How Do Firms Recruit for Interns?

Yes to everything HoosierDaddy said.

Also - Undergrad institution, Major, undergrad GPA, and GMAT can look good, but don't help that much. Your work experience is by far the biggest factor.

If your a career switcher, even in a FT program, its not too bad if your switching roles / same industry or switching industry / similar role. Switching industry and role is hard, but not impossible.
- Network/hussle to get a pre-MBA internship
- Get some part-time experience at a firm, maybe have to go small and network your way in.
- At least: do coffee meetings and info interviews with people in your target field so you'll have some warm contacts.

Couple things for Finance/Investment Management (only because that's the stuff I know more about):
- If you want to switch into finance, passing the CFA level 1 could help (but June is the only opportunity you have to do this before school and its a lot to study for)
- If you have access to a Bloomberg terminal, you can take some tutorials and tests to get certified. We have several on campus, I've only done the basic training, but employers like to talk about it in interviews.
- Take a modeling/valuation course. Chances are, these guys will come to campus anyway for weekend workshops, and you can take the course at a deep discount (email the school or finance club about this). But you could do this before school for a leg up. Employers like to ask about this on my resume too.

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.

Glad I bumped into this thread!
How about Entrepreneurs. Will they get any internships? If not, What do they do all summer? Kind of curious!

First understand what interested, go to select a company

Entrepreneurs and internship is almost paradoxical. Those who are interested in entrepreneurship take 3 different paths: 1) work for a start up to understand what it takes to start a company; 2) work for a VC to understand how to get funding, and 3) spending time to start the company.

For these paths, networking is essentially. And the timing of the offer doesn’t follow a strict timeline. Start-ups and VCs do not forecast their hiring pipeline a year or two ahead. Openings can come up at anytime; hence, the importance of networking, so that you will know of the opportunity and be on top of mind at the target companies.

Last post of asimoy is simple and very good to understand. I like that. Indeed the internship and entrepreneurship is different things. You post is highlighting the entrepreneurship which is far different and more was then the internship. As per my self when it comes to starting your own business the things are quite changed. Also the social interaction is very important when it comes to start your own business.

Certificate 4 in Training & Assessment