12 Comments
 

Not sure if this helps, but I faced a similar situation when recruiting for banking. I feel as though those experiences and that rejection has made me more resilient. As people who are excelling at targets we are accustomed to everything going right, so it hurts extra hard when things don't. I think I may understand how you're feeling, and it sucks real bad, but it'll get better soon. Keep the faith! PM me if I can help in any other way.

 
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I'm sorry to hear that. Sometimes it just doesn't work out, even if you did everything right. Maybe you could've done better, but also there's often a big range of gray area or error rate in interviewing. Either way what's important is that you take all of this fantastic prep you did and apply it towards getting a different great job out of college. There's a big difference between your top choice firms not working out and you having wasted time and energy

If you can get an offer from a T2 firm you'll have a broadly comparable consulting experience, so I'd do your best to try for one. If not, there are lots of other good jobs

Last tidbit I'll add is that your first job out of college is a lot like college admissions -- getting your top choice will make certain future plans easier, but it doesn't make them impossible. I know plenty of people who exited from T2 or even B4 teams that ended up in better jobs and/or business schools than some other people I know who went into MBB. The micro matters more than the macro, and if you keep putting effort in over the next few years you'll certainly have positioned yourself to achieve your career ambitions

 

Experiencing failure is essential for personal development. You got to always look for the positives so get a T2 offer and work your ass off knowing you got a chip on your shoulder with something to prove. Career is a marathon not a sprint so everyone will experience failure at some point, it's how you bounce back from it which counts

 

Did you get final rounds? If you did, then you're completely fine, you definitely have the potential to get an offer but you might have been tired, interviewer might have missed something, could have done a little better, anything else. You can always reapply and when you do they'll also see that you made it to the final round in the past so they’ll be much more likely to give you an interview and you'll be fine.

 

Bro I'm so sorry to hear that. One kid that I was mentoring had the same thing happen--he had accelerated final rounds at Bain, and somehow, it didn't happen. I'm sorry for you.

However, as said above, T2 is a place that I'm sure you can land, and it has just as much of the experience that you need to get to succeed. I believe in you.

I'm a religious man, so you can ignore if this doesn't apply, but I firmly believe that if you have a goal, you've done everything to prepare for it, and it doesn't work out, that God has a specific plan that requires you to not be there. It's happened to me a number of times in my life, and while the fire was on I hated it, but when I was out of the fire, looking back, it made prefect sense and I wouldn't change it for the world.

So, tiger, go get that T2 offer, go knock it out of the park, and then come start at PE with me and we'll start a fund sometime. You've got this. Chin up.

Remember, always be kind-hearted.
 

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