FT MBA Consulting Recruiting

Hello Friends-I am at a T20 MBA and will be interning at a very small startup based out of NYC. I am also an international student so will require sponsorship. I want to do Consulting during FT recruiting and was wondering whether any of you amazing guys can share some advice and answer my questions.

1) Does a no brand internship put me at a disadvantage? I do have a very strong resume pre-MBA. 2) Should I try to recruit for MBB outside the US or within the US? 3) Can anyone share how FT recruiting will look like this fall? 4) Should I network directly with Partners or go through the normal route i.e Associate and so on?

Any other advice will also be appreciated. Thank you.

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1) Yes, but MBB is still within reach. Have seen people in similar positions land in large US cities (even NY) full-time. 2) If you’re asking about probabilities, on average you probably have a higher chance of getting an offer outside the US with a US MBA. MBB sponsors visas in the US, but this might be getting harder in the political environment. They have started to explicitly ask about work authorization in the application when they hadn’t before. But the US economy might be in better shape than other regions which can balance out these challenges. 3) In a normal year, the recruiting season is short with interviews happening in October and sometimes zero events even at M7. You need to drive this by networking. This can all be done on the phone. The official line is that the firms are recruiting at the same level as usual to keep their pipeline for the rebound. Even if true, the automatic offers for interns already take more spots than usual. It’s hard to imagine the overall recruiting levels being unaffected though. 4) You should network with recruiters and associates/consultants to EM/CTL/PL, especially if they do recruiting activities for their office. If you can get an intro to the recruiting lead (usually a principal or partner) that’s perfect but may not be realistic if you don’t have an “in”.

A lot of what I said is out of your control, so don’t get discouraged! MBB are some of the most talent hungry firms out there and they will continue to recruit in a downturn and will look to internationals as a source for some of the best people. Just have a solid back-up plan.

 
  1. No-brand internship doesn't help, but if you have a strong pre-MBA background then that can make up for it.
  2. Will be easier outside the US if it is your home country, a country you have worked in/have legal authorization to work in, or Dubai (at least in recent years). Otherwise US likely better choice. It all depends on your personal preference of risk and location.
  3. Official line is that hiring will continue as normal but hard to see that happening due to a variety of factors (weakening economy, delayed starts, all interns getting FT offers, etc.). Normal was already fairly limited to begin with as firms have also shifted to primarily filling FT slots from intern classes so the opportunities for FT were more limited last year (moreso for US than into). For the US--McKinsey was primarily hiring for practice areas (digital, ops, marketing, implementation, etc) and had limited generalist recruiting outside of a few random cities. If you have a background for any of these practice areas then it could be a good opportunity. BCG had a big focus on digital and very limited generalist recruiting outside of a few cities. Bain was more expansive in hiring, even in high-demand cities though it seems they are probably the least friendly to internationals of the three. Internationally, there seemed to be good availability of spots even for generalist roles. You should reach out to your campus rep for each firm to find out what is open at the end of summer. If you're willing to be flexible in location/practice then there are more options. Also if you are at T20--you may be limited/competitive on for a few specific offices.
  4. Typically best and sufficient to just network with consultant level or +1/2 level above folks.
 

The vast majority of MBB MBA placement is out of M7 schools. You are at an incredible disadvantage. They take a few from T15 schools, but because you said T20 and not T16 I'm assuming your school is between 16-20. If you're at a school like UT Austin then you have the best chance of placing in Texas because fewer people are applying for that geography and they send a few people every year there. If you're at a school with no history or very little history of sending people to MBB then apply for all of the tiny offices in weird locations. My school has an MBA program that is very poorly ranked. We've sent one person to MBB in the last 4 years and he went to a tiny office (think Detroit/Denver/Pittsburgh). These are the offices you need to apply to because people at M7 schools are taking all of the NY/Chi/SF spots and even the spots at cities like Atlanta/Miami.

 

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