How important is it to have a consulting/financial internship the summer before senior year if you want to get a job at a top firm after graduation?
Would doing an unrelated (international advocacy/development) internship over the summer make it very difficult to get a job directly after graduation to get a good consulting job if I go to a target school?
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If you can sell yourself, nothing else matters
Considering you go to a target school, and if you have a decent enough GPA, you only need to sell yourself after you get the interview. Just remember your competition may have the upper leg with relevant experience.
internships are not important at all.
Umm, internships are pretty much key. Unless you go to a target where no one else interns, you will be at a disadvantage. Your resume better blow everyone else's away. Internships provide a testing ground for companies to see how you work before hiring you. They also give you some actual skills to use at a job. At the very least, an internships is more directly related to work than UG GPA.
As long as you can do case interviews and have a high GPA, you will be fine. MBB doesn't care about internships at all.
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If you have any current experience in the industry than it's not important. If you are looking to transition into finance than your resume will need something that speaks to the job you are applying to. I was told from a recruiter that I was given bad advice from a professor who said an internship was not necessary since I was in a MBA program. My professor made it sound as though employers would look past my lack of experience since I had a MBA. I have found that is not the case! If you're like me and trying to transition, then while you are going to school try and land an internship. It will only add to your resume, experience, and build your network.
Internships are very important. Speaking from consulting, someone else can elaborate for banking, it doesn't matter if you did not have a consulting internship. I had a Fortune 100, leadership rotation internship prior to consulting. It opened a lot of doors and 1st rounds interviews for me, and I was able to sell my experiences pretty well. Consulting internship is a huge plus, but they are actually harder to get than full time offers.
Thanks for contributing bankalot, wonderful insight as usual.
Well I'm more interested in consulting than banking. So it seems that if I can show that the development internship helped me and can contribute to me being a good consultant. And if I have slightly under a 3.7 from a target school I should be able to get an interview with MBB and then its basically down to the case interviews? Does that sound about right? Thanks a lot for all your responses
I just went through the process with under a 3.7 (3.63) from a target school and ended up doing well with MBB. My internship on paper could politely be called underwhelming, which just meant that I needed to do more on the networking end prior to interview selections. As said before as long as you can sell what you did - whatever you did - you'll be fine as long as you've got the case interview aspect of the interview down pat and put some effort into networking.
Yeah, in my experience really aren't that crucial. It's not like banking where not having an internship raises some red flags about fit or commitment.
Consulting firms seem to view internships as an opportunity to sell you on their firm, but if you don't happen to intern with them that is fine. Empirically, I'd be surprised if any schools have more than say 50% of entering classes to any MBB being former interns.
That said, having an internship (consulting or otherwise) does beat having no internship, and the more "prestigious" or at least interesting the internship the better.
How important is the internship prior to senior year? (Originally Posted: 07/26/2012)
I'm a rising Junior at Kenan-Flagler. I'm planning to study abroad in Milan next Spring, and the program goes all the way into early July.
I'm concerned that I won't have an internship in the states next summer, for one of two reasons:
I'm most interested in Bain, BCG, and Deloitte, all three of which recruit at Kenan-Flagler. If one of the two cases above does happen, what are the chances that I can still land a full-time job after my senior year?
Where in Milan are you studying?
Skip Milan and get the internship. The internship will benefit you long-term much more.
If you stay at UNC this year, get an internship + FT offer by the end of summer, couldn't you study in Milan for Fall/Spring 2014?
I'd get in contact with the career center in Milan to see if any of your target firms take summer interns from your prospective university in Milan. If so, I would imagine it wouldn't be that difficult to leverage those internships into a strong FT offer in the U.S. I'm in the same boat as you, however I spoke to some of the recruiters and they said if you are a strong enough candidate, you can interview in a foreign office for a state-side internship.
Just a heads-up, it's going to be exceedingly difficult to find an internship in Milan unless you speak decent Italian. If you're going to Bocconi, the career center should have connections with some small consulting firms in the US. McKinsey comes to campus but they're mostly looking for Msc. students with ridiculously high grades.
You will gain better with the internship. It has lasting benefits, and you have a better chance in the recruitments as well. The work experience counts!
You will gain better with the internship. It has lasting benefits, and you have a better chance in the recruitments as well. The work experience counts!
Not to pile on here but the internship before your senior year might be the single most important aspect of your profile going into FT recruiting.
Unfortunately, I have zero Italian language expertise. I'm planning to learn as much as possible while I'm there, but I definitely won't be fluent.
