^ The last point is priceless: a stress free senior yr. Sure they have to still finish strong academically, but it’s nice to know you have that offer before senior yr starts. You can take it or leverage it into something else. Also can’t speak enough about gaining experience and determining if you even like that field in practice.
My firm paid summer interns quite well. We could easily get the students we wanted vs. offers from industry. I’d be pretty shocked, given interviews/offers/negotiations in which I was involved if our competition did not also.
Is this from personal experience of receiving a low salary from a Big 4 internship? How did it compare to other offers?
Getting an summer internship at a Big 4 is like winning the lottery. When I worked in the industry, 95% of the summer interns received a job offer, basically it was your job to lose (and occasionally some idiot intern would screw it up with immature behavior or very poor work ethic).
I didn’t list the amount the internship pays because I assume even with the same company it might vary based on where you live since big 4 accounting firms have offices in many places. My daughter is getting $28 an hour which sounds great to me but perhaps is low for a place like Manhattan or somewhere in California.
As a parent yes I’m hopeful it will end with a job offer but I don’t want to count on it. It does sound amazing to know a year ahead of time that you have a job.
Today my daughter got an email more for regular employees saying that they will close July 2nd as well as July 3rd for the Saturday July 4th holiday this year as a bonus company paid day off. Sounds nice - that never happened at a job I had (interns don’t get paid but I’m thinking employee benefits)
When the entry level job in the field is an unpaid internship, that is a signal that the job field is highly competitive from the employee’s point of view, so that most employees should not have high expectations for pay and career progression in the field (although a small number may do well).
$28 per hour over 2,000 hours would be like $56,000 per year… which (especially for an entry-level job) is not that far behind the median household income in New York city ($60,762) or California ($71,228) according to https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newyorkcitynewyork,CA/PST045219 .
I just googled and it does seem like they pay 25-30/hr. It matches what they make when they graduate. It means their annual salary is $55-60K a year. My niece worked at one of those big 4s after college. She said they were supposed to get over time, but their manager made it be known it was not done. I am a customer and I pay my consultants by day and do not pay for over time.
D1 was a summer intern at a bank 10 years ago, and her pay was $75K pro-rated. I think consultants work just as hard as people in finance. I am surprised there is such a difference in pay.
^ huge difference in pay until your reach the higher rungs and then it levels out. Most, however, never get there as they move to industry after a few years. I think the B4 Partner rate is around 1% of all that start out there. But for those who ultimately want to work in corp fin, it’s a seal of approval. Both in Big4 and consulting, hard to find another track where you get that much experience and responsibility (managing projects and people) at such a young age. Not uncommon for a third yr to be supervising new recruits (and actually recruiting). Great training ground for the future whether you stay or go.
The internship is the ticket to get started.
This topic is so interesting to me! I get the feeling that I am alone in lamenting the increasing importance of summer internships.
I am 50. When I was in college, it was completely fine to get my resume-building done during the schoolyear (I had a couple of minor internships in the downtown of my college city, for a few hours per week, plus on-campus roles that were more decidedly more significant and impressive). I saved my summers for living in beach towns such as Newport RI and Cape Cod, and waitressed. We all made loads of money waiting tables or bartending—plenty to pay our summer rent and expenses and have several thousand dollars left over for school-year personal expenses. Those were possibly the best summers of my life, and I cherish the memories. You are the perfect age for all of the fun and flirting and parties and sunbathing and adventures, etc that comes with those places and jobs. The hours (typically weighted towards afternoons and evening) are just right for the type of fun 20 year olds like to have! And you will never again have such carefree summers (although I have enjoyed absolutely every stage of my life, even including age 50!!). You aren’t kissing up and anxious to get some critical letter-of-recommendation out of your job; just do a decent job to earn great tips and keep your boss happy.
I still managed to land a highly competitive job at a top strategy consulting firm after college (ha ha and I negotiated to not start work until September, so I could eek out one more wondrous summer).
