Tactics to help Vietnamese female students win internships at Big4 companies

 Tactics to help Vietnamese female students win internships at Big4 companies

MỸNGI participated in the job fair and prepared the foundation, building an impressive profile to be accepted into an internship at Deloitte.

Thai Doanh Nghi is currently a third year student majoring in Auditing & Assurance at DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois. Nghi applied for four different auditing firms including Deloitte, EY, PwC, RSM, but two of them refused because they did not support work visas for international students. After two rounds of interviews, Nghi was accepted to practice at Deloitte, a member of the Big4 group - the four largest auditing firms in the world in terms of size and revenue.

Nghi shared about her experiences.

1. Preparation (first year and second year)

- Networking (Expand professional relationships)

Professors at the school: The teachers are the forerunners, having worked in large and small companies related to their fields of study as well as training those who have been and are working in these companies. So the first suggestion that I successfully applied was to boldly talk to the teacher to get the contact of a senior and ask them to be a mentor. They will help you edit your Resume or share experiences...

Career Events (Job fairs organized by the school or large companies): In addition to acquiring a lot of useful knowledge to prepare for a job application from the recruitment department, these events will have guests as Mr. you are working here. When participating, boldly raise your hand to ask questions, you will impress them. Before asking, remember to briefly introduce your name, major, year of graduation and the name of your university.

I have attended many events organized by Deloitte and the school, and talked with many guests who are working at this company, including a Partner in Deloitte. When I went to the interview, by chance the person who interviewed me in the last round was him. Because I had known him before, I was quite comfortable and he was also impressed with me.

At the end of the interview, he called me to let me know instead of waiting for the recruitment department to reply after 3-5 days like other friends. I also asked for the help of a teacher at my school and a counselor in Deloitte to review my resume before submitting my application.

- Resume

Template (ready-made): You should keep your resume short and easy to read because the average recruiting department only looks at 5-10 seconds for a resume. Organize your activities by time or industry relevance, and don't use fonts that are hard to read or add decorations around to avoid clutter. A straight and clear template also helps you score points in the eyes of the employer.

Experience: Most candidates lack experience because they are students. A lady at Deloitte's recruiting department told me that they don't pay much attention to whether a candidate has specialized experience or not. After you are accepted, the company will have a separate training course in this area.

The problem they note is that the soft skills experience depends on the position you apply (teamwork, time management...). So you can talk about extracurricular activities at school or part-time jobs at coffee shops.

Please list supporting data (if any), for example: Increase the sales value of the restaurant three times when applying a new form of service. Also at the end, list the awards you have won during your studies to make an impression.

2. Round of application (Submit Resume):

- Carefully read the job description (skill requirements) and adjust the resume based on those criteria. Only focus on entry-level jobs (jobs that do not require experience) to avoid wasting your time.

Prepare a sample thank you letter to email the employer within 24 hours of the interview. The trick is to leave the body of the letter blank with 2-3 dots to add your own impressions of each interview.

- For those of you who are studying in the US, find out carefully which companies support visas for you to stay and work. Most small and medium-sized companies will not support this or will reject your application as soon as they see you as an international student.

3. Sub-round:

- Some large companies will have an extra activity. In this round, they will let you "play" online games to assess your acumen and memory skills. If you encounter such tasks, calmly choose a quiet place at home and focus on doing them.

- Many large companies will have a "no-person" interview round on a computer like when taking the Speaking test in TOEFL to save time. You will watch a video of the question and record your answer shortly afterwards. My suggestion is that since computer interviews are inconvenient and confusing, as well as unnatural, practice by recording videos of yourself reading the questions and practicing with those videos to get used to talking with computer.