Career in Consulting (Internship advice)

Calcruzer
Sun, 08 Jun 2008 13:52:19 +0000

Internships are usually lined up before school ends by a month or two. Since we live on the west coast, my son (who will be a junior next year) lined up his internship back in March–and started working in May. Since most schools out here only finished their classes and finals this past Friday, he had an advantage over students who go to school here, since he was able to start earlier than most of them. (Many of the other interns started working earlier, but for only 20 hours a week–going to 40 hours a week starting next week).

This is a tough economic time in general, and for internships in certain areas that are hardest hit by the economic downturn, and when you combine that with the terrible weather in Indiana and Iowa and Illinois right now, it is going to be difficult to get an internship until people are through dealing with the weather problems.

However, the suggestions given to you by Waverian and yorkshirebanker are excellent ones and may help you overcome these weather difficulties. At this point I wouldn’t be overly concerned about getting an internship in consulting. Any internship in a business area (finance, accounting, general management, marketing, computer science, economics, banking, or human resources) will help you get into a consulting internship next year. The important thing is to get the business experience on the resume.

Personal contacts, networking, and direct approaches (such as calling HR departments directly) are always preferable to just sending resumes to advertised positions. You need to also make your resume standout as well once they agree to let you send it to them directly (you might also consider putting it on a website where they can access it while you are on the phone with them). Make sure you remember what they taught you in Intro to Management on preparing resumes and cover letters.

Best of luck to you, and congratulations on your admission to the Kelley school.