Getting Crushed -- OCR

Hi all, I'm here to humbly ask for your advice. I'm a senior graduating from an Ivy this winter. I've had a FO internship at MS this summer, and a few other relevant boutique internships, M&A & PE, before that. I wasn't able to convert this summer due to "headcount" in my group.

Currently, I'm getting crushed in OCR and my confidence is slowly waning. I'm getting the interviews but can't seem to convert--I'll get one technical out of many that I don't know, or the interviewer has 0 enthusiasm and I can't connect. OCR seems to be a crapshoot, and if I don't convert one of these interviews I don't know what to do next.

How can I best leverage my experience into a FT job? Cold emails? Endlessly applying into the blackhole of website applications? I've done these in the past with no success. My resume is very strong, littered with relevant experience. I've tried reaching out to recruiters & alumni on LinkedIn, using a direct approach, without any tangible outcome (interview) thus far. I'm starting to panic. What would you guys do in my shoes?

Sincerely, a panicking senior.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by "once it's over, it'll be smooth sailing." Also, are you implying that my colleagues at MS can refer me to other banks? This doesn't seem likely because my group was small and the bankers were all senior. They didn't seem like the type to go out of their way for anyone. Thanks for the advice though.

 

I got great feedback for my "attitude" during the program. When I didn't get the job and had a phone conversation with my MD, he didn't want to write me a reference letter (are reference letters taboo / uncommon practice?).

Therefore, even though I supposedly had a good attitude and worked hard, I think they would be reluctant to go out of their way with referrals.

 
anonguytoibd:

Sorry to tell you, but you probably didn't do as good of a job as you think or were made to believe. I can only draw from a couple personal and second hand accounts of situations like this, but when I didn't get a full time job from an internship because of a strategic change, I was referred to just about every banker or investor that the senior guys knew. A person that I know pretty well was given the same treatment when a different full time gig didn't work out for similar reasons.

Also, when you say that you're getting one technical out of the many that you don't know, it tells me that you are not as prepared as you should be.

That's fine, and I appreciate your feedback, but your comment does nothing in the way of addressing my original inquiry. I'm not trying to get a job by using referrals from my internship, because for me that doesn't appear to be a viable option. I would like to know what else I could do.

 

Does it absolutely have to be BB? I mean honestly. You will already have a BA or BS from an ivy. Already have BB experience as well as PE. I mean you should really just apply for everything you are interested in. Already having a ivy degree and eventually a good GMAT will take you far beyond the normal person as far as applying for M7 mba programs. Personally, I'd go HF, PE, AM, or an elite boutique if I were you and still apply for bb anyways.

 

Since you go to an ivy school, there will be plenty of information sessions. I was in a similar situation and attended 4-6 sessions / night. That's your best way to "network" with people last minute as those individuals typically pull resumes.

 

Do you mean that you can't seem to get INTERVIEWS for the top jobs, or after you get the interview, you can't seem to get selected for the job?

If the second statement is true, I'd just work on your interviewing skills. Practice with a friend. Literally write out your answers to the stupid fit questions...and ask your friends, parents, siblings, etc. for advice on your answers. Fit is by far what matters most in the interview.

If the first statement is true, you should consider how many interview slots there are for the "top" jobs for your school. Are you at a major target school like Harvard, Wharton, etc. where the banks have a ton of slots for each position (relative to the number of interested people)? It could just be that you're at a good but not major target school (like say Duke) so the standards are just so so high.

Just my thoughts. Good luck.

 

If you have connected with anyone who is an analyst/associate and seems pretty smart try seeing if they can give you some advice. I really hit it off with one of my interviewers, and while I'm still on the fence about a position there he has given me a lot of great questions to ask in interviews, and has helped me refine answers for a lot of my fit and technical questions.

 

Getting the Interview: 1. Relevant Work Experience 2. GPA (Found some people who put this at #1 and #3) 3. Extracurriculars 4.(obviously correctness/formatting of resume)

Getting to Round 2: 1. Decent communication skills 2. Knowing your resume 3. Nailing all of the Technical quetsions

Getting an offer: 1. Fit with the firm, can the person interviewing imagine him/herself working with you at 3am. 2. Communication skills

 

campus recruiting is a bitch. only something like 15% of all juniors here actually get an interview here, but I suppose that when recruiters are making judgments on who to interview based completely on a resume (And sometimes a cover letter) at a school that's filled to the brim with overachievers, it does tend to be arbitrary

 

it really does seem like a crapshoot. I have an average gpa, no prior i-banking internships and got interviews with GS, Leh, Citi, UBS, but not DB or Boa. Figure that one out....

