Oliver Lönegård is a bachelor student at International Business at Lund University who wanted to know more about what is was like to be a consultant. He joined Simon-Kucher & Partners for an internship over the summer and shares his experiences as an intern at one of the world’s leading consultancies within commercial excellence.
Can you tell us a little about your background?
Currently I am on my third year of the Bachelor in International Business at Lund University. Before I started studying, I worked as a key account manager for a consultancy broker in Sweden during my gap-year. I wanted to have some practical experience with working in business and with project-based tasks, which is why I joined Simon-Kucher for a 10-week internship over the summer.
Why did you want to do an internship in consulting?
Many of my family members were consultants, and I always found it interesting when they would discuss management and business strategies. Experiencing the lives of consultants close by gave me a good insight into different industries and business areas, so I wanted to try and see if consulting was the right career path for me as well. I am very motivated by the project-based work that consultants do, as every project, client or industry is unique, and it allows me to grow and learn throughout my career, which I find exciting.
When I was looking for internships, I had some criteria for the companies I was looking for: first of all, I wanted to be an intern at a large company that is present all over the world. Secondly, it was really important that the office was multinational as I really enjoy getting to know people from other cultures. These were two of the main reasons why I applied to Simon-Kucher, as it has offices in 27 countries, and I would get to work with people from all over the world
Finally, I wanted to be close to Sweden, so I could visit my family, and since Copenhagen is no more than a train ride away from Lund and has an atmosphere that I really enjoy, I chose to apply to be an intern at the Copenhagen office.
What made you choose to apply to Simon-Kucher?
What I appreciate about being an intern at Simon-Kucher, is how the values of the company really resonate with who I am. We place high emphasis on entrepreneurial drive, so your colleagues are always very motivated by what they do, and it is truly inspiring to be part of the client projects.
Additionally, interns and students at Simon-Kucher are given a high degree of responsibility from day one, which ensures a steep learning curve that is both based on theoretical and practical tasks. You get to work on client projects from day one and I really enjoyed this aspect of Simon-Kucher as you develop professionally and get to contribute to important projects.
How have you used your academic skills as an intern?
I can have gained a deeper understanding of how my academic abilities from business studies can be applied to project-based work primarily especially in regard to softer skills such as presentation, project management and stakeholder management.
Since I already had some experience in skills such as presenting, client management and project management from previous jobs and my studies, I really wanted to improve my quantitative abilities during the internship. This was one of my requests to the project manager and they listened to it when they delegated tasks. As an example, I did a lot of data analysis, research and evaluation, and now I feel much more comfortable working with statistics and data.
What to expect
In a Danish context, people are quite straight forward as they are focusing on delivering a good project to the client and they give you good feedback even if you did not do a task correctly the first time. At the same time, they are humble, nice and open-minded.
First of all, expect a steep learning curve as Simon-Kucher give a lot of responsibility to the interns from the get-go. If you want more responsibility, you should just ask for it. They really listen to how you want to develop professionally through the internship, so I would recommend reflecting on what you would like to get out of the internship before you apply.
What should you do if you are interested in an internship at Simon-Kucher?
You can always see available positions on our website at https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/join-us. Here you can also learn more about the recruitment process and find material to prepare for interviews. If you have any specific questions for me, you are free to reach out to me at oliver.lonegard@gmail.com or write to me on LinkedIn.
If you have more generic questions regarding the recruitment process, please reach out to our HR Manager in the Copenhagen office, Rikke Henningsen, at rikke.henningsen@simon-kucher.com. For recruitment questions regarding our Stockholm office, please reach out to Senior Consultant, Johanna Ögren at johanna.oegren@simon-kucher.com.
