Admitted to an M7 next fall, how do I best prepare myself for MBB recruiting now?
Currently in the military, transitioning to an MBA program next fall and I'm already admitted to Kellogg Round 1. I have significant vacation saved up and will be ending my service around March so will have 5-6 months before starting school.
I know the typical advice is "don't need to do anything, just relax and enjoy yourself." And I'm already planning on doing that, going to be doing a LOT of traveling and awesome stuff I just didn't have the time or ability to do while in the military, but I will also have time to study and prep myself for MBA/recruiting.
I'm currently enrolled in the HBX CORE which I think is going to help as a primer for some of the basic business classes I'll take first quarter. Also looking at pre MBA internships but those seem few and far between and not a high likelihood of working out.
My goal is to crush school AND MBB recruiting once I'm on campus. Not that it's the end of the world if I don't get an MBB offer, but I want to 100% do everything I can to set myself up to get one of those jobs and not ask "what if". I know there's many other great firms that I'd be happy at but from what I understand MBB offers the best long term opportunity.
FWIW I have some weakness in quant as a humanities major, that I'll need to be working on the fundamentals. I got a 45Q on the GMAT so not a total doofus but I know consulting values quant skills. I'm just wondering if diving into case prep is maybe too soon or should I focus on other fundamentals?
Can anyone think of anything else? Anything you wished you'd done? Thanks!
You could start networking with ex-military, ex-Kellogg people who are at MBBs. Anything more than 3 months of case prep is overkill.
100% correct. Ping the guys in the school's veterans' association and they'll point you towards the second years and recent graduates going into consulting.
I wouldnt network with more than 1-2 people (total. Not per firm). The consultants appreciate the process around recruiting, there’s no need to gun hard early and it doesn’t move the needle. You’ll also just end up having to talk to all the same people next year, which is going to be mind numbing.
Seriously - chill. Best you can do is poke around a bit, understand the consulting landscape, who the firms are and what they do at a very high level (you will get plenty of depth in recruiting) and start casually reading business journals. Anything else at this point is nonsense.
Case prep or anything else like that at this point is a bad idea.
Thanks for the advice!
Can you go into more detail about business journals I should be reading to get a better understanding of the business environment/consulting.
Other than WSJ, and HBR I'm assuming. Thanks!
+1 more on the "relax" bandwagon. Your life is about to get hectic quickly - take some time to enjoy yourself, have experiences which make for great stories, etc. So much of consulting is about personality, don't kill yours stressing needlessly.
If you really want to do something, join Toastmasters. Strong communication skills are one of the traits I place the most emphasis on in candidates. I can teach someone to model but it's too hard to teach executive presence on the fly.
Apply to McKinsey Emerging Scholar, BCG Fellows, Veterans at Bain Event. Surprised you haven't found these yet given your excitement level. You will end up connecting with consultants in the office that you are interested in. Deloitte CORE is also a good program, but not a recruiting event. There isn't a lot else you can do. The process is very structured.
Also, there are lots of jobs with good long-term opportunity, not just MBB. Read Case In Point if you want, it outlines the recruiting process and basics of a case. Case-ing any earlier than August and you will be that guy.
No firms look at GMAT scores anymore, so don't worry about that.
Can you support this?
I've had more than one MBB HR tell me that, while there's no hard cut off, it is a factor they look at.
Suppose I should have said GMAT is not as important as it use to be.
I'll answer in two parts:
1) On the School/CMC side, we were told to no longer follow the "put your GMAT on your resume if you have a 700+". The advice now is to use your own discretion, but maybe only include GMAT if you have a 750+. My take is that recruiters have told schools that they don't care about GMAT score as much as they use to.
2) Conversations with recruiters/consultants have said that grades and GMAT do not really matter anymore. If the firm has doubts about you or needs more data to make a decision on an interview invite, then yes, maybe they will look at GMAT, undergrad grades, MBA grades. For the majority though, this is not the most common thing. My take would be that candidates who have exceptional life experiences (military, athlete, non-profit) that may not necessarily have gone to the best undergrad or majored in the most difficult subject would fall into this category.
