My two cents on getting a job at MBB

Hey everyone,

I just wanted to share with you some tips and tricks that ultimately helped me getting a job at the NY office of MBB.

My background and path to the offer (can be skipped)

I come from a small European country (MBB workforce). I received invitations to apply to the three MBBs and got rejected at first round (Bain), second round (BCG) and third round (McK). Funny thing: they offered me a second chance to do the second round at BCG. I think the failure was due to both a lack of maturity (I was more focus on partying at that time) and preparation (I read Victor Cheng, 4 cases from CiP and that was it).

Then I started working in the middle office of a bank, covering IRD. It was terrible. I tried to apply to MBB again (1.5y after the first attempt) but got screened out from McK and BCG. I reached the second round at Bain, but failed again, despite a “better” preparation (about 4 real case practices). I left the bank after 2 years to join the M&A/Corp dev of a local utility company, which was surprisingly great. I did that for 2.5y, then I passed the CFA level 3 and moved to NYC following my wife’s transfer there.

In NYC I applied for 250 jobs over 6 months (mainly in banking), sent hundreds of mails on Linkedin, networked like crazy with my fellow countrymen. I had only 4 interviews in 6 months, despite a visa and a work permit. It was super tough mentally to be ignored by most headhunters and companies. Fortunately, I had a friend who worked at MBB at a quite senior level, and he went explaining and “translating” my resume to HR, which ultimately landed me a first round there as Experienced Hire one month later. I was notified a couple of hours after round 1 that I succeeded, and got the decision/final round, again one month later (a Friday). The following Wednesday (ie an eternity from my perspective at the time), I got a call from HR telling me that I will receive an offer. I couldn’t believe it. I was so happy and relieve. After all the pain I went through in my country and in NYC, I finally managed to get in!

Tips and tricks for the FIT

• It all comes down to three things
  o A) 4 /5 personal stories that you need to master
  o B) motivations for consulting AND the company in particular (always answer this question using those two branches)
  o C) present yourself in 2 minutes

• One story could, and should, be used to answer several questions (eg for me: leadership example = initiative example = project I am proud of …). Make a grand list of questions (there are plenty of them in the consulting club booklets) and be sure you can apply any of your 4/5 stories to 95% of them.

• Record each story at least 10 times on video (very long and boring)

• Use the STAR-L method (L for learning) with a special focus on the L part

• During the second round I did not have the opportunity to explain any of those stories, but the motivation and presentation parts were tested (I guess those 5% did materialize after all)

Tip and tricks for the case

• Material:
  o Victor Cheng: great book for learning how to think like a consultant, but the frameworks are way too basic and not very practical. I recommend newcomers to always to start with this book though. LOMS program, because it is based on his frameworks, were not especially useful.
  o Case in point: great book to have some frameworks in minds, and to crack your first cases. Case starters are great. I though some of his frameworks were too complicated and rigid, and I didn’t agree with the resolution of some of his cases.
  o Case books from consulting clubs that you can find on Google
  ** Best: Kellogs (by far #1), Fuqua, Darden
  ** Not so good: HBS, Illinois, McGill, LBS, Wharton
  ** If you are alone, I suggest you to focus on the McKinsey style cases, as the Q&A format is very easy to follow
  ** I read/done the whole Kellogs and Darden + extra cases in the other booklets
  ** Kellogs and Warton have industry overview, which is quite useful
  o Having a case journal is a MUST tool. I usually write down my own framework + the suggested framework, the answers to creativity questions (eg: give me 5 factors influencing X) and things I missed in the case.
  o I read about 70 cases + 2 real prep cases with friends working at MBB + 15 prep cases with my wife
  o I suggest that you develop your own frameworks while solving the cases, and refine them case after case. Mines were slightly different from all the ones I read, because I thought it was the most natural approach for me (“Have it your way”).
  ** eg, for market entry, mine was Market (incl Comp)/Profitability/Company Capabilities & Capacity. If it was a product introduction, I will add the Product before Market and a Pricing subsection into the Profit section.

• It is super important to be exposed to all the main verticals and horizontals at least once. I had my first case on product mix strategy the day before the final round, which included … a product mix strategy case.

• My working files
  o How to think like a consultant and approach a case (main takeways from Cheng and CiP)
  o Case journal (xls database with vertical and horizontal + points mentioned above)
  o FIT questions
  o Homemade frameworks
  o Industry (my main take aways from Warton and Kellogs + all the cases)

I hope this will help,
Good luck to all. Strength and honor.
Cheers !