Can anyone offer any tips on gaining an internship?

rageagainstessays

I'm currently a first year student moving into second year at University. In September I will need to start thinking about making applications to spring week internships and insight days while strengthening my skills and knowledge for applications to summer internships. I am not currently fixed on a particular path- I'm thinking about policy consultancy, management consultancy, accountancy and banking (with perhaps a lil' teach first thrown in). So I'm going to be applying to a range of internships from these. Although the careers service is great at my University I was wondering if the people of this forum could offer any further advice.

Regards,
Rage

amiehall

Just as a note, if you want to join a big consulting house scheme, you need to be applying to the main summer internship from late August not messing around with insight days which are normally for freshers.

You kind of need some experience behind you although it shouldn't be too late to get involved with some stuff when you get back as you probably won't have had your interviews yet. Have you done things like attended societies, put yourself forward for committee positions, had a job, held a voluntary position? Things like this give you a wealth of experiences to draw on when answering competency questions. If not, make sure you do something worthwhile with your summer.

The main thing is to apply early and apply to a lot of positions. I also have found that often the more prestigious schemes can be easier to get onto than some smaller schemes where they seem to expect you to have the company name tattooed on your arm as a sign of devotion so don't rule things out. The main decider with my friends as to who has got onto a scheme is volume of (quality) applications. It's really easy to get bored with them as they are tedious and time consuming but it'll be worth it if you get your hands on something good. Any assessment day and interview experience will be great practice for your proper run at graduate applications.

Do you have any specific questions?