I'm studying at Bocconi. I didn't realize they could help me get a summer internship back in the US. I have a 3.9 GPA right now, so I think I stand a good chance for any position that doesn't require Italian.
I've talked to my Deloitte recruiters, and they said I could potentially interview over Skype while I'm abroad. Is there any chance I could do something similar with MBB?
I spoke with an MBB analyst and he told me if your abroad:
Round 1) You would do a Skype/phone interview. Round 2) You would go into an office abroad and interview. Round 3) They would fly you out to the office your actually applying to for your final interview.
Can't tell you if this is the standard process or if it's on a case by case basis. If you have alumni in MBB they should be able to let you know. Hope this helps.
I didn't do an internship senior. That was one of my biggest regrets since I had to wonder the desert for a bit.
As mentioned, I would definitely pursue the internship prior to your senior year. You can defer your exchange to the following year and get the best of both worlds. My exchange experience was the best ~7 months of my life, but when you get back to reality it's much easier to know that you have a FT offer waiting for you. Your mind will be at ease and you will enjoy every foreign kill that much more.
80% of our new hires each year were from the previous summer intern pool
I definitely have to agree with everyone and say take the internship over study abroad
Ditch the study abroad. Do it later
I just talked to a talent scout at Deloitte. She told me that they have only 40 Consulting interns each Summer, nationwide. She told me - at Kenan-Flagler - they give approximately ten times more full time S&O consulting offers than Summer internships.
These replies had me rethinking my study abroad, but now I'm thinking it's no big deal. As long as I find something useful to do next Summer, I don't think the missing internship will keep me out of consideration for the full time offer.
I didn't do an internship before my senior year; yet I got a job at one of the mngt consulting companies you lisyed above. It's better to have it on your resume though of course; though key is to crack the business cases
I'd say study abroad might be an okay thing to do, if you already have stellar grades, leadership experience, and since you're a business student, one good internship under your belt.
Another thing that could help you is applying to offices which don't hire summer undergrad interns when you apply full-time, they'll be needing to fill 100% of their slots, not 50% of their slots.
how important is summer internship? (Originally Posted: 03/08/2007)
what if I don't get any offers from top banks.. would it be best to settle for a summer int. at a smaller bank or in a different industry (consulting, tech.) and what effect this will have on full-time recruiting process at top banks?
If you don't have a BB summer analyst spot, then I think the most conservative advice is to have a pretty high GPA with finance-related courses. If not, network.
I know people who didn't work at a BB or in banking AT ALL the summer before FT recruiting and they turned out fine. One of them worked a second summer at a Big4 doing valuations.
Any IBanking experience though, helps tremendously.
would 3.7 be enough?
Depends where you go to school
It doesn't matter what your GPA is. You should work as hard as you can, network as much as you can, and take on initiative at your campus. Just because your didn't get an offer from the BBs doesn't mean the game's over. You have to contact your network and figure out if anyone's dropping out of the race. Lastly, you should get some sort of summer experience that is relevant to your interest. Take whatever gig at a smaller bank or a consultancy or even working in the industry. Keep the forum posted on your progress.
thanks!!!
Great post.
Get a job that will demonstrate similar skills to IB (financial analysis/modeling, long hours, attention to details, people skills, etc.). Work your ass off there so you get an offer and in the classroom as well to get your GPA up.
Start networking with the BB's early on in the summer, because some of them have accelerated superdays where you can interview and get an offer for full-time in August.
Not having a BB internship doesn't necessarily take you out of the game. There are more full-time spots than summer spots, and some people have a change of heart after the internship.
You can spin your summer experience however you want, but try to look for an internship that(as post above says) allows you to develop/demonstrate/use skills that overlap with banking.
what BBS have accelerated superdays?
what industries/positions would allow to develop/use skills that overlap with ibanking? (tech., consult., small bank?)
also, I'd probably have to explain why I haven't pursued ibanking internship during the summer...
when during the summer BBs start interviewing? and what BBs?
full time offers are usually intended for June graduates? I might be able to graduate early (december 07)..would you recommend noting this on the resume?
Anything numbers related - corp finance at a company, private wealth management, etc.
Just try to explain a natural progression to your decision making process. For instance, I know kids who did research for profs their junior summer and still got a BB gig b/c they just explained why they went into research and why they now want to go into banking. Its all about having a good story.
Depends on the BB and how hard you network.
You might want to note it but tell you truth, it wont make a difference.
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