Byau wrote:
Title says it all. As I understand it, firms begin summer internship recruitment very quickly after students come on campus. What are the primary factors they use to make their decisions for who to interview? Just the resume? Do they ask for undergraduate GPA? Or GMAT? What about for schools with grade non disclosure? What if you are a career switcher?
I can only speak to consulting...
At Booth it really comes down to networking (and there are TONS of on-campus opportunities to do this). Everyone has stellar work experience, GPA/GMAT, etc. So unless you have something truly spectacular on your resume, you'll need to network hard to get an interview. The firms want to interview/hire people who have expressed a lot of interest in them and actually want to work there. So it's critical that they recognize your name when they're sorting through applications and resumes in the winter.
That said, getting an interview is only the first step. After that, everyone is pretty much on a level playing field again and all that matters is how well you perform in the interview and on the case.