How Important Are Non Finance Based Case Competitions for IB Recruiting?

Hey everyone, sophomore finance student here wondering how important case competitions are for IB recruiting. Lately, I’ve seen a lot of fliers going around my business school advertising the upcoming case competitions. However, most of them are non-finance related, and are geared more towards consulting and marketing.

I’m looking for ways to improve my resume this semester, and I was wondering, would it be worth it to compete in these competitions? Do IB recruiters like to see participation in case competitions, regardless of what the focus of the case may be on? I would like to participate in these cases, but I want to first know if it would be worth my time to pour hours into working on a case. Any feedback on this would be appreciated, thanks!

 
Best Response

They add very little value. The topic of making yourself more competitive for IB recruiting has come up many times on this forum but it bears repeating: there's only a certain set of things that truly matter. Your past experience, your interview skills, your technical skills, and networking are far and away more important than anything else.

Some may argue that getting in more extracurriculars, ancillary certifications, etc. might be the thing that gets you that extra competitive edge that results in you getting chosen over another candidate. I can guarantee you that nobody will look at your profile as an applicant and say, "so-and-so did some case competitions whereas others didn't, so that's why we're going to take him/her". What will matter is killing the technical portion of your interviews, having solid relevant past experience, and having good answers to behavioral questions.

Tl;dr: Focus on improving yourself in areas that actually matter when it comes to recruitment.

 

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