I have a sophomore in college and a soon-to-be freshman. My understanding is that summer internships are way more important now. That the summer-before-senior-year internship is key for hopefully landing your post-college job. And to get the great internships THAT summer, you need to have a pretty great internship the summer before, etc. I consider this tragic—more of the pushing the rat race down at younger and younger ages. My own son did have a work-related internship last summer (after freshman year), but at least it was in Barcelona, so there was something exciting about that. This summer he’s hoping to intern at an engineering firm, but hasn’t heard back yet.
Sure they can enjoy these summer internships. And get paid handsomely. And it can help them with some career choices, making great contacts, and learning what they do/don’t like in a work environment. But there is not one teeny tiny part of me that thinks these kids are having half as much fun with their summer internships as I had in Newport that summer ;-). Am I the only one that thinks this is unfortunate?
I’m also 50 and had summer internships or a research position every summer in college, as did my H, and all our friends. I don’t think this is a new phenomena.
@EmptyNestSoon2 - those sound like great summers. I get that nostalgia; I had some fun ones myself in Washington State!
my kid is an actuary; between his jr and senior yr he had an internship. They paid well; and paid for housing.
He did not get a job offer at the end; he was slightly disappointed; slightly relieved at the same time as he wasn’t sure about living in that city.
He did say that only half of his co-horts got job offers (including all the females in the group). One kid from a big-name school who started the internship was fired half-way through. Absolutely that internship made a big difference in him getting a job offer Oct. of his senior year from another company.
My kid made $1000 a week computer programming for a Boston company in 2008. He was working long distance for that one. I don’t remember how much he made at his internships the following two years, but it was more.
@EmptyNestSoon2 shows how things have changed in just one generation. Sad (truly) but true. I’m sure it’s possible to land a great job without that internship but, especially for strategy consulting gigs, you better be doing something really interesting (to them) if not interning. Of course, always outliers.
The issue is the process. They have built a path for UG , and then again for post MBA, and align most of their resources to recruiting to those classes. Training is set up that way. If you don’t come in those doors, you better network like heck, know a Partner, and have a really interesting story to tell.
Of course, many summer internships are gotten through parental connections as well.
I am chiming in on this post late. A couple of comments regarding summer internship at Big 4 accounting firms.
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For summer internships, apply early (2 summers early) for each of the Big 4’s summer leadership program. The leadership program is a prelude to the summer internship and is about 2 days in the summer. It almost automatically leads an offer to an internship the following summer. Most summer internship offers are from the previous summer’s leadership program. The leadership and summer internship programs are very competitive, therefore apply early (S was accepted to 2 leadership programs from 2 Big 4 firms and had to choose 1 for the following year’s internship). The firms will wine and dine you to get commitment; and
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The summer salaries are competitive. Two summers ago, S made 4K per month with the Big 4 as a summer intern. His starting salary following the summer was about 54K per year. This was in a large city in the West Coast. Previous to the Big 4 summer internship, he had a summer internship with Amazon paying 3.8K per month (probably higher now). His offer from Amazon with bonus and stock options was > 100K. He chose to the Big 4 route.
I think salary depends on which business unit. I asked few big 4 technology partners, they said they are paying around 75 for first year analysts.
Not every company pays interns the base rate of the entry level employees.
The IB interns are not getting 2 days off for the 4th of July - they will be lucky to get a half-day off. I believe they are intentionally abused to see who will quit. They do however, get the base rate of the first-year analysts plus some measly overtime plus a small housing bonus (in Manhattan).
Like getting drunk at an office parter at the home of the office MD, making a pass at his daughter, and passing out in the bathtub?
Yes, that will work. Even after having an offer.
I also had one intern who just wasn’t competent. I don’t think we were at 95%, but probably over 80.
@RichInPitt or other people familiar with intern hiring practices. If your offered a position at the end of the internship before starting your junior year I assume it starts around May or June after graduation. Is this a legally binding offer or can you still look at other places? I doubt that will happen but just curious.
I believe my daughter’s position is in tax department - again she probably knows more than what she shares with me. She said a girl from her school who already graduated did the same internship and position and started at a higher rate.
@oldfort That is accurate. Big 4 pays accountants the lowest. Tech analysts and business analysts (consulting side) make about the same, which is in the $70-75k range.