| Topic Name: |
Summer Internship Necessary for PhD Student? |
| Message Name: |
PhD Summer Internship |
| Date Posted: |
11/08/1999 |
| In Reply To: |
I am a PhD student at George Washington University's Business School. I would like to work in consulting when I graduate. Is a summer internship necessary? Can I just finish my dissertation in the next two years and then interview at consulting firms upon graduation? Do consulting firms only hire their summer interns? What path would lead me to a better consulting job opportunity?
Thank you,
Sharon |
| Message: |
If you can get the summer internship, that will help a great deal with eventual job search. It will show ("signal" for the econ types) that you really want to be in business / consulting rather than academia.
On the other hand, it will obviously slow your progress toward your degree as you are not going to be getting any research done during the internship period.
If you have no "real world," management consulting relevant work experience prior to your degree, your ultimate job search will benefit even more from the internship. Also, realize that if you have less than 2-3-4 years of significant pre-PhD work experience, you will be starting at the "analyst" level, with mostly undergrad entrants (albeit, very smart undergrads).
Whether you get the internship or not, make sure you network etensively prior to the time you intend to go on the full time job market. Identify as many contacts through friends as you can, at Big 5 (PwC,EY,DT,AC,KPMG) and strategy firms (McKinsey, Booz, Bain, BCG), as well as focused "boutique firms relevant to your speciality (e.g. Marakon or LEK for Finance PhDs), operations management specialists for engineering or management science PhDs. Keep up a conversation with these people through the years while you complete, as it will be much easier than creating a network "from scrtach."
Good luck.
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