Management Consultancy Review

I really had the chance to try a career which I never imagined myself being in. My off cycle internship in Accenture Management Consulting was a chance to do something completely different to my university degree in History and explore an immerse myself in an exciting industry. I thoroughly enjoyed the time as being there for a year allowed me to begin to understand and decide whether it would be a career path I would like to follow.

At the beginning it was difficult to integrate being the only intern in the team but throughout the internship I believe I gained the trust of the employees and my manager through hard work. I believe it is like this in most working environments but if you are able to add value and work efficiently not being afraid to ask questions your colleagues will begin to value you.

Initially I was given a lot of training and had the opportunity to even travel overseas to their headquarters for an intense week of training I found that as a great way to understand the industry and business coming from a non-consulting background. The internship began with a lot of shadowing and then became more specialised as I were set on clients and taking part in analysing data and creating solutions.

It varied a great deal depending on the clients task. I found that on a daily basis I would be in at 8am and usually finish by 6pm. Each day we would work towards a specific goal towards to big project and my manager would review upon the completion of my work providing feedback. I felt this really valuable as it engaged me with the business and also colleagues and helped with my over development and training in the industry.

The responsibility throughout increased throughout as I became more comfortable on the different tasks I was involved in. What I liked was that it gave me a feel for many divisions in consulting, I wasn't stuck in simply financial but also the pharmaceutical side. However, this being said with this exposure I never developed a skill greatly in one area but rather across a few.

I believe on the personal and team work skills it will greatly help as this environment was something completely new to me. However, I don't believe it will directly help my degree but may help on how I objectively look at sources and analyse and process efficiently lots of information which is a useful skill nonetheless.

I really enjoyed the time that all interns were in the office working on group projects as all the other time it was working alongside management in different offices around the world. It really gave a sense of your potential future colleagues that you will work your career with which I thoroughly enjoyed.

It was extremely well set up, HR had a big influence in this as they governed it from the first interviews to the leaving day which I really valued. They were also available for any issues that we had and were only an email or phone call away. In addition, I found my manager really benefited from HR guidance as they provided them with ideas on what projects I could work on and areas of exposure.

We had a week away at the beginning of the internship in a corporate camp which really showed they are willing to invest in future talent and interns. It eased us in to work with various group exercises and case studies which helped developed our analytical and logical skill set for the real work ahead. I found this extremely beneficial and it was well received amongst the interns

Unfortunately I was unable to secure a graduate place straight away but have been advised to further apply and get fast tracked to the assessment centre as being a prior intern.

There were around 20 other interns also there during my placement so it was really great to mix with them. Even though we didn't go out necessarily that much we would try to eat lunch together when we were not having lunch with our individual teams.

The offices were based in central London so it was fairly expensive but we were compensated well. Socialising was great fun and easy, with the number of deals and happy hours in London you get some great deals so it does work out to be pretty affordable if you don't go out every single day of the week, you will be fine.

I found the nightlife somewhat repetitive, maybe it's cause I'm growing out of the student life :p. But it could be because we would go to the same closest bar every week and sometimes twice a week so that was the repetitiveness. But to be honest there are many things to do sometimes we went for team dinners which I preferred the atmosphere there.

The intranet of the company advertised a sports and social activities club to join. And what I liked is also the weekly emails of different events that this club organised and individuals too, whether its skiing for a week or a day of sky diving. Having been on a couple of the organised events they were extremely well organised and great fun.