Final Presentation

It is the second last week of my internship. And I just finished my summer final presentation. It is not used to judge whether we could get a return offer or not. It is just a way to showcase what we have done and what we have learned. Each interns has 15 minutes to do the presentation and followed by 5 minutes Q&A. Most interns only worked on 1 project, but I have worked on 3 short ones. So I presentation went a bit longer. Even though I didn’t have much time to practice my presentation, I still felt very confident when I was standing in front of the group. I guess the business school life and the consulting experience have really prepared me for thisJ. I also feel that it is very helpful if you could make the presentation funny and interesting. It will help the audience to concentrate to the presentation.

I did learn a lot from my summer experience.  I learnt that consulting is about details. Yes, you do need to solve the problem, but at the same time you should make everything as perfect as you can. Consulting is about building your brand and network. In a consulting firm, one is always looking for next project to work on.  You need to make yourself known to others. You need to build you reputations in the project you worked on.  There are always people willing to help you, but you are your own master.  Last but not least, consulting is about expertise. Almost every project you work on is either a new topic or even a new industry. To really solve clients’ problem, you will need to do extensive researches on the topic even before working on the project and continue improving you knowledge along the way.

My view of consulting

I used to think consulting is all about problem solving, which is kind of true. But consulting is more than that. It is about professionalism, no matter what you do, whether it is important or not, always deliver the result with highest possible quality. It is about relationship, building trust with clients and teammates in an intensive short period of time.  It is about commitment, dedicating time and effort to learn clients’ business and problems, always deliver what you promised.  As one of my colleague said “consulting is not a job, it is a profession, and it is a lifestyle choice.”

 After talking with my classmates working in other consulting firms, I feel all the firms are more or less the same at the business side. It is the culture that differentiates the firm. One of the key cultures at Deloitte is “Networking”. It is the best way to make yourself known to the rest of the firm. At industry, your boss will tell you what you need to do. But in a consulting firm, you don’t have a fixed boss. You need to constantly look for your next project, so it is important to build your brand and reputation in those networking event and in your project. Good news is Deloitte will organize a lot formal networking event for you. And every Friday, partners, principle and directors will make themselves available, so you could schedule meetings to connect with them.

Another distinctive culture is that you can feel Deloitte really care about you. I still receive emails from the person that interviewed me and asking how I am doing. Several Ross alumni at the firm also contacted me and ask whether they can be any help. The firm also organized many expensive training and social events for us to learn and relax.  There are many other things that make you feel you are part of the big Deloitte family.

Networking and a typical week

As discuss previously, all the interns & consultants at Deloitte have a supervisor and an advisor. At the first meeting with them, we will discuss my goals and expectations, based on which my supervisor and advisor will help me to connect with Deloitte employees that share similar goals and had similar experiences. This match making process is really effective; I connected with many people by using this way.

I am working on a 5 weeks client engagement project, which is short and intense. But too be honest, it is not as bad as I thought it would be. Maybe it is because I am staffed in a local project, so I don’t need to fly every Monday. A typical week for me is like:

Monday: in the morning go to get the car I booked in last Friday and drive to my client’s site. In the morning, we will have some internal discussions and project manager will assign some tasks to me. Start from the afternoon, we will have meetings with clients to do first hand researches.  Go back home at around 6pm. During the breaks of the meeting, I will compile the meeting minutes and create decks to document them.

Tuesday – Thursday: Pretty much the same as Monday, but need to arrive at 8am instead of 9am. And we still have intensive meetings schedule with clients.  The project manager will have update meetings with client at Tuesday and Thursday. Occasionally, I will have early morning meetings (5am) with client at other countries. 

Friday: Go to Deloitte office at San Francisco, and submit my time and expense report, book car for next week and have meetings with my advisor and counselor. And I would at least set up another meeting with a partner in the office.

Client engagement started!

Deloitte has a formal process of defining summer goals and project scope. All the goals should be made SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Timely). Then I will review the goals with peer advisor, my consoler and my project manager. They will also provide some suggestions for the goals, then I will update accordingly. After everybody agrees on the goals, I submit them to HR. My summer performance will be measured against those goals. It is a very transparent process.  

For the second week, I was on the beach which means I am not working on a client engagement. At that time, I did some practice development work, which is doing some research on a specific topic and increase knowledge of the firm. It is a very intensive project. I ready technology white papers, industry report, companies’ financial report and analyst report to get familiar with the topic and also collect raw materials for my deck.

Starting from the 3^rd week, I was staffed on a client engagement project. This project is to help client build an information technology roadmap to align with company development strategy. At the first week of the project, we conducted a series of interviews with stakeholders to understand the current situation and future needs. It is a really nice experience, not only that you could talk to many people from the management team, but also a great way to learn consulting. There is a small tip when conducting interview. One of my job scopes in the project is to collect raw materials, so I take meeting minutes during the interview. As non-native English speaker and freshman to the industry, I know it will be difficult to follow the conversation at the beginning. So I suggested my supervisor to record the meeting with my phone. My supervisor thought it was a good idea, but we have to check with clients before we do that. It turned out to be a great help, because the meeting schedule is very intensive and there is indeed a lot of new information. The recording helped to fill in many gaps in our meeting minutes. 

Well, here comes the boss. My supervisor is from Ohio. You know what I mean. But he is really a nice guy. He gives me many tips about client engagement, and told me many fun facts about the firm. At my side, first of all, I try to focus on my job and get the work done. I also try to be honest about my progress, asking for advice and help if needed and updating my progress regularly. 

Excited about my internship!

I am an MBA1 student at Michigan Ross School of Business. I will intern at Deloitte Consulting LLP San Francisco office as Summer Associate. Even though I don't know which project I will work on yet, it will be a typical consulting project. We will work with clients to solve an issue they have together.

Consulting is completely new to me, so I am really excited about it. I will have a chance to travel to many different places, meet people from different industries and solving all kinds of interesting problems. From those exciting experiences, I want to learn how to engage with clients, communicate professionally and project management.

Even though there are a lot of fun and excitement, I am a bit nervous about it too. It is totally different from my previous job which is software development. In the internship, I will do a lot of relationship management and business communications, which I don't have many experiences with. Luckily, my MAP (Multidisciplinary Action Projects) project is very similar to a consulting project. We have a team of 6 Ross MBA1, and work onsite with our sponsors at Madrid, Spain to propose a new product launching strategy. I learned a lot from the project and my teammates, who are from very diversified industries, such as consulting, CPG, banking. It is a really good preparation for my internship. 

This is just a quick overview about my internship. I will post some more exciting experiences in the near future.