Q&A: Getting an MBB offer from a semi-target school
I recently accepted a job at a MBB firm and have a lot of free time until I take on my final semester. Happy to answer any and all questions regarding recruitment during COVID, prepping for case interviews, choosing between internships, etc.
To help you get a better understanding, I provided some background information below
- GPA: ~ 3.75
- Internships: Corporate Finance Intern @ Fortune 200 (Junior Year), Finance Intern @ a very small marketing firm (Freshmen Year)
- Involvements: five organizations including an undergraduate consulting club (President / VP for three of them)
I did not land a consulting internship my junior year, and I hated seeing my peers stressing out during recruitment for both internships and full-time jobs. Here to give some tips and answer any questions college undergraduates might have.
Did you get your offer through a cold application or were you referred?
Junior year (internship recruiting) I did not really "network" with individuals at the firm which is probably a big reason I wasn't even invited to interview. Senior year I networked with a lot of alumni at MBBs from my school and ran through a few practice cases with individuals at MBB firms. I'm assuming a few of those individuals probably referred me which helped me land interviews.
Nice job, what would you recommend to network if no alumni work at MBB? One or two consultants at all three and the rest are op roles and recruiters.
Hi thanks for doing this!
How does full time recruiting differ from internship recruiting for consulting? (Are the cases harder, questestions different, etc)
Is it possible to get full time interviews accelerated due to exploding junior summer return offers?
How much does your story/why consulting matter? Do they expect interviewees to say they want to do consulting long term?
Incoming MBB from a non-target. I interviewed for internship my junior year and didn't get it, tried again for FT and received an offer next year. The cases are the exact same given for interns and FT offers. I was in a similar situation w/ exploding offer and they moved my final round interview forward. Story for consulting matters a lot but you are not expected to pledge 20 years to the firm. Hope this helps.
Could you talk about your prep process for the cases ?
I did ~50 live partner cases using MBA school case books
My prep process (summer prior to Fall recruitment) consisted of an internship from 9-6 PM, and I would schedule a practice case 2-3 times a week from 6-7 PM or over the weekend if weekdays did not work. I read Case in Point and Case Interview Secrets (did not purchase any other books or pay for tutoring services).
Leading up to my FT first round interviews, I had 40 cases completed with approximately half of them being with consultants at MBB or Big 4 firms and the other half being with my classmates. 40 is just a number that worked for me, some people need 20 practice cases and others need 60 until they are completely confident in their casing skills. Feel like anything over 60 is overkill. I found it helpful to sit down and go through ALL my feedback every 2 weeks; I would look for any patterns in mistakes I made and try to fix them during my next case (think high level mistakes - not walking through the math portions, not a MECE structure, not stating a hypothesis, etc.).
My advice is to utilize your classmates early in the process to get your case skills developed. As you progress, you should reach out to individuals at MBB or Big 4 firms to run practice cases with. Two benefits to this approach: (1) people currently at MBB / Big 4 firms give better feedback and (2) you start creating relationships with these individuals.
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