I suppose this could vary from school to school. I'm at an MBA business schools">M7, so maybe there are differences at lower ranked program, or if you're in a lower-ranked program, putting a 750 GMAT on your resume could help you stand out. This is just my take, the recruiting process is pretty secretive from firm to firm. Also, once you have the interview, it's your performance on the interview that counts and nothing else.
Any tips on how to get on the closed list? Same Kellogg R1 admit here. Thanks.
I stated this above, but its more resume than people let on. If I were to do it over again, I would have not wasted my time networking with Mckinsey. Just go to their big presentation if you must. For the others, just meet a couple people and get them to like you. Won't pass you through the resume screen but will put a spotlight on your name.
Like stated above. The process is very structured. You will attend the giant company presentation and from there, there will be closed list events (happy hours, dinners, workshops). Just show up, be normal, and try to talk to people on a personal level, not just standard consulting questions.
Again, if you apply to the things I listed above, that will get you on a list somewhere as someone who is interested in the firm. If you "win", it could guarantee you a first or final round interview. I was not selected, but after applying McK and BCG both connected me with people in the offices I was recruiting for which let me do some soft networking over the summer, but I do not think this made a huge difference.
Don't feel like you need to blast Kellogg MBB alumni on Linkedin right now, because that is not going to help. If you find one or two people that maybe share your exact background and are in an office your interested in, then go for it. The networking process is going to get redundant, same conversations over and over again, and there isn't really a way to get ahead of it, other than the MBB summer events discussed above.
Use this time to relax and live in the moment. You run the risk of burning yourself out should you begin casing prep now.
Source: I am at an MBA business schools">M7 and my peers recruiting for MBB are dying over the holidays.
3 big takeaways from MBA consulting recruiting that i wish i knew ahead of time:
1) Brand matters - i was surprised to see the number of ppl working seemingly "easy" functions at well-known companies getting closed-list invites everywhere. if you have spent any amount of time at a high-profile company (Goldman, JPM, Google) doing literally anything there, make sure you highlight that in your resume and in your elevator pitch. at the end of the day, we are all human and are inherently biased in favor of people when we hear they spent time at Goldman Sachs regardless of the fact that they were working in financial reporting there
2) Office choice matters - recruiting for NYC/SF? That will be tough especially if you are attending a school not within the vicinity of either city. Recruiters will tell you that office choice doesn't matter but that is complete BS. It is supply and demand - the demand for McKinsey NYC is way higher than McKinsey Dallas so this raises the "price" of the candidate quality needed to get a job at McKinsey NYC. Sure, NYC has more openings every year than Dallas, but the % of ppl going for the NYC office compared to Dallas is greater than the % of more roles in NYC vs Dallas. If you are really set on MBB and don't mind living in a less than ideal place for a year or two, apply for the Dallas/Atlanta/Detroit offices as your competition for those offices will be a lot less. Keep in mind, you will need a solid reason why you suddenly want to live in Dallas after spending your entire life in New York. I'm not advocating doing this, but for some ppl they want MBB really badly and are willing to take any advantage they can get in securing a spot so I thought it was worth sharing this piece of info.
3) Project Management is an important skill set - at the end of the day, a lot of work at the post-MBA level (in all fields, not just in consulting) really revolves around managing a project/program and carrying it successfully to the finish line. If you can highlight instances in your pre-MBA life where you have successfully managed a project, this will be very helpful in landing a job within consulting as it will show your ability to deliver results and just 'get shit done'
Some of this might not apply to you given your background seems to be entirely military, but I figured it was worth sharing my 2 cents in case other future MBA students stumble across this thread
Just to clarify one point here. Recruiting from t15 or below is very regional. Recruiting from an MBA business schools">M7 is much more national. That's more a function of firm resources and where they allocate dollars to make connection nationally rather than pick up a few slots in DC/Houston/etc. McK NYC is really hard from UT or UCLA - but no harder than any other office from Booth/Stanford.
