Accenture Internship: 5 Tips to Land a Consulting Internship

The Accenture internship is a prized jewel in the internship landscape for business students and aspiring consultants. Past interns have raved about their Accenture internship experience. The Accenture Interview experience includes development & networking opportunities, stimulating challenges, and an impressive salary. The Accenture summer internship is highly competitive, so Accenture can afford to be very selective in their hiring decisions. In this article, we’ll fill you in on what to expect from the Accenture internship and share tips for maximizing your chances of being hired.

Accenture Internship Experience: What to Expect

The Accenture internship experience is very similar to that of full-time junior consultants at the company. You’re treated like a full-time employee, and provided with challenging opportunities to create real value. Of course, you’ll also be learning a lot —but this is true for all Accenture employees. Accenture fosters a culture of openness, collaboration, and mutual learning. Employees are typically happy to provide advice and support to interns, which can lead to deeper mentorship experiences. So during your Accenture consulting internship you should be sure to network with and learn from your peers & colleagues. Interns also are invited to regular Executive Talks, in which executives present on topics that will be of benefit to any aspiring consultant.

Many people want an Accenture internship in the hopes it will lead to full-time employment upon graduation. While this does happen for some, you shouldn’t overlook the fact that the internship is an opportunity to decide if you actually want to do this full time. You should use your time at the Accenture internship to evaluate your own fitness and affinity for the consultant role, and for Accenture as an organization.

One thing the Accenture internship definitely isn’t is a paycheck for doing nothing. Interns are given real assignments to work on—some even traveling to assist NGOs (non-governmental agencies) working in developing economies. So don’t go into it expecting it to be easy or relaxing. And all Accenture employees are presumed to be good at working both independently and collaboratively. So if you need a rigid structure with an authority looking over your shoulder in order to be productive, the Accenture internship probably isn’t for you.

How to Increase Your Chances of Landing an Accenture Internship

The Accenture internship salary is relatively lucrative, and it often provides a boost to people early in their consulting careers, so openings are highly competitive. This means you’ll want to do everything you can to maximize your attractiveness and your competitiveness as an applicant. Here are five powerful tips to help you get hired as an Accenture intern.

1. Be the Student Accenture Wants to Hire

This includes making sure you get your GPA up. It should also influence your course selection. Having a solid repertoire of quant and business classes should be a minimum requirement.

2. Get Active On Campus

Accenture loves employees who are entrepreneurial, well rounded, and self-motivating. You should cultivate a diverse array of on-campus projects to demonstrate your fitness for the Accenture employee culture.

3. Start Working and Volunteering Now

It’s a mistake to look at the internship as the beginning to your consulting career. If you hope to get hired for the Accenture summer internship, you need to look at it as an intermediate step in a consulting career that’s already begun. This may mean taking a different internship to gain experience as a bridge to a later hire at Accenture. But not to worry—they offer internships to undergrads and graduate students throughout their educational paths.

4. Join or Start a Consulting Club at Your School

Many universities with well developed business schools already have undergrad and MBA-level consulting clubs. This can give you real-life experience with the kind of work and the kinds of clients you’ll be experiencing as an employee at Accenture. This will look great on a resume and will give you a big leg-up in the difficult interview process.

5. Network, Network, Network

Joining a consulting club will help you to network with other aspiring consultants as well as potential future partners. You can also reach out to past and current Accenture employees, both to establish relationships and to pick their brains for information about how to improve your chances of getting hired. There’s a good chance Accenture may even host recruiting & networking events on your campus.

Accenture Internship: How Much Would I Make?

Many people are attracted to the impressive Accenture internship salary. For undergraduate interns, the salary is $32/hour, with opportunities for overtime, which pays $48/hour. Undergrads also earn a $2,500 signing bonus. For MBA and Phd level interns, the salary is even more impressive: $30,000 as a base salary plus a $5,000 relocation bonus (for 10 weeks).

Accenture Internship Interview

Even if you’ve molded yourself into the perfect applicant, the Accenture summer internship interview is a competitive and grueling process. After applying for the Accenture consulting internship, you’ll be contacted (usually within a few weeks) for a phone interview, or an in-person interview if you live near a hiring center. This interview begins with the interviewer telling you a bit about interns’ roles within the company as well as the organization as a whole. The interviewer will ask you to explain how you see yourself fitting in. Accenture will also mix in questions designed to gauge your general competency and fitness for the position. The firm is especially interested in assessing your communication skills, your ability to be a team player, and your problem-solving skills.

After the first Accenture internship interview—which lasts about 45 minutes—there is the technical interview, which lasts an hour. The technical interview assesses your knowledge specific to your field, as well as your understanding of the work the company does within it.

The Case Study Portion

Following the technical interview, applicants are invited to participate in a case study at an assessment center. Applicants work in teams of six to ten students to analyze a case study and to design & present a collaborative solution. This usually takes about half a day and is followed by an individual assessment, in which you are given thirty minutes to arrange a project plan and present on your plan in a one-on-one meeting. Hint: Make yours structured!

The final round of the Accenture internship interview is the HR round. This round consists of two parts. The first part is the Strategy Assessment round. This gives applicants the chance to explain themselves in more detail, telling their own story in illustration of their focus, their motivation, and their personal sense of business strategy. Then you are given an individual case study and asked to present your proposed solution.

This may seem like a long and tedious process. You can help yourself along by familiarizing yourself with sample case study problems, so you’re not caught off guard. You will likely find it helpful (and not too difficult) to find another student near you who’s also applying for the internship, and whom you can practice with. And you can even seek out past and current Accenture employees to ask about their experiences and what advice they might have for getting hired.

Wrap Up

The Accenture internship attracts many students who are looking for a springboard into a successful consulting career. However, for most students who are actually hired for the internship, it’s just the next stage in a consulting career that has already begun. You’ll want to take advantage of everything the Accenture summer internship has to offer. So it’s never too soon to start doing everything you can to make yourself into the best possible applicant!

Additional Reading:

• Accenture Careers
• Best Resume for Accenture
• Accenture: Will It Rise Above All Other Consulting Firms?
• Accenture Strategy & Accenture Technology: 3 Key Differences
• Accenture vs Deloitte
• Big 8 Accounting Firms
• Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide