Weak Competition and Unchallenging Interview. Decided to Decline

This is going to be a long post but needed to rant so sorry in advance!

During my senior year of college I was getting pretty desperate about my career and job prospects after not getting any offers and being rejected multiple times after first rounds. Finally got invited to this management consulting firm HQ'd in London for the superday. It's considered low-tier in the U.S. but mid-tier in the UK but I thought whatever I have nothing going on. So I do the usual interview prep, look up the company, recent projects, published articles, reach out to current employees, refresh on technicals. However, should have known that it was a horrible firm when HR kept delaying my interview to later superdays (3 times!) and barely responding to my emails.

So three months later I finally get to the interviews and I'm ready as ever. It's covid times so it's on zoom but it gives me the chance to look up the competition on LinkedIn while HR runs us through the process. These students came from good schools and looked professional and all but none studied a business-related major or had any sort of relevant work experience. I'm not even talking about consulting internships, they just had no work experience unless you consider cashier at Tesco a foundational experience for a consulting career. Should've known then and there that it wasn't for me. Still stayed on the zoom cause man's needed to pay rent. So I go in the group case interview and my god none of these people have done a business presentation or PPT before. Felt super cringey during the Q&A when I was the only one that had answers. Moving on to quick-fire rounds with 3 separate interviewers. Like I said, I prepped hard for this (had 3 months lol) and was prepared for technicals and the usual consulting trick-interview questions. Should've saved some time and played CoD cause I'm pretty sure none of them read my resume before and I don't even think they had it in front of them. The questions were essentially "introduce yourself", "why do you want to work at X?", and "Why do you think you'll be good at the role?" followed by some very fruity and straight up BS answers about how this firm "brings people from various backgrounds" as well as a sprinkle of "this is a true meritocracy" You get the vibes? . Was so unchallenging that I felt bad for the people working there though answering to "Why you want to work here?" was probably the hardest. The interviewers were actually nice and they were very surprised (Maybe impressed? idk) that I had reached out to current employees to research the firm. Anyways, wrapped everything up feeling unchallenged and convinced that they didn't like me because I didn't get the chance to really share my experience and skills. Oh whatever, you win some you lose some even though it's been mostly losing for me lately.

Next day I get a call from HR  (the one that didn't answer any of my 5 emails and kept delaying my interviews) telling me that everyone was really impressed and that one of the partners wants to talk with me about the role. So I have two options: get a job in a very good industry but at a no-name firm that could very much be a resume-killer. Or decline and keep looking cause I can't stoop this low even though it means I'd be crashing on my friend's couch for the foreseeable future. Obviously declined because I'm cocky and arrogant.

The thing is, life works in very mysterious ways and feeling some self-worth does help sometimes. Like reverse Karma.  The day after I declined, a manager from a S&T firm that I'd been networking with for the past few months called me to offer me my dream job. Wanted to send an email to the consulting HR to thank her for delaying my interviews multiple times. Without her assistance I would never have gotten my dream job and would've been stuck in this low-tier consulting firm and essentially killed my career. So all in all I hope them the best with the former Tesco cashiers (no disrespect to Tesco cashiers btw. Love them, especially through the pandemic and everything) but come-on give me some respect.

Hope this was an enjoyable rant but also serves as a warning to you young folks (barely younger than me) going for job interviews at mediocre firms. Was hesitant to name the firm but decided to not include it. Feel free to DM if you think you might be going to an interview there and I can give you the interview questions. Firm starts with C btw.

Cheers!

iKL12