Deadlines, grades, cover letters, interviews, and waiting in anticipation. Tiers, prestige, and scouring the internet and forums.
Also want to remind everybody (myself definitely included) that even though it feels like it could be the end of the world and so determinant of your future and self worth, your internships and first jobs are really just one small step and part of your process. Your likely multi-decade long career really is just getting started. Yeah, prestige is helpful but there are so many jobs and paths to success. Fit is so so important to quality of life, and honestly, so much of this process just comes down to luck.
To those who do get their MBB jobs this round, congratulations! To those who don’t, chin up - this isn’t the end of the world and you aren’t necessarily any less intelligent or worthy because of it.
Side note: I find it so so so annoying there’s no release dates, deadlines, or any other information communicated to applicants from firms. Knowing that these responses can come out essentially any time Mon-Fri 9am-5pm over the span of 2-3 wks is quite frustrating and stress inducing.
…and there is a reason I didn’t post this in the IB forum - those kids do kinda suck ;)
Props to you for posting this. I definitely needed to hear this right about now
Yeah, MBB recruitment basically just feels like college apps 2.0 in terms of the huge emphasis on extracurriculars/leadership and other resume padding bs, and from the amount of qualified candidates with great resumes that I'm seeing get rejected w/o interviews. Just feels like the college app luck lottery all over again except instead of having 15-20 decent schools to shotgun and spread probabilities over, you've only got 3 firms, all of which also happen to be scaling back FT recruitment this year. Only positive is no over-the-top, cringey essays to write though. Honestly wishing I just did IB recruitment sophomore year since hiring was still good then and since I've heard that mostly just comes down to networking. That ship has sailed though obviously. Just focus on the present, do your best, and leave the game with no regrets.
RIP to all of us who made the boneheaded decision to be born in 2001-2002 and graduate into a recession