| Topic Name: |
summer intern for law students |
| Message Name: |
Maybe A Non-Answer |
| Date Posted: |
02/10/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
interned at pwc during their 2L summer can answer this...
So, pwc didn't exactly recruit at my law school. I did fill out the online profile thing and left my resume there. I got an invitation from HR to interview with them while they were recruiting at the undergraduate school. I've already gotten a callback.
I should have brought this up at the initial interview, but I don't think my interviewer knew the answer, and I didn't want to come off as if the internship was beneath me or anyhthing. However, what I want to know is, am I interviewing for essentially the same intern position as the undergrads, with same job responsibilities, salaries, etc? or will it be different...will I be offered a position that will utilize my specialized/advanced knowledge in tax law and get fairly compensated for it?
Also, when do they decide or let you choose which specific group in the service line you are going into. It was very unclear. The on campus interviews were split into the three lines of services, and I was in tax. I did express my interest in multiple groups, but that's it, the interviewer didn't follow my lead.
thanks for the enlightenment in advance. |
| Message: |
JD,
I didn't see a reply to your message, so I thought I'd jump in with my usual two cents/grain of salt thoughts.
I was once an outsider, so I completely understand your confusion and perplexity of some of these interviews/interviewers/process.
Typically, the people doing these campus interviews aren't the most enlightened individuals. They're usually either very silo'ed to one specific area within PWC or they're so general, that they don't know enough to answer any of your detailed questions.
Bottomline is that not much decisionmaking is done at this level. Consider this a screen. Your real meat is located at another level. The one where you get to socialize and meet with actual humans who work in that area.
Just get past the screening first.
I don't know what your end goal is here regarding the internship. My personal opinion, and I am not in any way tied to anything to do with college recruiting, is that if your major goal is to take your academic knowledge base up to another level, that probably won't occur.
First and foremost, PWC is about billable hours, just like any other Big 4. Second, interns are interns. I mean no slam on anyone. What I've seen is that interning is a way for PWC to check out potential new employees without having to commit to them for a long period of time. Your wants and needs won't be nearly as important as say, a manager or director. That's just the nature of this political beast.
Hopefully, I haven't depressed you because there are definitely many advantages you can get out of an internship with PWC. 99% of it has to do with the "brand" and nothing else. You could literally, sweep floors from PWC and other employers would be impressed. Believe me. I know this to be true. This name recognition and branding by the Firm is the best thing that they've ever done.
Going on.
Don't know what school you're from - this is what I would do if I had your shoes on.
I assume that PWC coordinates their campus visits with someone in Student Affairs - like Career Counseling...some department like that. These are good people to quiz because typically, they keep stats of employers who recruit and how many of their students go there for internships, first jobs, etc... It's some badge of honor that they like to print and massively produce for the world to see (as if this justifies the reason to spend trillions of dollars at their college or university).
Also, they may be able to give you a name of someone who was in your shoes a year earlier.
Next up, surely there is a professor within the law school who has some sort of relationship with someone at PWC. Check that angle out.
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