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The study of employability aims to analyze the skills developed by students and their relevance for obtaining a job. It is about reducing imbalances between labor supply and demand. Carrying out internships in companies has proven to be an important factor in improving employability, because it improves the capabilities of university graduates. This paper has analyzed the role of internships in improving student skills and, consequently, their role in the employability of graduates. For doing the analysis, a questionnaire has been prepared, based on the four employability dimensions derived from the theoretical analysis, which includes ítems referring to: instrumental and interpersonal skills, as well as those related to motivation and the adequacy of the internships to the student’s university training. The questionnaire has been sent to 580 Business Administration and Management (ADE) students at the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEE) at the University of Barcelona (UB). A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) was carried out with the results of the survey. The model obtained divided the employability into the four factors previously defined according to the theory: two kind of competences, instrumental competences and interpersonal competences, student’s motivation and the adequacy of the practices. Additionally, the model shows the existence of gender differences related to the motivation of students in carrying out the internships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]