internships carry real weight

More than 40 percent of employers in the same NACE survey prioritize candidates who show on-campus work experience or completed an apprenticeship, and employers repeatedly point to experiential learning, tying coursework and extracurricular activities to real skills, as what separates candidates. An internship gives you a specific story to tell in an interview: a project you finished, a problem you solved, a result you produced. A major alone gives you none of that.

Where school name still matters

School reputation opens doors at a narrow set of employers who recruit heavily from specific campuses, mostly in finance, consulting, and some tech hiring. Outside that narrow lane, most employers hire from a wide range of schools and weigh what a candidate can show over where the degree came from. The Georgetown Center on Education and the Workforce reports that earnings for the same major vary by school, driven by the strength of a school's employer connections and regional job market as much as the school's overall name recognition, per The Major Payoff . A strong internship record from a less selective school regularly beats a thin resume from a well-known one.

Major still predicts your starting pay range

Major is not irrelevant to your first paycheck. NACE's 2025 salary survey found average starting salaries by major group ranged widely, from $63,122 for agriculture and natural resources graduates up to $78,731 for engineering graduates, with social sciences majors down 3.6 percent year over year, according to NACE . Major sets the range you are likely to land in. Internships and skills then decide where inside that range you land, or whether you land a job at all, given how competitive your target field is.

What the data does not settle

Employer surveys describe what employers say they screen for, which is not the same as proof of what drives every hiring decision. Students with strong internships often also come from schools with strong career centers and strong networks, so it is hard to separate the effect of the internship itself from the effect of the school connections that produced it. Treat these findings as a strong directional signal, not a formula that guarantees an outcome if you check every box.

Where your major matters

Major choice sets the field you enter and, for licensed and technical paths like nursing, accounting, or engineering, it sets a hard requirement. Outside those licensed paths, major mainly determines the baseline coursework and the industries that will look at your resume first. Inside that field, internships and demonstrated skills decide which specific candidates get the offer. Choosing a major you can commit to for four years still matters, since finishing strong coursework is itself part of the evidence employers look for.

What this means while you are still in school

Pick a major that fits your interests and, if relevant, meets licensing requirements for your target career. Spend the years you have in school on at least one internship, a portfolio project, or a role that produces something concrete you can describe in an interview. If you have to choose between a slightly more prestigious school with fewer internship connections and a school with strong employer ties in your field, weigh the internship access seriously, since that experience does more hiring work than the name on your degree.

The bottom line

No single factor decides your first job alone. Major sets your field and your baseline pay range, school name opens a narrow set of extra doors in a few industries, and internships and demonstrated skills decide who actually gets hired once you are in the applicant pool. Put your effort where the evidence points: building real, describable experience during school.