Big Four internship season is in full swing. Here’s how to get through the door at KPMG, according to 3 current interns.

Securing a coveted spot on a summer internship at one of the Big Four professional services firms — KPMG, EY, Deloitte, and PwC — takes more than just good grades.

Three college students in their first week of KPMG’s summer internship told Business Insider how they secured their spots and why they’re interested in a Big Four career.

They said it takes networking, curiosity, and a good deal of patience — most KPMG interns have an eighteen-month wait between sending in their first application and their first day on the job.

Nathan VanderKlugt told BI that building relationships over time helped him get his audit internship at KPMG’s San Francisco office.

VanderKlugt, a 21-year-old accounting major entering his senior year at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, said that he connected with two KPMG professionals during a career fair in his freshman year. He stayed in touch, sending occasional LinkedIn messages and grabbing coffee with one of them.

It helped him understand KPMG, and they recognized one another at next year’s fair, he said.

“Be as open to all the opportunities that are presented to you as possible,” VanderKlugt said, adding that KPMG typically holds lunches and dinners alongside the career fairs.

The messages can be “something short like, ‘I enjoyed our conversation and I look forward to talking to you again,'” he said.

Andre Gaviola, who studies accounting and IT at Santa Clara University, advised other college students to get engaged with the recruiting process early.

Gaviola told BI that most spots were already filled the first time he applied for KPMG’s internship, as the deadline was approaching. He applied the following year to get onto the summer 2025 program as an audit intern.

After applying, VanderKlugt said he went for a coffee with a senior associate who had been at the firm for a couple of years. They talked about life and accounting, and it was a good way to get some tips for the formal interview, he said.

Gaviola said the next stage for him was an interview with two partners, during which he was asked “the standard, behavioral-style questions.” He said it was a very relaxed, engaging experience that “almost didn’t feel like an interview.”

VanderKlugt had a similar experience: “We ran over time because we were having a genuine conversation that was fun to sit there and talk.”

The hardest interview question he was asked was, ‘What’s your biggest weakness,’ though “it wasn’t framed specifically like that,” he said.

“I responded by saying I think I can be a little bit too critical of myself.

“So if all my ducks aren’t in the line, I can hyperfocus and then take too much time on certain things. I tied it back to accounting … because all the ducks need to be in a line,” he said.

Evelyn Nunez-Alfaro, a 22-year-old tax intern based in Seattle, circumvented the traditional application process and secured her place on the summer internship by completing other talent development programs.

VanderKlugt and Gaviola participated in KPMG’s Global Advantage program — a four-day leadership development program.

After meeting a campus recruiter, Nunez-Alfaro was invited to a five-day KPMG program called the RISE leadership conference in 2023, held at the firm’s Florida training facility, known as the “Lakehouse.”

That experience led Nunez-Alfaro to apply for KPMG’s Embark Scholars internship the following year — a type of early internship experience that gives high-performing students an opportunity to explore audit, tax, and advisory services. Nunez-Alfaro described it as a training ground for “the next generation of accountants.”

Her advice for others thinking about applying for a Big Four internship was not to be afraid. “Putting yourself out there is going to open so many doors,” she said.

Why professional services appealed to them

Nunez-Alfaro, Gaviola, and VanderKlugt all described themselves as people who enjoy working with numbers — an obvious prerequisite for a career in audit and tax.

But why do well-educated, ambitious young people choose a Big Four career over a high-flying finance role on Wall Street or a buzzy tech job?

“The reason I chose accounting specifically is job security,” said VanderKlugt.

Gaviola told BI that his mom had wanted him to be an accountant since sixth grade. He said he had been skeptical of the idea, imagining it as a boring desk job, but his perception changed after learning how people-orientated it was.

“You visit client sites, there are a lot of travel opportunities, networking, interacting with people, and team-based learning,” Gaviola said.

Nunez-Alfaro said she was initially interested in KPMG’s programs because of how welcoming the campus recruiters were, but found she was drawn to tax for personal reasons: “My parents would always have to seek out third-party help because they had a language barrier.”

“I want to open my own tax firm to help people with language barriers understand how to do their taxes and give them the right resources,” Nunez-Alfaro said.

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