Also, the big offices hire a lot of people every year. So while there is huge demand for those offices, there is also a high supply. Local offices might literally be hiring 1 person. If you don't have a compelling story for those offices, it is hard compete with someone with a similar profile who has a wife and kid living a mile from the office and went to the same UG as the managing director.
Basically, if you're at a school outside of the MBA business schools">M7, you should probably target your school's closest offers (i.e. the 1-3 offices where they have historically placed people). At an MBA business schools">M7 recruit wherever you want, but the really small offices you still need a compelling story.
I didn't do consulting but had many friends who did (I also went to an M7). Posting because I think my outsider's view could offer a different perspective.
What I noticed in the MBB crowd was a needlessly large amount of cramming for case study prep. They had fun early in the school year, then became case prep zombies in the winter. By comparison, IB candidates like me had a more steady burn because IB networking starts so early in the school year that by winter, we were already in a groove. More of a marathon than sprint.
The problem with the case prep binging is that it comes at the expense of classes, socializing, clubs, health etc etc. It basically derails your life for the winter. So if you can start that practice earlier and smooth out the curve, I think it will help you stay on top of everything else in life.
I don't think you need to go full blown case prep - that said, some people that I know that were successful started case stuff pretty early. So reading some of the books the people put out and familiarizing yourself with various cases probably wouldn't be a bad idea. They are so rote and despite various narratives, there are really only a handful of cases that getting a baseline would be helpful. That said, I dont think its necessary to do cases etc. just read them and learn some basics so when its time to really prep you'll just be able to focus on the important stuff.
I don't disagree but early doesn't mean now. The consulting clubs at school will actually counsel you to wait when you get to campus and go through the process with the bulk of your peers.
The reason for this is twofold. First, there are diminishing returns to cases and for some people, those returns can actually turn negative. Interviewers want to see insightful, thoughtful analysis in a case. Those who over prep tend to move to quickly to predefined frameworks and the same paths of thought they've practiced over and over again. This can actually cause candidates to miss the so what and miss the opportunity to engage the interviewer in their thought process; they become too framework-driven and not thought/hypothesis driven. The consulting clubs coach candidates to stop casing when they start hitting this peak; you don't want it to be too soon.
Second, the process is extremely well planned and executed by the MBA business schools">M7 programs; they have a formula for success that has helped them to place so many people in consulting.
There is no magic number of cases, but you can always prep more when the time comes. It's better too to be learning with the crowd and improving as a group rather than being the one person who knows every framework on day one of prep; you'll miss the learnings from your peers.
The crunch is definitely a burn, but everyone you're recruiting with will be doing it together. The firms also engage and their involvement is timed to this very well planned development cycle. I really don't suggest starting case prep before you get to campus. If you really want to do something, get a first read in of case interview secrets or case in point, but they are short reads and that can wait as well.
Et nostrum totam asperiores veritatis eveniet necessitatibus. Et est sed dolor sit. Non dolor omnis tempora numquam molestiae debitis est. Sequi corrupti iure voluptatum eius enim laudantium. Dolorem in eveniet sint et quia quisquam architecto.
Voluptas iusto itaque iusto omnis neque laboriosam. Ipsam ducimus iure tenetur assumenda facere sit ipsa. Qui omnis laborum quia non ut omnis nostrum.
Ducimus dolore sed eum vel aut. Aliquid natus occaecati similique ea corporis et. Quibusdam aliquid omnis et aut. Ut debitis velit eum ipsam nihil quisquam. Sapiente quia commodi repellendus debitis quae autem optio. Voluptatibus voluptates tenetur est sit et aliquid eveniet dicta.
Et explicabo assumenda quo velit. Quod laudantium voluptas hic repudiandae. Rerum repellat sed voluptas suscipit accusamus.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...