Consulting Intern Review

There were certain aspects of the internship that I liked, such as meeting other interns, I found the project that I was assigned to for most of my internship quite dull. Moreover, I was assigned to an area of consulting in which I had no interest, despite expressing a clear interest in other competencies.

There were moments when I did feel valued but the majority of the time it seemed like I was a hindrance to the team, who never had much work to assign to me. This often led to fairly long periods of having nothing to do.

When I was assigned work, I felt that all the necessary support and guidance were available. That said, broader ground rules for the internship (such as starting time, reasonable time for lunch) were never discussed.

Again, the work was intermittent. I rarely had a day where I was consistently busy from 9.30-5.30, even when the team around me was quite busy. I think this was because I would have needed more training to be able to make a more effective contribution to the team.

As an intern, perhaps it is unrealistic to expect to be given a great deal of responsibility, but I still felt that the majority of tasks I was doings were menial and I rarely had a sense of how they fitted in to the big picture of the project. I was assigned one task of creating a powerpoint deck which was left up to my discretion, which was more rewarding, but it did seem at the time that this was because nobody else wanted to do it.

I became more familiar with excel and powerpoint during my internship, but I don't really feel that these will greatly assist my degree. More positively, I have been working in a team for the past five weeks, and this experience has given me greater insight into the characteristics of a successful team.

The general atmosphere in the team was very friendly. Other teams working in the office did seem a little more subdued, but this was never a problem.

The internship was well-organized, with the SVS champion in particular seeming to be very active and engaged. The only minor problem was the inability to organize partner interviews for some of the interns in the final week due to limited partner availability.

Having completed placements with other members of the Big Four, it did seem that Deloitte invested the least in terms of personal training. Apart from the IT training on the first day, I did not feel that there was much in the way of personal training/development.

Within Deloitte, and even within consulting, there are a wide degree of different opportunities. As such, it seems there are opportunities that could suit a wide range of personalities. On the negative side, Deloitte seemed more corporate than the other Big Four firms at which I have worked, and seemed to have a particular problem with jargon and acronyms.

When the interns did meet up, the social scene was great. It was unfortunate, however, that scheduled social events were relatively infrequent. Given that people were working across London most days, this made it difficult to go out for lunch with other interns or go for a quick drink after work.

Working in the heart of London, the cost of living and socialising were bound to be high. Still, the starting salary at Deloitte does compensate for this.

Great. Again, London has great nightlife. The only downside is that it is expensive!

Not really. Any activities seem to depend upon the team to which you are assigned. In my case, there few, if any, such opportunities.