Breaking into MBB: is it way easier for women?
Hi guys!
I am currently finishing my master's degree in one of Europe's top B-schools. Naturally, a large portion of my classmates - including myself - have applied to consulting firms in Europe. Now, most of us are settled on where they will be working at after graduation.
One disturbing fact I have witnessed though, is how much easier it seems for women to land an MBB offer than it is for men (at least in Europe). Allow me to explain myself.
I have been doing mock cases with about 30 students since the beginning of the year, of which 2/3 were males and the rest females. Out of all the guys, only 4 landed an MBB offer. However, all (!!) of the girls I did case training with got an offer in MBB! This makes for a 20% MBB success rate for guys, and 100% for girls.
Now, one could argue that my sample is not that representative and that girls from my school simply were more talented/lucky than guys. But I believe this could just be a part of a broader trend: I have heard that because 1) MBB's staff were unbalanced between genders and 2) MBB need to reach gender parity to comply with new laws and preserve their brand image, they have set the goal of recruiting 50% men and 50% women in entry-level positions. As there is fewer women than men applying to consulting currently, this simply makes it easier for women to get in.
Could insiders from these firms actually confirm whether this is actually the case or if I'm full of shit?
Thanks a lot!
Disclaimer: I very well know that positive discrimination will be necessary to resolve gender inequalities in the long run. I am by no means mad at the situation, but rather curious to know if what I witnessed was a more global trend or just a statistical anomaly!
I think diversity is extremely important. without it, firms will literally go bust, but I do feel there are 2 elements people overlook nowadays, I feel like I'm gonna get tonnes of MS for this:
- Why do firms prefer to hire female consultant teams? Well when your client has its own diversity initiative it creates this "sister/diversity connection" between the female client and the female consultant/banker, hence bringing more deals. You don't usually have that same rapport between males, because the female relationship have the IWD story, breaking the bias, overcoming a male dominated industry etc... Good for business! This can be seen as both good and bad, good because more women involved at all levels, but you also see deliberate discrimination to males who actually do a good job too. But hey things are unfair sometimes.
- An old dude on the board hires the female consultant/ banker just to see her more and basically flirt with her. This also brings in business. Unfortunate, but happens more than the first scenario.
what?
It is easier. Without revealing more, when I was on the recruiting team at MBB, we gave more interviews to women with not as impressive experience because we were specifically told that we had to get more females in the pipeline/on the interview slate. It's easier for them to get in the door, for sure. A high performing female/one that is on par with many of the male candidates will get more interviews and offers, which is something that I've tracked out of my class that recruited.
Vey interesting thanks! Firms should really be more transparent on this topic lol. I think male candidates and consultants would be much more supportive with it if it weren't an underhand / undisclosed process
Can also confirm our firm focuses on hires females and will lower the bar. Same with URMs. If you're a white male, get in line....
And if you're an Asian male, same goes, get in line...
Another day, another dumbass WSO diversity thread.
Yes, all else being equal, a female or black or gay candidate is going to get hired ahead of a straight white male.
It's the "all else being equal" part that's tricky.
Lol all else equal? You’re lying to yourself this is not even close to being true. 100% of the country knows this but only 50% deny it
The bar is definitely and obviously lower for any type of diversity candidate (including women). Same thing in banking recruiting (duh..)
Re-read my comment.
Bro, I obviously would not have made a post about it if it were just an "all else equal" situation. What surprised me is some examples I have of mates who were absolutely terrific at case interviews and did not get into MBB, while girls with noticeably lower case cracking skills actually got an offer
Get over it, just work harder.
You might want to re-read my post. I have no issues at all with positive discrimination and fully support it. I simply wanted to address the elephant in the room: everyone knows it's there but it remains quite unmentionable outside of online forums
you have an extremely limited sample size and zero clue about the bigger picture here. a couple of thoughts off the top my head:
- theres no way you and your 30 casing partners are everyone applying to MBB from your school
- you dont know how they did in their interviews - no matter how good they were in a practice case, the real deal is completely different. maybe the women were just more impressive in the moment
- ultimately, more people who apply to MBB are qualified than who get offers. sometimes, it's really the luck of the draw, and that can result in uneven distributions - it's tempting to draw conclusions based on that, but you really need to have a view into the wider dataset and context before you do
In any case, it's not really useful for you to worry about or not there is rampant anti-male discrimination (though i can assure you there is not lol - just look at how much of MBB senior management is male); best to just be happy for all of your classmates who achieved what they came to bschool to do
Yes, there can be a lower standard. I witnessed this at business school. That said, control what you can control.
Just out of curiosity why do commenters have gender or race focus?
Veterans get huge boost too as well.
Feel like these are often difficult to talk about because for some folks it’s an excuse to talk about race and gender. (Mixed with genuine folks who want to discuss the issue)
Veterans served the country. That's a choice they made, and it's one that society respects. Race and gender are just things people are born with, not choices.
Yea no shit. Happens in consulting, finance, anywhere else where the applicants are 90% male, 10% female, yet the mandatory quota is 50/50
In my firm, we rank applicants' CVs in a numbered list (1 being the strongest) - the top 75 this year were all guys.
I feel sorry for this generation of white/asian guys that would've made it in a few years ago but don't have a chance now cuz gEndER eQAULity is first priority (where are the 50/50 quotas for nurses? academic staff? bricklayers?)
Let’s do 50/50 for construction workers
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