General Electric Financial Management Program (Internship)

I dropped my resume through UT's OCR system. I am gearing for high-end consulting, so this drop was sort of random. I mainly dropped because I knew that, in the event that MBB+ decided to avoid me like the plague, exiting from GE FMP to full-time consulting is a well-traveled route. That said, I didn't really prepare at all, which was really stupid of me.

The interview comprised of a single, brief 30-40 minute behavioral interview. I was interviewed by a lady in mid-level management who fixated on teamwork and leadership skills. Fit questions were fairly general, they included:

(1) Tell me about a time where you did not fit in.
(2) Tell me about a time when a group you worked with did not agree with you.

It's worth noting that she had a GE interview rubric divided into sections, i.e. teamwork, academics, etc. It appeared as though she was picking questions from each section. Initially, she wrote essays for each section, but then she gave up, like most interviewers do. I read fairly quickly upside-down, so it was easy to tailor my responses to the section title. I don't know if other people do this, but a good number of interviewers at F500 firms have rubrics out, and it is silly not to use the key to the kingdom.

You don't have much say over your office location preference unless you pick, say, GE Energy, in which case you are guaranteed to land a cushy seat in Houston. I don't have any particular love for Houston and opted to pick GE Aviation as my business unit of choice. Ordinarily, I might pick GE Capital for greater finance sexiness, but amid a spin-off, that would make for the most terrible experience.

The interview is casual to the nth degree. I think anyone who can connect with the interviewer can make it -- no problem. I had actually heard that GE FMP is fairly selective (past interns frequently land McKinsey/B/B for full-time) and had expected some degree of rigor. Imagine my surprise when my interviewer half-joked, "Oh no, don't worry, we don't do technical interviews". What!! When I realized this was 100% fit, I started giving "story" responses, which have a little less structure but jumps your likeability.

I didn't meet anyone from GE other than my interviewer, and she was a minority women from the Houston office. Not going to lie, I may have assumed that she was a peppy, extroverted, Delta-Kappa-Gamma-Epsilon-Alpha-Chi-Omega-Pi-type. She turned out to be a very level-headed introvert, which, frankly, I was pleasantly surprised by. If I had to judge the entire company off of my interviewer, I would say that it has a more traditional culture than, say, Ernst & Young. Personally, I think this is positive because who actually wants to be professionally obligated to attend x^1293873629 happy hours with Jimbo from compliance?

I walked out of the interview very confident because I had played the whole "oh, you are a minority women as well, I'm sure you understand that white-male-dominated environments are difficult to fit in at". I think it took them about 2-3 weeks before they sent me my offer letter via email. I had expected a 2nd round, at the minimum, and actually thought they had dropped me before I got a surprise in my inbox.

Note: I haven't actually accepted yet but there is no "pending" type option below, so I just selected "accepted offer".