So you want to see the details behind how I got my summer internship with Deloitte?

Due to their prestige and reputation getting an internship can be a daunting task.

I’m going to share the process I went through to acquire a 2016 summer internship as a sophomore in college and give a little insight, to those that are considering finding an opportunity with the Big four. Let’s get started!

My first career fair helped tune my interview skills

First off I started by going to the career fairs at my school and introducing myself to the campus recruiters. I did this the first semester of my freshman year. I didn’t have much luck, but I did have a couple of interviews. But, none of them were successful. But the takeaway from this was that, it really helped me tune up my interview skills. I knew exactly what to say for certain questions, what questions to ask and most importantly I was confident during the interviews. In addition to the improved interviewing skills, I made connections with the recruiters, which was beneficial going forward.

My second career fair helped me land an interview for Deloitte’s NexGen Leaders Conference

When the spring 2015 semester arrived, I was ready for the career fair. I went to it and spoke to the Deloitte Recruiter. Unfortunately, Deloitte did not have any internship positions for freshman at that time. But they had a very selective program specifically for prospective freshman. I ended up applying and I got an interview.

I traveled to the local Deloitte office for my interview and had 3 consecutive meetings. Each meeting was 1 hour long and I spoke with two partners and the recruiter. They asked me a variety questions from the details in my resume, the classes I’m taking, to what my goals are. At the end I left the interview feeling very confident on how things went.

The next day I got a call from Deloitte stating that I have been selected to attend the NexGen Leaders Conference in Westlake, Texas. It was an all-expense paid trip by Deloitte, yay!!

I hopped off the plane at DFW

Fast forward to the end of July, I was on my way to Deloitte University. As I landed, I got my bag and went straight to the shuttle that was waiting for me. Heading into the Deloitte campus, I met a few individuals like myself that had come to the conference (97 individuals to be precise). Many of them were from big institutions like Cornell, NYU, UC Berkley, UCLA, Michigan etc. It was a three-day conference testing us in problem solving, presentations, thinking outside the box, and team building activities.

There were advisors watching over us at all times, and often taking notes, or simply helping us with the task at hand. We knew they were there to judge us because at the end of the conference they gave a review for every student they were responsible for. This review would dictate if you would be given an opportunity to intern the next summer or not. It was very important to show the best side of yourself, while still being personable and friendly contributing to the goal. They mentioned how important social interactions were as well as how you work to solve a problem.

I got an offer!

About 5 days later I get a call from the central region recruiter asking about on how the conference went, what city I would like to intern at and what two service fields I would like to focus on (audit, tax or advisory). I picked Chicago as my preferred city and Audit plus Tax as my service fields. Remember they were just gathering information; no offer had been made yet. So I waited patiently for 4 weeks. Finally, I got a call saying that they would like to provide me with a 10-week internship in the downtown Chicago office for audit and tax.

This conference is called the “Deloitte NexGen leaders conference” and the internship is called the “Deloitte Discovery Internship”. You can find more information by clicking the links provided.  Also, if you happen to have any questions please comment them below.