We work with the top undergrad programs in US and abroad when people
are thinking about going into consulting. And we have two opportunities to share
with you about the consulting process. One is before the internship process, and
the other one is after, going into full time. And a lot of the questions we
get in full-time recruiting are: I had a consulting internship at X, I want to
consulting internship at Y, what should I do? And sometimes people have made a
grave mistake. So I'm here today to share a little bit about the undergrad
recruiting process and why it's important to sometimes turn down a
consulting internship in undergrad. First of all it's really essential to
understand that consulting firms only hire a small percentage of their total
hires for the undergrad internship process, but their goal is to have 100%
of them accept offers afterwards. No matter what internship you take in your
junior summer, the goal is that you will have an offer at the end of it that is
something that you want. A job that you would desire. It may not be the only
job that you desire but it should be a job desire your freshman and your
sophomore years. Or for experimentation you should be traveling overseas. You
should be doing wild public policy roles and you should be doing things that you
never thought that you would do to gain experience. But in your junior summer you
really want to have an opportunity that is something you wanted to do. However
a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that all consulting internships
are created equal and they're not. Unfortunately some consulting firms
don't have the same branding, don't have the same training, don't have the same
culture, as some of the top consulting firms. And so if you go to a lower tier,
let's say a tech implementation consulting firm, and then you want to
come back and go to McKinsey, they're gonna be less interested in you
than if you had gone to, for example, a brand name nonprofit. Even a finance firm
or probably the most popular one that I
would recommend could be a fortune 500. Another thing that's important to know
is that some people have to work during their junior year internships. I had to, I
needed to make money, I needed to live off of that money both during the summer
and also in the future year. Pay is going be a component of what you're going to
talk about but consulting firms don't ask about pay and they're not going to
pay you any difference whether you were paid in your junior summer or not, so if
you have the choice between taking a paid internship and an unpaid internship,
but the unpaid internship is at maybe a higher more famous fortune 500 brand, or
you're doing work that is more similar to consulting and you're able to do that,
then I would recommend. Finally consulting firms think for the long-term
when they're hiring you. They're thinking not just about somebody who does a great
job on their first 30 or 60 or 90 days on the job, they're thinking about
somebody who really could be great long-term The more that you can develop your own
interests, style, and relationships, in your junior summer, the better. Sometimes
consulting firms can be great for that but not all consulting firms are, so
again if there are other places where you're gonna be able to really be
developed in culture and trained in a way that would be beneficial long term for a
consulting firm, do that instead if you've got a consulting internship that
you're not sure about taking, and you're wondering how it's gonna set you up full
time recruiting. Please reach out to us, we would love to talk it through with you.
We'd love to talk through your options and our recommendations, some of our
recommendations will be wild, like you should probably take a first backpack trip
across Spain over the summer instead of doing that, and some of our
recommendations are going to be very standard and normal.
We like to personalize them and we like to share your experience. You can comment
on this video, you can reach out to us on social, you can subscribe to this channel,
and you can also find us all the time at www.managementconsulted.com