Your Role

German medium-sized consulting firms are facing their biggest upheaval in decades — succession wave, consolidation, technological disruption. Most students learn about this from case studies. Here you will see how decisions are actually made.

Vogel is one of the most successful medium-sized consulting firms in Germany — several thousand medium-sized companies trust us with their tax, commercial, and strategic issues. Based on this, we are building the leading consulting platform for medium-sized German businesses: we grow organically and through acquisitions, consolidate a fragmented market, and integrate each new entity into a common setup. Vogel is owner-managed: Joachim and Moritz Vogel make the decisions themselves. In this internship, you will work closely with them on their issues for three to six months.

You are still studying and are not looking for an internship where you maintain databases while the interesting people sit in the next room. You want to know how decisions are actually made in a company — with incomplete data, under time pressure, with people who disagree. This is exactly what you will get here, and right at the forefront.

You will report directly to management and work across all departments. Those who deliver in this internship will receive an offer for a career start as a Founder's Associate — this is the explicit purpose of this role.

Your Responsibility

Analysis and research for upcoming decisions

• Research markets, competitors, and target companies and condense the results into two pages with your own assessment.

• Build analyses from our figures that answer a specific question. Your benchmark: anyone who reads your analysis must be able to make a decision afterwards.

• Verify assumptions that are considered set within the company. Part of this work involves politely pointing out that something is incorrect.

Own projects with visible results

• Take on one to two of your own topics during the internship and present the results yourself — to management, not through an intermediate level.

• Participate in ongoing projects across the company: site integration, building a consulting field, implementing a tool.

• Document in such a way that someone can continue working after you. What exists only in your head has not been delivered.

Contribution to company building

• Support internal formats — reporting lines, key figures, decision proposals, internal communication.

• Participate in recruiting: screening, scheduling, providing your own assessment of candidates.

• Contribute your own observations. We have flat communication — whoever sees something says it, regardless of how long they have been there.

Your Perspectives

Where the position leads:

The standard path leads to a career start as a Founder's Associate and from there, after 24 to 36 months, to a specialist role at Manager level or to a development responsibility at a location. Both expert and management career paths are open. What you receive is based on your contribution — years of service alone do not move things forward here.

What you bring

Experience & Track Record

• You are in an advanced Bachelor's or Master's program — Business Administration, Industrial Engineering, Law, Natural Sciences, or something else you do very well.

• You have above-average grades or other verifiable proof that you stand out in your field.

• You have already gained initial practical experience — internship, working student position, university initiative, or your own project.

• Profiles that do not fit the above criteria but bring sharpness of thought and execution power are explicitly invited — we evaluate based on contribution, not label. Specifically: Humanities and social science students with demonstrable analytical substance; students who have built something of their own on the side; people from competitive sports or music who know what daily discipline means. The stated range refers to the primary profile. Those with different backgrounds will start at a different market price — when transitioning to permanent employment, the same logic applies as for everyone: remuneration follows contribution. This can be read in our remuneration principles.

Skills & Work Style

• You write clearly and concisely. Two good pages are more valuable to us than twenty complete ones.

• You calculate reliably and can work your way into Excel models without someone sitting next to you.

• You use AI as a natural tool — for research, analysis, drafting.

• You make assumptions explicit when a task is open-ended, choose a direction, and adjust along the way. Those who get stuck when there is no instruction will have a hard time here.

Mindset & Personality

• You can handle direct work for management — rapid iteration, high autonomy, including tasks without glamour.

• You accept criticism as material for your development, not as a personal attack.

• You strive to set the highest standard in everything you deliver — not because someone checks it, but because mediocrity personally bothers you.

What you won't find here

• No internship where you provide support and wait for tasks. You will take on your own topics and present them yourself.

• No corporate strategy department producing slides for others. What you write will go into a decision that will be made this week.

• No intern pool without guidance. You will work directly with management, not in an intermediate layer.

• No "you'll get to work independently someday." Here, from day one, it's: you do, you present, you get corrected if necessary — but you don't wait.

FAQ

1. What is Vogel — and where do you work?

Vogel is one of Germany's leading consulting firms for medium-sized businesses — a family company since 1959, from Aalen — and is building the leading consulting platform for medium-sized businesses from this base. We are growing at several locations: in Aalen/Ostwürttemberg as the established headquarters and in Munich as a new hub. At both locations, we are looking for people across all functions — from tax consulting to advisory and the strategic teams building the platform.

2. How are the salary bands to be understood?

Intentionally broad — and indicated at every point. We differentiate based on track record and market value, not by degree: niche, highly sought-after profiles at the upper end, less niche at the lower end. We calibrate exclusively on the market — two people with similar experience can earn differently with us.

3. How much — and how — do people work at Vogel?

We measure by what you achieve, not by hours. However, it's also true: if you're looking for 9-to-5, you're not in the right place here. We are looking for people who work intensively out of their own initiative because the tasks are worthwhile. How you manage your time is largely up to you. What we share: we work together in person — culture, sparring, and the best ideas emerge from daily proximity. We are not a remote company and do not have extensive home office policies; occasional remote days are not a problem.

4. What is the application process like?

Lean, fast, transparent — and staggered by profile. For entry-level roles (internship, working student, career entry), two interviews and a short work sample are usually sufficient; experienced roles run a bit more extensively. For selected senior roles, we are testing the possibility of including a joint workday in the future so that both sides can get to know each other better. Always: timed appointments, swift decisions, substantial feedback — regardless of the outcome.

5. How does variable compensation work?

Tied to performance quarterly, qualitatively assessed. The scale increases with the level: up to 20% Associate, 27.5% Manager, 35% Senior Manager, 42.5% Director, 50% VP. The expected value for good performance — you meet the requirements, set your own accents, pass the keeper test — is around 50% of the maximum; the maximum bonus is not the norm. The focus is on a holistic assessment by your supervisor: ownership, quality, learning curve, collaboration, impact.

6. How do I develop myself — what career paths are there?

Two active paths: Mastery (technical depth, expert career) and Pioneer (leadership, management). You choose the direction after onboarding, usually in years 1-3. Career entry is not a separate path, but the early part of the same journey — from working student or intern to Associate, for the best without a new application process.

7. Team, culture, vacation?

A joint lunch is an open daily offering — not mandatory; whoever wants to join, can, and everyone can eat at any time. In addition, dinners, social events, and offsites at regular intervals — not as a mandatory program, but because a good team also shares time outside of work. Benefits: well-thought-out and substantial, not symbolic. Vacation: 28 days.

8. I know someone — is there a referral bonus?

Yes — €2,500 for each successfully filled position (not internships). A brief context is sufficient: who you are thinking of, for which role, why. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it must be substantial.

Compensation: €24K – €48K • During Bachelor's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €2,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months · After Bachelor's studies / During Master's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €3,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months · After Master's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €4,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months

• • OTE €24K – €48K • During Bachelor's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €2,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months · After Bachelor's studies / During Master's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €3,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months · After Master's studies: Monthly compensation, gross: €4,000 / month Internship duration: optimally 6 months, minimum 3 months

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