Best internships to move into consulting

Besides management consulting (these internships are extremely rare in my country, most firms don't do them) and banking (not particularly interested), what kinds of work experience would be good for getting into the top tier strategy firms as a graduate?

I have an offer for Risk Advisory at a Big4 accounting firm, but I am unsure how transferable this would be, given that I'm interested in consulting.

12 Comments
 

if you want to move into a pure strategy house, i dont think risk management will help much. risk management would help if you wanted to move into a BB MO or something like that.

 

My buddy had good luck with some actuarial internships and economic consulting stuff ->MBB its not ideal and certainly not easy to get but it can be done. The actuarial internship he got just based on his math background, meaning he wasnt an actuarial science major or anything

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Best Response

Mr. Avocado, that's an interesting question. If you mean Big 4 accounting, I have no idea - I go to a school without an accounting major, so none of my classmates have gone that route. If you mean Big 4 consulting (which I guess is just Deloitte), that's definitely a fine route. Within industry, strategy is the most relevant internship, but finance, marketing, etc. are good, too; those probably beat the majority of Big 4 stuff. But if you had a choice between Big 4 or F500 IT, you'd go with the Big 4.

And just to be clear, I've never been on the recruiter's side of the table, but I do have a pretty broad sample of MBB people to draw from, and F500 seems to be much more common than Big 4.

One of those lights, slightly brighter than the rest, will be my wingtip passing over.
 

I'd also give a common sense explanation as for why consulting. The work of an entry-level consultant and the interview process both require a knack for understanding how businesses make / should make decisions. Auditing does not prepare you for that, whereas most F500 internships would. The F500 internship will also do a better job of developing interpersonal skills. I know some very smart accounting majors with a surprising lack of business savvy.

 

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