Q&A: Non-target undergrad to MBB
Hi all, Been using this site throughout my college career, and it's really helped me out so I think it's time to give back. I love reading success stories on the site, especially non-target ones, so I thought I'd share my own in order to help others who are trying to get jobs, especially you non-target guys. I go to an undergrad business school that has very little recruiting exposure for the kinds of jobs we talk about on this site. Most students go on to work for BB BO roles or B4 audit. Most don't know what MBB is, or what an IB exactly does. Fortunately, I learned about these things through this site, and associated myself with a very small group of people that were as ambitious as I was.
I didn't seriously pursue consulting until the summer before my senior year. I previous had 3 internships (fr, so, jr summers) mostly finance related. I was also president of a business club on campus that actually had a significant amount of influence/importance, and did a few other things on campus. Up to junior year, my goal was set mostly on IB, with consulting as a potential 2nd choice. As I gained more experience, I started gravitating the other way and made the decision to recruit exclusively for consulting for full time. Enter summer 2014, the summer of networking. I generally finished my work day and had phone calls/coffee chats/sent emails/researched consulting until 2am. Rinse and repeat. Did this into fall semester and recruiting season. By the time I received my interview invite from the MBB firm that hired me, I think I had 6 or 7 referrals, from the fresh grad to senior partner level. Also managed to network into the process for a different MBB firm as well. Next came the interviews. There are obviously no consulting clubs on campus. I reached out to the MBB people who I'd connected with to do practice cases with me, which was really helpful. I also taught some of my friends how to give case interviews, and practiced on my own as well. Had my first round at one MBB, so happy I made it through to finals, then got dinged at finals. I took a really hard hit in confidence for a few days, but knew I had to bounce back. Got my shit together, went through the other MBB's recruiting, and ended up with an offer! So I was basically on cloud nine for like a month. I was going nuts, friends (that new what is was) were going nuts, professors going nuts, school administration going nuts. It's settled in a bit, but I still can't believe I got an offer. So excited to start. Happy to share anything about networking tactics, case prep, choosing consulting vs IB, or anything else that might help people make a jump like I did. Please ask away!
@"mrharveyspecter" and @"JMeister"
You are definitely right that MBB will only visit their target set of schools. But you can get an interview through networking/referrals and once you do, you're on the same playing field and just have to do well in the interviews.
I found using more "warm" connections worked better for me. I think I've always been good at networking because I genuinely was interested in other people's lives. For example, I've kept in good contact with all the companies I've interned with, and asked them if they knew anyone at MBB. I asked my professors who I had good relations with. I asked some of the school admin, who knew alumni who were Rhodes/Marshall that were there now. I'd be talking to friends and find out someone's sister works there. Or someone interned with someone that went FT to MBB. Or I gave a tour of the school to an alumni that knew someone at MBB, etc. Found connections everywhere, just have to look. I feel like a lot of seniorish people in the business world at least know someone at MBB.
Because I had someone else vouching/introducing me, I had close to a 100% response rate on my emails. Then I'd keep it short, name drop the person who gave me their info (if they didn't directly introduce me), explain my goals, and ask for a phone call or coffee chat (if local). They almost always obliged.
Then in the phone call I'd try to impress them by asking them insightful questions about the firm, their career, asking good followup, etc, and avoiding the typical canned questions. I think people were generally just impressed by my enthusiasm, and they ended the call usually with something like "let me know when you apply and I'll see if I can help". If they didn't I might just end it with "thanks so much, I'll let you know how it goes", and then follow up with them anyway over email asking for a referral.
So key takeaway for me was exhaust all of your "warm contacts" first, then resort to cold contacting.