Senior losing hope
Hey all, pretty much as the title states. Internship recruiting was a nightmare for me last year (with myself even getting physically sick for weeks due to the stress). I was fortunate enough to pull out an offer for a place that would be considered T2. Ended up not getting a return offer there and FT recruiting has been extremely demoralizing so far.
I was able to secure interviews but the results have been a mix of me either choking and proceeding to stumble and ramble my way through cases; or me putting on a great performance and proceeding to get rejected for extremely strange and nit picky reasons.
I have another interview coming up very soon so writing this is probably a waste of time and energy but everything feels pointless now. I went all in on consulting recruiting and have prepped nothing but cases for over a year now and it feels extremely shitty to not have any offers. I go to an ivy but have just had a terrible college experience and the only thing that had gotten me through it was the idea that it would all be worth it once I secured an offer for strategy consulting (not interested in pivoting to something else at this point). But now things just seem hopeless and like no matter how much effort I put in, I'm gonna get rejected. I know people don't owe me anything, but is there any light at the end of the tunnel?
Don't give up! There's still some boutique recruiting happen for Spring. You can also look for strategy & ops role for corporate if there's any openning
Something that helped me during interviews is genuinely telling yourself this is your space your time to talk, ask questions, etc there's no rush whatsoever especially for cases. Like really force yourself to slow down (not a crazy amt lol) and take up space. Tell yourself this is your space because it is. Sometimes making my voice slightly deeper makes me feel better as well idk why. I think i'm just able to detach you have to kind of play a character to detach from ur nerves/insecurities. im year below so cant give too much advice but i rly rly rly hope everything goes well for u i honestly can relate to some of the stuff ur writing esp as someone in an ivy with no jr internship and also cut from rush and ik it can get tough but u must force urself to stop being sad as from my personal experience it can get addicting in a way to self loathe or about ur life. and my sister went thru similar situation and trust me there is light in end of the tunnel she literally got her internship during summer lol and things work out. lifes always up and down ik sometimes it feels like it just keeps going down because ive also felt that way lately but i know ive felt the same before and gone up again. u got this and again dont get too much in ur head u shld try to numb ur feelings sometimes and move on. also rly do not overthink things ppl are a lot nicer than u might think yk. rly try to get active, spend time w others, and activities, keep busy as getting too much in ur head only does u bad. i rly wish u all the best!
Consulting is not for you
Cant give too much advice since im a year below you but keep your head up it'll all work out in the end. Keep grinding and something will fall into place.
Totally get how you feel — recruiting can be brutal, especially after putting in so much work. The fact that you’re getting interviews means you’re already getting close — it’s just about hitting the right day and staying calm under pressure. Give yourself a little break before the next one so you can go in fresh. It honestly only takes one good interview to change everything so keep it up.
This may just be me rambling but let me start with an analogy that someone told me when I was in a similar spot my senior year.
Imagine that you are hitting a boulder/large rock with a sledgehammer. As you repeatedly hit the rock, it will start to crack inside. You will not see the cracks on the surface of the rock, but eventually as you continue to swing the rock will break. All it takes is one swing. Continue to swing.
Now for my advice and personal experience. I was a highly ranked D1 athlete in college and was close to making the Olympics during undergrad. Combined with classes, social and other extracurricular obligations, I unfortunately didn’t prioritize coffee chats and recruiting. My FT return offer for a previous internship fell through shortly before graduation (COVID was also going on at this time) due to some pretty extraordinary events at the company (which were not related to COVID) which resulted in a pretty much all of the team I would have been working for leaving the company, management resigning, and the headquarters of the company moving. Thus, I graduated college without a job locked in.
Interviewing and the job search in the weeks after graduation was tough. No time to travel, and was living at home while watching all my friends move to NYC or other major cities to start jobs, and traveling to Europe, etc. to celebrate graduation before starting FT.
Without getting too lengthy, the abridged version is that I applied to 1st year analyst program that opened at a SMM boutique bank due to someone reneging. Also got another offer outside of banking, but took the IB role. I did not do any networking or know anyone for the role.
After you do a year, (or even several months in the case of some of the analysts in my class) you should have a lot more mobility to lateral upstream. Not sure if this is helpful, but in summary, I would say keep your head up, keep swinging (and applying) to open roles and tap your network as much as you can.
Getting interviews is actually a good sign! it means you are almost there. The consulting and strategy field is extremely competitive and deeply affected by work politics, so I assure you, it takes so much time for nearly everyone, although I would advise you to start looking into remote consulting opportunities by treating personal social media accounts as a contract generating funnel... This has happened with me in the past and that's how I was able to stay engaged in the market until I found my full-time position! Beware of the time gap!
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