Is it harder to recruit for full-time or internship?
I recently recruited for consulting internships, but I cannot tell if it will be easier for full-time to get a position. Thoughts?
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Based on the most helpful WSO content, full-time recruiting is generally considered more challenging than internship recruiting, especially in competitive industries like consulting or finance. Here’s why:
Limited Full-Time Spots: Many firms prioritize converting their interns into full-time hires. This means the majority of full-time positions are filled by returning interns, leaving fewer spots for external candidates.
Networking is Critical: For full-time recruiting, networking becomes even more essential. Firms often rely on internal referrals or candidates they’ve already interacted with, making it harder for those without strong connections.
Timing and Competition: Full-time recruiting often happens on a condensed timeline, and you’re competing against candidates with internship experience, strong resumes, and sometimes even prior offers.
Technical Expectations: For full-time roles, firms expect candidates to have a deeper understanding of the industry and technical skills. You’ll need to demonstrate growth and readiness to contribute immediately.
Internship Advantage: Internships are designed to assess candidates for full-time roles, so they often have a more structured and accessible recruiting process. Without an internship at the target firm, breaking into full-time roles can be significantly harder.
If you’re transitioning from consulting internships to full-time, leverage your internship experience, network aggressively, and prepare thoroughly for interviews. It’s also worth reaching out to your internship contacts to explore potential full-time opportunities within the same firm.
Sources: Should I Slow Down?, Is Full-Time/Lateral Recruiting really that hard?, Firms confirmed to be NOT HIRING for new grad c/o '24 FT positions, How hard is full time recruiting with a solid SA beforehand?, Why Guaranteed Full-Time Offers Don't Make Sense
In my experience, internship by far. For sophomore and junior summer, I received zero interviews at any consulting firm. When recruiting for FT, received 2 interviews and probably would've had 1 or 2 more had I not missed deadlines. From what I understand, consulting firms hire more for FT and take fewer for internship, unlike IB where they seek the majority of their FT class through internship recruiting.
Depends on the firm (assuming all else is constant like hiring needs)
Mck: a bit more FT
Bain: 50/50
BCG: leans interns, especially this year mainly intern returns for ft
Others:
OW: decent amount FT, heard internship is hard to get unless thru diversity
LEK: mainly FT
EYP: mainly interns I think
This is what I’ve observed. Also, some people have that good resume junior year some ppl have a bad one. IMO it’s all about how prepared they are resume wise to land an interview. Idk if one is more competitive than the other, both have their arguments. But if u recruited alr, I would look back and think about what went wrong
Agree with everything here as someone who just wrapped up recruiting. Will add that s&, Accenture strategy and Deloitte are all internship heavy with recruiting.
not familiar with s& or accenture but seemed that deloitte still hired a lot ft from what i heard
I do recruiting, would def say internship is easier (considering you passed the screening). Screening, however, might be a bit more challenging for internships, as most of weights are other internships (and ideally they are in other consulting firms) and your GPA
Agree with this as well, i dont do recruiting but from my experiences internship screen passing is a lot of emphasis on leadership in addition to work experience (high variance on getting “good” soph year internship). Full time more focus on where u worked previous summer, less on leadership but ofc still needed. So for some one is worse others another is worse, in the end this is all luck and you’ll just have to do your best and adapt
Have you done FT recruiting yet or is this what you’ve heard from your personal network ?
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