Success Rate of Internship vs Full-time Applications

Question

Hello everyone,

I’m a master’s student currently applying for both internship and full-time positions in Germany. I will finish my master’s in August this year and therefore would, in principle, still have capacity for one summer internship.

I started applying to Tier-2 and MBB consultancies as well as other consulting firms. Interestingly, I was rejected from all of my internship applications, while I was invited to interviews for all of my full-time applications (including McKinsey and Roland Berger). Since the majority of my applications were for internships, this makes my overall success rate still look weak, which has left me a bit uncertain about how to interpret this outcome.

I’m trying to understand whether this pattern is primarily driven by my profile, or whether it is common for consultancies to be more restrictive with internships at a very late master’s stage. Of course, I know that you would need more information on my background here and that my sample size is statistically not significant but I would still be grateful for your advice. In one case, I even applied to the same firm for both an internship and a full-time role and was rejected for the internship while being invited to the full-time interview.

I would therefore be very interested in hearing whether internship recruiting is indeed structurally more difficult at this stage compared to full-time recruiting. Additionally, I would appreciate advice on how to proceed. I am currently considering reapplying at the end of this year and proactively reaching out to HR beforehand to clarify my situation.

Thanks a lot in advance for your insights!

Answer 1

Hi there,

What you’re seeing is actually very common, and it’s generally a positive signal, not a confusing or negative one.

A few key points to clarify what’s going on:

Internships vs full-time recruiting
Internship recruiting is often more restrictive and more rigid than full-time recruiting, especially in Germany. Internships are usually targeted at:

earlier-stage students (often penultimate year)
candidates who still have a clear “student” status for several months after the internship
fixed internship windows with limited headcount

If you’re finishing your master’s in August, many firms will automatically view you as too late-stage for an internship, even if you technically still have availability. In those cases, rejection is often driven by eligibility and timing, not by profile quality.

Why full-time interviews but internship rejections happen
The fact that you’re getting interviews for full-time roles at firms like McKinsey and Roland Berger is a strong signal that:

your profile is competitive
your CV passes screening at the highest level
firms see you as a viable hire, just not as an intern

Being rejected for an internship while invited for a full-time interview at the same firm almost always reflects process rules, not an assessment that you’re weaker.

How to interpret your “success rate”
Don’t aggregate internship and full-time outcomes into one success metric — they are fundamentally different funnels. In your case, the relevant signal is that full-time recruiting is working very well.

How to proceed

Focus your energy on full-time recruiting; that’s clearly where the traction is.
There’s usually no need to reapply for internships at this stage.
Reaching out to HR to clarify eligibility can help, but don’t be surprised if they confirm that full-time is the right path for you.
If you do reapply later in the year, do so cleanly for full-time roles rather than splitting focus again.

In short: this pattern says more about where you sit in the recruiting lifecycle than about any weakness in your profile. Getting multiple full-time interview invites at MBB/Tier-2 is a very strong outcome.

Best,
Evelina