Big 4 Internship Resume (2018 Guide)
How do you prepare the perfect big 4 internship resume?
If you want to get an internship at the big 4, your resume should have certain things on it. It needs to show that you can communicate, that you can work in a team, that you can work under pressure, that you can learn and that you work hard.
To be honest, on your internship you aren’t going to be trusted with a whole lot. Internships typically last about 2 to 3 months. It’s difficult for people to trust interns with work because just as soon as they trust interns with work – interns have to leave and go back to school.
With that being said there are some things that you should have on your resume to guarantee that you get an offer from the big 4.
Ability to communicate
Ok this is the key area where most interns are going to be lacking. You want to show that you have the ability to communicate on your resume somewhere. What does this mean? Does this mean that you should mention all the group projects that you worked on in school? Not necessarily. We are going to discuss that in the next section. What you need to show here is how you communicated problems in a timely manner.
This will be hard unless you’ve had work experience. If you’ve had work experience, then that’s great. Think back to that job you’ve had and think about a time that you’ve addressed a problem that came up. For example, if you worked with physical goods and were running low on inventory, say that you brought up an inventory shortage and raised it to management.
If you don’t have work experience, then look to other areas of your life. Have you worked on a volunteer project? An example of this could be a soup kitchen. Let’s say that you worked at a soup kitchen and every time there was a shortage of some supply, you went and grabbed more or maybe you raised the issue with the volunteer manager.
If you haven’t volunteered much, then think of group assignments that you’ve completed in college. Were there issues that other people didn’t see that you spotted and raised immediately? If you did, then make sure that you show how you raised them and discuss how you communicated this effectively.
Another way to evidence that you can communicate effectively is by speaking about business writing skills. Many people often neglect the importance of writing in communication, but at the big 4 it is essential because most communication is in email format.
Ability to work in teams
Have you worked in a team before? Some common ways that people can meet the teamwork requirement for the big 4 is by analyzing
- Group projects at school
- Jobs where you’ve worked with other people
- Group volunteer projects
- Fraternities or sororities
- School interest groups such as chess club or math club
- Competitions that you participated in
Look back on those situations and analyze how you collaborated with your teammates. What does collaboration mean? You can show that you’ve collaborated with others by speaking about how you involved others in your group projects. Don’t speak about how you took over a group project. You want to speak about the parts of the group project where you brainstormed with other team members and came up with a common solution. Use words like – compromise, collaborate, cooperate, concur, worked in concert, team up, participate, work with, tie in, join.
What else can you speak about in the group context that is relevant to the big 4? The big 4 have tons of meetings. These meetings aren’t typically organized, so if you show that you organized a team event….you will be viewed as an all star. At the big 4, it’s important for people send out calendar invites, hold calls, and put together agendas. Have you done anything like this? If you have, speak about it in detail in your big 4 internship resume.
Ability to work under pressure
How can you show that you can work under pressure?
There are multiple ways to show that you can do this. You can show that you worked a part time job while in school. You can say that you worked on volunteer projects. The best way to show that you can work under pressure is show that you were able to handle conflicting projects at the same time.
The reason this is important is because at the big 4 you will most likely work on multiple teams with multiple people, and you will also most likely have multiple clients.