How Important is Networking in MC?

Hey everyone, for context, I'm in my final year of non-target school with average GPA and corp finance internships prior to my current one. I've had the opportunity to work at a company within MMC, the parent company that owns OW. Throughout my internship, I networked internally and lined up a handful of coffee chats for the coming month for OW consultants and I'm prepping for those in the coming break.

From what I heard from alumni, OW summer positions are almost purely meritocarcy and those who received interviews fell in diverse backgrounds (engineers, computer science, etc.). So I have to ask: how important are coffee chats within MC? Is it better to just continue case prepping?

Any insights or thoughts would help.

 
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Congrats on being resourceful. The OW people are on the same email system and intranet as all the MMC companies. I recommend not only reaching out to consultants but also get the names of reruiters and staffers. Always helps to get your self name-to-faced. Also, make sure you get solid references from the people you worked with. It will help, but remember that OW is its own animal and it is very hard to get into OW, so work all the angles.

If you are at a non-target, networking is essential as the top firms and even Tier 2 firms only go to select schools. That said, some of the Big4 cast a wider net, to say, the top 25 undergrad programs. Even then, you will have to do the work to get in front of these firms. Network with people on LinkedIn (get Premium), go to b-school conferences (they sponsor a lot of them), look into your school's network, ask friends for help identifying people / alumni at their schools, etc.

But, fear not, plenty of high quality people come in from non-target shools, especially at Big4 and large tier 2 firms. However, once you are in, you are in, doesn't mater how you got there!

 

Thanks for the advice. I'll definitely follow through with making sure I can get a solid reference from my previous employment. The people I've gotten coffee chats with are recruiters as well - so I'm covered on that front.

 

From my experience, if you are coming from a non-target the networking aspect will be far more important. At the end of the day, the people at these firms are just that, people, and they often talk about recruitment to one another. If you don’t have traditional connections through school, this is by far the best way to bridge that gap. Sounds like you’re in a good spot so best of luck!

 

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