Management consultancy is a very competitive sector and demonstrating that you have relevant work experience is highly important. You can begin building your skills and experience at university by volunteering, attending insight days or work-shadowing for first-year students, doing an internship, having a part-time job or by doing a professional placement.
Internship and placement opportunities are common in this sector and many employers use them to recruit for their graduate programmes, meaning that landing a graduate job in consulting without having completed one can be very difficult. Impress on a summer internship or a placement and you could be back with the company as a graduate!
Summer internships offer the chance to experience paid work at an organisation for 6-12 weeks during the summer break. These are usually offered to penultimate year students from any discipline. Applications for summer internships open from the autumn term onwards.
Many of the professional services firms recruit for summer internships in management consultancy. Here are some examples:
Organisations offering summer internships are also likely to offer professional placements and graduate programmes in the same sector. A placement year at a consulting firm is an excellent way to gain practical work experience in consulting and improve your chances of securing a graduate job.
Here is a sample of companies that offer placements:
Case study interviews are common in management consultancy. You will be presented with a business problem and asked to talk about what you would do to resolve it. This gives you the opportunity to demonstrate your problem-solving skills and gives the interviewer an insight into your thinking and the types of questions that you ask.