The usually bustling Two World Financial Center tower is dark and eerily quiet. It’s 2 a.m. in the heart of New York City’s financial district, and everyone has long since called it a night. Everyone, that is, except Allison Howgate, a senior in the Martin J. Whitman School of Management, and the team of firm associates and partners with her. While munching on Chinese food, the bleary-eyed group is still putting the finishing touches on corporate tax returns.

With the Sept. 15 corporate tax deadline fast approaching, summertime is a busy season for Deloitte & Touche, a professional finance giant offering services ranging from auditing to consulting to financial advising. Howgate, a finance and accounting major, landed an internship with Deloitte for eight weeks during the summer to beef up her resume and gain on-the-job experience.

Having internship experience generally stands out more than a solid GPA and a long list of extracurricular activities on a resume. For one thing, internships speak to the enthusiasm, ambition and work ethic of students. They also serve as a separating tool between thousands of equally qualified candidates. Today, with so many employers across the country only too happy to put ambitious students to work, there is no shortage of positions to be had. What is never quite clear when choosing a given position, however, is whether it will be worth it in the end.

That thought may have run through the mind of Howgate, but it was quelled somewhere between her all-expenses-paid interview trip to New York City and her guided tour of the handsome Deloitte & Touche office building. Howgate was attracted to Deloitte, one of the ‘Big Four’ finance companies over PWC, another ‘Big Four’ New York-based firm, because of the atmosphere and people.

‘Deloitte made an effort to come find me. I was invited to come ask questions, check out the offices, and get a feel for the culture,’ said Howgate.

According to Ellen Auster, a partner in Deloitte’s Long Island branch, the unique interviewing process for interns is mutually beneficial.

‘They get the opportunity to see what we’re like, and we get the opportunity to experience the interns,’ said Auster. ‘They are interviewing us just as much as we are interviewing them.’ Deloitte & Touche has been ranked as the fifth best company to intern for by CNNMoney.com. According to Deloitte national recruiting manager Jennifer Carmody, about 81 percent of interns entering senior year start their career at Deloitte upon graduation.

The firm invested intensive training in Howgate and her peers, teaching them the ropes and preparing them to work with real clients on real cases with a team of associates and partners. ‘The stereotype of an intern being stuck in the mailroom is becoming a thing of the past,’ said Steven Rothberg, president of CollegeRecruiter.com, a job Web site targeting students and recent graduates.

Indeed, the substantive contributions and responsibility experienced by Howgate and other interns like her have broken the mold of traditional internships.

Bryan Dumas, a senior broadcast journalism major, is a highly valued member of Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. The Atlanta-based Time Warner powerhouse is a major producer of news and entertainment television around the world and a leading provider of programming for the cable industry. Dumas has spent every summer for the past five years interning in various divisions of TBS and has amassed a knowledge of the company’s research, marketing, programming and sales offices.

As an intern, Dumas produced a video to overview the TBS intern program and was responsible for shooting, directing, interviewing and overseeing the editing process-tasks hardly considered typical in the world of college internships.

Stephanie Bukantz, a junior public relations major, also interned in New York City over the summer for MWW Group, a top-10 public relations agency.

Bukantz was attracted to the fast growing company’s comfortable atmosphere and impressive clientele list, which includes McDonald’s, Volkswagen and Verizon Wireless. As an intern, Bukantz was responsible for researching the media coverage of clients and their products and had the opportunity to participate in actual pitches to customers.

‘I definitely thought I’d have to do more stereotypical ‘intern things,” said Bukantz.

Before her internship, Bukantz had amassed a respectable amount of classroom and textbook knowledge, but found that improvisational skills were just as important in the industry.

‘I knew things like what media to target and I used what I’d learned in my PR writing class,’ said Bukantz. ‘But when you go into the field you realize technique varies from agency to agency and though the theory and background helps you to understand the ideas, you have to adjust no matter where you go.’

Dumas gained practical experience at TBS, but says he’s come away with something more important.

‘Throughout the five summers I’ve spent there I’ve really gotten a sense of how corporate America works,’ he said. ‘That’s not something you’ll get in a Newhouse class.’

Dumas said he plans on taking advantage of the contacts he’s made and relationships he’s forged at TBS in order to walk on as a full-time employee after graduation.

‘It’s a win-win situation,’ he said.

Stephanie Rivetz, a junior television, radio and film major in the Newhouse School came to much the same realization during her internship with ‘The Late Show with Conan O’Brien.’

Rivetz served as a research intern for the writing team and was tasked with investigating the guests scheduled to appear on the popular NBC show. She also took advantage of the many opportunities offered by NBC and attended panel discussions, luncheons and guest speakers.

‘NBC brought in Cheryl Goulb to speak to the interns and it was the most inspiring speech,’ said Rivetz. ‘This woman graduated from Princeton in the university’s first class that included women, she was the first woman anchor overseas and just a huge female pioneer for the field.’

‘I can see myself doing a lot of the things she talked about, so it was really moving to hear it coming from someone so accomplished,’ Rivetz said.

After the speech, Rivetz emailed Goulb requesting an appointment to meet with her, and was granted a 45-minute time slot.

‘It was the most incredible thing,’ she said. ‘She gave me advice about the industry and school and life. Not many professionals of her stature take 45 minutes out of her day to talk to an intern.’

Of course, no internship is without a certain amount of unglamorous grunt work, even for the interns at the nation’s top financial firms, broadcast companies, PR agencies and talk shows. Bukantz had her share of intern moments, which included running errands all over Manhattan, making mundane phone calls and battling other interns for desks in a hallway.

‘It was frustrating being sent off on errands and being treated like an intern when I had more textbook knowledge than most everyone,’ said Bukantz. ‘It’s not very easy to slack off in a hallway.’

Nevertheless, Bukantz and Howgate were eager to prove themselves.

‘Anyone can learn how to do a tax return,’ Howgate said. ‘What Deloitte looks for are people who are willing to work hard and work with a good attitude.’

Auster, the Deloitte partner, agreed, noting that, ‘You can be the smartest kid in the room, but if you don’t have people skills you’re never going to succeed.’

No matter what kind of grunt work an internship may require, it is hard to deny that those with on-the-job experience under their belts don’t gain an edge when it comes to job searching. According to a report published by the National Association of Colleges and Employers, students who have had internship experience have higher starting salaries.

Deloitte & Touche uses its intern program to hone in on talented, motivated students and provides them with all the training, mentoring and incentive they need to call the firm home after graduation from college.

Though the country’s brightest and most motivated interns are often staggeringly overqualified for the sometimes trivial tasks they are charged with completing, the experience is largely shaped by the attitude and initiative of the intern.

Howgate, who was among those offered a full time job at Deloitte upon graduation, offered advice for students looking to intern in the future.

‘The harder you work the greater the reward,’ she said. ‘It sounds clich, but it got me a job offer and I haven’t even started my senior year yet.’

Published on August 27, 2006 at 12:00 pm