After navigating the management consulting interview process, Eric Sweeney (Mendoza, ‘21) spent his summer as a management consultant summer associate working on a separation engagement for a pharmaceutical company. With the help of his team and a willingness to ask questions, network, and employ empathy, Sweeney was able to maximize his summer internship in the virtual environment. During this interview, Sweeney shared his experience this summer, and what it takes to successfully navigate the management consulting internship.
MBASchooled: What did you do for your summer internship?
I had the pleasure of joining PwC as a Senior Associate intern. MBA hires come in at the Senior Associate level, so it was good to intern at the same level to understand the expectations.
The internship was a virtual, 6-week, hands on experience. I like to joke that I was working from the South Bend, Indiana PwC office, aka my dining room. For the first week, we did mostly onboarding and training in order to spend the remaining five weeks on an engagement team.
MBASchooled: Can you share some details about your project/case? (no confidential info needed, just scope, team size, your role, etc)
I worked on a major pharmaceutical separation. Specifically, I worked in the HR space ensuring thousands of employees successfully transferred from the selling firm to the buying firm. During my internship, my team worked on transferring the local knowledge of the previous HR team to the new HR team.
Our PwC HR team was over 15+ people, but my particular workstream consisted of a director, manager, senior associate, and myself–plus other team members would pitch in when the workload got extra heavy. I spent a lot of time working on decks and process flows!
MBASchooled: What were the most important skills you needed to use this summer as a management consultant?
I think there were three soft skills that were the most important:
- EMPATHY: In order to understand an HR process, you had to put yourself in the shoes of both the employee and the local HR team. You needed to be able to ask yourself, “If I were an employee, how would I…” and then think through what your personal feelings and questions would be.
- ASKING QUESTIONS: Everyone realizes you are an intern and don’t always know the full story. Knowing when and how to ask questions of your team in order to understand your work was vital to my survival.
- NETWORKING: I spent a lot of time setting up 30 minute coffee chats with people I had previously networked with at the company, people I was interested in meeting, and connections made for me by my team. I was able to share some of my interests with my manager and she would quickly put me in touch with consultants doing that kind of work.
MBASchooled: What was it like to experience consulting and client work virtually?
Everyone seemed to always be apologizing for the fact that the internship was virtual, but I don’t know any differently at this point! It also introduced some really nice perks like taking quick breaks and stepping outside, making yourself lunch, and eliminating commutes to/from work!
I think there were many more meetings than would if we had been in-person. For example, when my director gave me a deliverable to work on, it was sometimes hard to show it to her for feedback. I got in the habit of putting 15 mins on her calendar for us to video chat to facilitate feedback.
My team made heavy use of google chat to quickly share information and ask questions.
MBASchooled: What was it like to build relationships virtually? What helped?
I had a really great experience meeting people across the firm and at many different levels. People seemed extra-willing to have coffee chats with you because of the virtual setting. I think a lot of the benefit of an in-person internship is simply the kinetic energy of an office and the chance introductions and meetings in the hallway. PwC made up for this by hosting happy hours and connectivity events for the MBA interns. The New York office’s Women in Deals group even hosted an awesome virtual wine tasting for the MBA interns.
The actual relationship building isn’t too different when you are face to face with somebody on a computer. In fact, it can be even more personal and intimate in some ways because the person is quite literally bringing you into their home. People’s surroundings, artwork, views from windows, furniture, children, and pets often came up on those calls. You got to know someone’s personal-life and make an even deeper connection than you might have when sitting in a coffee shop or bar.
I think one of the keys to success is to accept that awkward pauses, choppiness, and freezing will happen due to the technology. Once you get over that, connecting virtually can be a profound experience!
MBASchooled: What was a challenge that you had to overcome or work through?
My project started well over a year before I joined. It was a very steep learning curve to catch up on the ins and outs of the project. It was a mega deal with lots of workstreams. I had trouble jumping on to the moving train and getting my bearings. Luckily, during the first week of the internship, I was able to do some research as well as look back at previous decks that outlined the project. I highly recommend, if the deal is public, to read press releases and news articles about the deal you are working on to get a great overview and the rationale for the deal.
My team was also very patient in letting me ask many, many questions.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for other MBA students who are interested in internships in management consulting?
Network. It’s the best way to get to know what management consulting entails. You can also start to develop relationships with people in the company who may become advocates for you later as the application process begins. In thinking about which firms you want to recruit with, ask about the culture of the firm. The work is intense and the hours are long at every firm, but the people and the culture will be the part that really makes you feel at home. Make sure you are applying to firms that match your personal values.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have to help other MBA students in terms of how to prepare for a summer internship in management consulting?
Accept that you will not always understand or know the answer. Work hard to problem solve and try to come up with a solution, and be comfortable asking for help or guidance along the way.
Brush up on excel and powerpoint as you will likely be living in these programs. If you really want to show off and stand-out, know how to use alteryx, tableau, or other similar programs.
Finally, understand the framework that will be used to measure your performance. We had two mini-reviews during the 6 week internship. The framework used to measure our progress was a really clear signal from PwC as to what the firm considered to be the most important skills for you to demonstrate and at what level you needed to demonstrate them.
Personally, I love that PwC uses the PwC Professional Framework for development. The framework places heavy emphasis on how you live out the PwC values. This demonstrates that these values are more than just nice words written on a wall, but actually govern every action the firm takes.