Recruiting Materials And Application Strategy
The cover letter should name the practice or practice family and location where relevant. A generic consulting letter wastes the opportunity to show that the candidate understands CRA’s practice model.
Is it a fit?
Fit and trade-offs
CRA is a strong fit for students who want specialist consulting with real quantitative or technical depth. Economics Consulting is especially attractive to students considering economic consulting, antitrust, finance, graduate school or analytical policy work. Life Sciences Management Advisory can fit students who want healthcare strategy. Cyber & Forensic Technology can fit students who prefer investigative technology to product engineering.
Specialization. Joining a practice builds expertise but reduces the generalist breadth of a broad strategy program. Students should choose a practice they are willing to spend substantial time learning.
Exit direction. Economic consulting can be excellent preparation for graduate study, law-adjacent analytics, antitrust, finance and research but is less direct preparation for product management or operating roles.
Work, teams and company background
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At a glance
Evidence snapshot: 2026-09-04. This is a dated research summary, not a live vacancy feed.
Prepare: Economics: quantitative writing and research defense. Finance: accounting/valuation. Cyber: technical integrity. Life Sciences: market and strategy research.
Economics Consulting
CRA says an honors thesis, research apprenticeship or research seminar is highly desired. That does not make such experience mandatory, but it signals the value the firm places on independent analytical work. A strong candidate should be able to explain a research question, data construction, method, assumptions, results and limitations.
Antitrust preparation should include microeconomics, industrial organization, market definition, substitution and empirical competition analysis. Finance candidates should understand valuation, financial markets and event evidence. Labor candidates should be comfortable with statistical comparisons and careful causal reasoning. Life Sciences candidates should combine policy or industry context with rigorous analysis.
Accounting, Business And Finance Consulting
This route can fit students interested in forensic accounting, valuation, financial disputes, investigations, damages or finance consulting. A strong application demonstrates that the student can reconcile financial information and explain the business implication.
A useful preparation project is a quality-of-earnings or transaction-data analysis using public or simulated information. Separate recurring and nonrecurring items, trace the source of adjustments and explain what could make the conclusion wrong.
Cyber & Forensic Technology
This is not a generic software-engineering internship. Candidates should show evidence around security, systems, data integrity, forensic collection, incident response, eDiscovery, cloud or investigative technology. The work product may be an investigation, technical assessment, evidence set, security recommendation or data-processing workflow rather than a consumer-facing application.
A strong candidate can explain the asset, event or question; the evidence collected; integrity and chain-of-custody considerations; technical method; limitations; and conclusion. Coding helps when it makes the investigation more reliable or scalable, but code is not the only output.
Life Sciences Management Advisory
CRA’s Life Sciences practice describes work with pharmaceutical, medical-device, biotech and diagnostic companies across Corporate, Portfolio & Brand Strategy; Pricing & Market Access; Policy; and Litigation. Junior staff can conduct secondary research, design and analyze primary market research with patients, physicians, payers and other stakeholders, analyze quantitative data, build models and present insights. Interns gain hands-on life-sciences consulting experience, work with experienced teams and receive support from a supervisor and onboarding buddy. [CRA7]
This role is closer to industry strategy and management advisory than CRA’s pure economic-litigation work. Candidates should know whether they prefer product and commercial questions or legal/economic cases.
A strong life-sciences application connects scientific or health knowledge to a business decision. Explain the therapeutic area or product, customer or stakeholder, evidence, market, access and strategic choice. Business candidates should demonstrate the ability to learn science; scientific candidates should demonstrate the ability to make a commercial recommendation.
Antitrust & Competition Economics
Students should prepare microeconomics, industrial organization, econometrics and data analysis. A good project can examine demand substitution, pricing, market concentration or the effect of a policy or merger using public data.
The analytical standard is not simply correlation. A candidate should state what causal claim is being made, what alternative explanation exists and what evidence would distinguish the two.
Energy And Management Advisory
Students in energy, engineering, economics, finance or policy can still use the practice as fit context. A strong application project might analyze electricity demand, generation economics, a regulatory choice or capital investment with explicit assumptions and downside.
Marakon And Corporate Strategy
CRA’s practice list includes Marakon, a management-consulting group known for corporate strategy and value creation. [CRA2] This creates a materially different career proposition from Antitrust & Competition or Forensic Services.
Interview process
CRA does not publish one universal campus interview sequence on the role pages. Secondary reports show significant practice variation.
A July 19, 2026 New York Summer Analyst Intern account described two rounds with deep questioning on résumé and economics research. That is useful preparation evidence for the undergraduate program but remains one candidate’s experience. [CRA11]
Economics Consulting candidates should prepare their quantitative research in depth and practice economic-consulting cases. Life Sciences candidates should prepare market and strategic research. Cyber/Forensics candidates should prepare technical evidence. Finance candidates should review accounting, valuation and transaction analysis.
Before accepting the assignment
Ask which practice owns staffing and whether the writing, technical or case assessment matches that practice.
Company and practice model
CRA says it has delivered research-backed consulting since 1965. Its careers materials distinguish three broad forms of work: economic consulting, financial consulting and management consulting. The firm advises law firms, corporations and governments, meaning some cases are litigation or regulatory matters while others are business-strategy and performance questions. [CRA1]
The internal practice structure is important. CRA says joining a practice allows employees to build deep specialist expertise with assigned mentors, while cross-practice professional relationships and multidisciplinary collaboration remain common. The common skills are analytical rigor, navigating complex problems, using data to generate insights and working in senior-led teams. [CRA2]
This is different from a pure generalist model. An Antitrust & Competition intern should expect economics and quantitative analysis. A Forensic Services intern can work on accounting, cyber, digital forensics or investigations. A Life Sciences intern may work on pricing, market access, corporate or brand strategy, policy or litigation. Marakon is closer to corporate strategy and value creation. Energy roles can combine economic analysis, markets, regulation and management advisory.
For a student, the practical decision is which analytical craft and client question they want to practice. The parent brand does not remove the specialization.