What do companies look for in intern applications?

Hey all,

Other than GPA, how do consulting firms decide who gets an interview? I am finishing up my first year at a target school with a 3.8+ GPA in a rigorous major (I also have very high standardized test scores). I have work experience in typical jobs (customer service type jobs).For people applying for a first internship (with no relevant experience), what do they look for besides grades? What else can I do now to put me in a good position in the coming years?

 

They're looking for a solid foundation. They definitely aren't expecting your brand/expertise to be a finished project. You should have a solid GPA, a solid understanding of what field you want to go in, and they want to see involvement in organizations that fit your professional aspirations and your personal interests. Since you're a freshman it'd be unreasonable for employers to expect leadership experience in college organizations, but they want to see solid involvement and contributions to what you've joined.

Companies can tell if you're actually interested in them or if you're doing a resume drop at 50 different companies. I'm also a freshman and got an internship with an international education consulting group. I think one of the things that helped me stand out was that I had expressed interest through a resume I made specifically for their application, a cover letter, and several emails to employees. While I don't think you should spend 5 hours writing a custom cover letter for an application, I think that the best way to differentiate is to express interest. SO many of my peers complain about how they applied to 30, 50, 100+ internships and got nothing, and the problem is that their focusing on the quantity of their applications rather than the quality. Most of the people that I know that got prestigious internships (BB, Big 3 firms, State Department, big tech companies) applied for less than 10 and spent several hours on each application.

 
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Early career consultant at Deloitte S&O / AT Kearney / Accenture Strategy / Oliver Wyman here.

The firms look for a few things. 1. Strong GPA. Many people can get a 3.8 their freshman year. It will only get harder from here... If you can keep your GPA that high, that'd be impressive. 2. Extracurricular activities. DO join your schools consulting club or similar (if you have it), but that's not enough. Do something else. Club sports, greek life, debate, etc. It helps us understand that the human behind your application 3. Networking. Did you make an effort to engage with us? Have coffee chats, speak with alumni from your school, go to info sessions, etc... If anyone in your network can vouche for your application, that will put you in a way better position to get an interview. 4. Interview performance. You need to be well prepped in both case and behavioral

 

Job history.

If you’ve been living on Easy Street and have never actually had to work for a living, then there exists the quite reasonable risk to your project lead that you are an overgrown child, never challenged with doing anything remotely unpleasant in exchange for money.

Alternatively, if you can showcase your history of bagging groceries, doing menial work for your profs, etc, then that is evidence that you can actually “do things”, a surprisingly scarce commodity.

For example, “customer service type jobs”, is literally what consulting is.

 
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IDK how they decide who gets an interview, but of a couple dozen of my Wharton students who went to MBB over the last 6 years, 80% were hot girls. (All very deserving of an MBB FT offer, AFAICT.) It's because MBB principals know clients like to see hot girls on site. So if you're not a hot girl, projecting a personality likely to appeal to clients will help get you hired, I think.

 

Incoming MBB analyst hoping to provide a different look at this while justifying my finals exam review procrastination to myself. If we're going the whole MECE route, you can look at it from a functional perspective: what is the pedigree of your organizations, your individual impact, and your team contributions?

First off, Consulting firms are very big on names, so the prestige of your organizations (be they Ivy league school or F500 company) will play a part; consultants have to read hundreds of resumes, so a good name will give their eyes some staying power.

Beyond that, the things you did that contribute to the success of the project is a big differentiating factor. jmn3ye touched on this when mentioning extracurricular activities; you doing them at minimum shows your ability to balance multiple groups, which theoretically would translate to the ability to juggle workstreams. With that being said, being in the "rabbit feeders R us" club isn't really going to win you too many points.

Lastly, there is your contribution to the team. It's much more nuanced than the individual impact idea. While individual impact could be as simple as doing your part of a group task, having a contribution to the team involves ideas like being able to manage up, cross collaborate with outside parties if needed, and help the other members develop as a whole (the "leadership" aspect).

Hope that helps!

 

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