The evolution of financial reporting and information technology disruption has increased challenges in the accounting profession. Accounting practitioners have raised concerns that accounting graduates seem to possess sufficient technical knowledge, but somehow, they lack the required soft skills such as communication and analytical thinking. The accounting program must address issues on technical, soft skills and ethical issues reflecting the graduates. Since the internship program is part of an accounting degree requirement, this study provides an insight on the differences in attitude and soft skills acquired through internship programs between different types of employers; audit firms, and non-audit firms and between genders. The study also examines whether the attitudes and soft skills competencies acquired would affect the academic performance. Students’ attitudes and soft skills were assessed using structured questionnaires on 224 accounting students of the Malaysian Public University who had undergone their six-month internship period. The attitudes and soft skills assessed include general skills and motivation, job competency, interpersonal skills, responsibility, trainees’ knowledge and ability to communicate. The results provide evidence of an improvement in all the dimensions of attitudes and soft skills except for job competency when having an internship in audit firms rather than non-audit firms. Female students showed better performance in all the dimensions based on a comparison between genders. The findings imply that the internship program is significantly affecting the academic performance, being able to prepare graduates with the necessary technical skills and soft skills to face challenges in the accounting profession.
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