London recruitment-can't understand how it works.
What is the point of going to a target school if everyone, irrespective of their university, gets an online assessment invite?
Are firms actually getting so many applications that they need to weed out candidates even before knowing which school they go to? I always thought that being from a top-target+good degree would make life easier, but it seems that there are 3 assessment rounds for all positions (including asynchronous video interviews) before a human even looks at your CV.
Haha I don’t go exactly to a “target” but would definitely like the money I spent on Jobtestprep back!
Also it seems recruiting ends after HV/Sonru (or maybe they don’t like my face or my answers?)
I go to a target and have heard of like one guy get an interview for a digital consulting role at an MBB from my school. I suck at these assessments and have shit luck.
You don’t go to a target if only one guy from your school got an interview
Recruitment in this city is brutal and ridiculously competitive. Especially regarding consulting which is funny since consulting pay can be quite poor.
Doing the online test is part of the assessment. Your uni is taken into account, as well as other criteria.
At my MBB, most people went to Oxbridge / London schools / top international unis.
I think I am almost surely the only person with a uni outside the top 20.
The process is quite simple though:
Apply > Get rejected
Would rather get rejected by a human who thinks I am not a good fit/smart enough than a random software and crappy AI tool.
then learn how to do math like 35/(35+93+26) faster and without mistakes
then you'll pass and have a chance to be rejected by a real person
Mate based on this post you're going to get rejected either way
If you can't do a few hours preparation for these tests that's on you
Globally, in many industries, basic psychometric/intelligence testing is used as a preliminary recruitment step to cut down the amount of CVs to review. This is a fairly simple and logical concept. Further, it is relatively easy to prepare for said tests the same way you would an interview. Sure, the tests may be flawed - but who cares? The hiring company still gets plenty of good candidates to interview. They don't care if a few good candidates (who couldn't pass an online IQ test...) were cut.
You ask "what is the point of going to a target school?" (if everyone gets the tests etc.). The point is that once you have passed the testing, your CV looks better because you went to Oxford/Cambridge/LSE! How do you not understand this? What do you expect? To skip half the recruitment process because they went to a 'target'? That's not how it works and not why people recommend going to a target uni.
Honestly, if your post and questions are actually honest they may struggle with recruitment.
It is just incredibly competitive, for reference my cycle at my MBB the ratio of application to offers was ~0.5%
You guys are giving out a ton of offers
thats the dumbest whining ive heard in a long time, rather have everyone being given the chance to kick ass in tests instead of daddy and legacy admissions doing the job for you + literally 80% of the banks use the exact same test with not even different numbers + those tests should not be difficult except for maybe the kornferry logical one so whats your point
How the hell do you explain the relevance of situational tests and personality tests? I have taken the GRE and have good scores. I am not against standardised testing but where is the standard in this case? Every company uses different software providers like McKinsey sent an assessment where we had to build an ecosystem.
dont know about consulting tbf, but how do you explain the relevance of an interview asking you to "tell him about a time where you had to lead a group" as an undergrad. There is absolutely none, but still we just do what we have to in order to get the offer.
I agree with JoseMourinho - these personality tests can be outright idiotic. For example, an actual test from BCG for MENA office was to test "personality of risk taking" by having a clicking game with the spacebar. You can opt for a safe $0.10 and press spacebar 30 times or $0.50 by pressing spacebar 60 times in a fixed time limit. Another actual game was to see a grey-scaled image of a person and have 10-15 seconds to determine his/her mood. After completing these bizarre games, they "evaluate and assess" the results and determine your personality archetype and how you may fit into BCG. In my mind, while going through this, I thought whoever the heck convinced these firms that you can yield any meaningful results from this crap must've made too much money.
So... ignoring the GPA, the coursework, the relevant corporate experience, the tailored cover letter, letter of recommendation, employee referral, leadership experience in prior corporate experiences leading meetings or workstreams, they base their criteria on an arbitrary, archaic and idiotic "personality" test that yields the equivalent of picking names out of a hat.
If they want standardized tests, they should continue with relevant tests like the Casey ecosystem; an automated case-giving ecosystem that acts as a AI message board or take-home assignments that utilize actual skills of consultants (presentation, storyboarding, quantitative analysis, etc.) with fixed time limits (like 1.5 hours from whenever the take-home assessment is assigned).
At least with that, it show cases a more practical skillset for on-the-job performance rather than selecting which goddamn pattern matches the order and calling that a fair system of analysis.
I does make life easier. Without the right unis etc you might almost as well not make the test. This is just to weed between the target profiles mostly. Plus a few lucky ‘non-target’ profiles who did well on the test (non target such as Warwick, Bristol etc.)
Sorry, but a Sociology student at LSE is not of the same calibre as an Economics student at Bristol, and the banks know this. The banks are looking to attract top talent. Plus, is it so bad that the recruitment process in EMEA is more meritocratic than America? I spoke with HR at a BB and whilst they do have their targets, they recognize there are talented people who may choose to not study at one because of money issues, the course having more interesting modules elsewhere etc.
I am studying a business degree.
Pretty dumb take. You get intelligent people in all walks of life.
The problem in my opinion is that when you are in high school you don't know too much, and these universities sell you the dream. Once you join LSE (for example) you realize that you are paying a lot and still have to grind for an interview. That's not bitching but when l joined my target l thought that l'd have an offer from a BB because l was clearly the best. Well, once l discovered the reality l felt very guilty for asking my family to pay the very high tuition for basically nothing…
It's really not that hard to understand. HR wants to minimise human labour on (frankly) admin-y tasks like reviewing CVs. How can they do that while still maintaining a reasonably high confidence of attracting talented individuals? Tests where success has some reasonable correlation with the attributes they're looking for. Yes some people may get weeded out unfairly but who cares? Is one target student really that different from another? Is that weeded out target student really worth the extra effort and money of reviewing a ton more CVs? Would they even get selected from their CV anyway (good CV =/= good candidate)?
All recruitment hot zones have a game to play, the US's is networking, London's is different. The game is the game. Learn to play.
^ only rational take in this whole thread
Globally, in many industries, basic psychometric/intelligence testing is used as a preliminary recruitment step to cut down the amount of CVs to review. This is a fairly simple and logical concept. Further, it is relatively easy to prepare for said tests the same way you would an interview. Sure, the tests may be flawed - but who cares? The hiring company still gets plenty of good candidates to interview. They don't care if a few good candidates (who couldn't pass an online IQ test...) were cut.
OP asks "what is the point of going to a target school?" (if everyone gets the tests etc.). The point is that once you have passed the testing, your CV looks better because you went to Oxford/Cambridge/LSE! How do they not understand this? What do they expect? To skip half the recruitment process because they went to a 'target'? That's not how it works and not why people recommend going to a target uni.
Honestly, if OP's post and questions are actually honest they may struggle with recruitment.
Wait ... in the States a human looks at your CV right from the start?
The States is paradise
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