Also, moving onto the second round seems highly dependent on totally nailing the interview questions while at the same time getting a great rapport with the interviewers. That and having the stars being lined up that day.

 

depends on your interviewer. I found that alot of the time, the people who came to my school for interviewing were alums and you either clicked with them (i.e. were in a same frat/sorority, played the same sport, did volunteer, whatever) or could just charm the pants off of, in which case they'd be much more apt to put you through to the next round. But, getting through those superdays was always a challenge because you end up dealing with people who have some sort of inferiority complex (i.e. Oh, I went to non-target school. So, what are they teaching you over there at target IVY?) or people who end up being like "I went to wharton. im a huge d-bag and think everyone is below me."

But in the end, I find at my school especially, people who make it to the second round are usually the most well-spoken, charismatic, and easy to get along with in terms of personality. the rest will come.

 

Have you been networking with alumns etc outside of OCR? I think that guys from target schools can really separate themselves if they reach network like crazy. Good luck.

“The only thing I know is that I know nothing, and i am no quite sure that i know that.” Socrates
 

Not getting a return offer is a huge weakness. The whole point of hiring out of SA classes is to mitigate risk. If a bank did not give you a return offer, you are a risky hire to other banks. You need to figure out exactly why you did not get that return offer because if it had to do with your soft skills or attitude, that could be why your interviews are not panning out.

It's probably how you come across in interviews. If you did your SA at MS, there really are no technicals that you should not be able to get. The rest is fit. My first suggestion would be to do some mock interviews with people you know or a mentor on WSO. Your "walk me through your resume", "why IB", "why Bank XYZ", etc. answers are probably weak. You need to tie everything back to your skills. For example, if you are interviewing at GS and asked "why GS", you need to conclude your answer with that skills you can bring to the table to hit the ground running (e.g. interned in the same industry group, previous BB experience, etc.).

 

Sil thanks for the feedback. I agree that my interview is probably rusty and answers a bit on the weak side since I haven't had to go through the process in a while. Honestly I'm still a bit shell shocked from the end of the summer. The problem is that neither of the interns in my group got offers. It was a very small group with only 1 analyst, and MS runs notoriously lean. When questioned, do you think it would be wise to state that neither intern received an offer? Thanks.

 

Just do it. Play the game; it sucks, but play it. Go to the events, email them after, set up phone calls, get them to know your name. As fake as everything seems, OCR is the best way to get an interview and a job with these places. You can outshine people with your resume, but for a lot of OCR they end up having 60 resumes, the recruiting team goes through them and if someone recognizes the name/has spoken with you they have the chance to say so.

 

OCR is amazing. But not because of the info sessions. Two big reason:

  1. It guarantees your resume is read by bankers, who are the guys who decide whether or not you get interviews. If you drop through the company website, there's a pretty good chance nobody looks at it, unless you've got stellar WE.

2.It guarantees you a fighting chance of an SA. If you have OCR, you're not competing against everyone else in the country for an SA. You're competing against the other kids at your target. Each BB has already decided beforehand they're taking x-y number of kids from your school. You just have to beat the 20something other kids with first round interviews, and then they 12 something kids at the superday.

 

Info. sessions are a waste of time. If you're trying to 'network' during one you're already too late. At that point you should have already made a contact or two at the bank and sent them a friendly reminder that you'll be at their info. session. From there your job is to fucking smile and press some palms so they have a face to remember, but nothing more. All the morons that try to ask 'questions' and shit are too late to the dance. You sound whiny as all hell. Must be nice to have IBD OCR, use it properly.

'Before you enter... be willing to pay the price'
 

OCR is great IF you are a good applicant to begin with. For example if you have a 3.7+ target with IB experience and a 3.9 non-target with the same internship, it will take a lot more effort to land interviews for the non-target. With the target profile and OCR, you'll likely get a good amount of interviews without having to network.

That said if you're a mediocre applicant you're basically in the same boat as the non-target. There are only roughly 12-30 interview slots and if you're not in the top 20-30 of your school then you don't get an interview. I applied to basically every IB/consulting/S&T job when I was doing SA recruiting with a 3.5 but without any finance experience and got dinged literally everywhere. Though come FT when I raised my GPA and got IB experience I pretty much got most interviews I applied for.

 

do some grassroots networking- make the most out of every connection-ones you can find on linkedin, people from your town, etc. also target the firms that your school may not be a core school from so you don't have to compete with people that have higher GPAs. make sure to apply to some firms that aren't all reaches as well-there are tons of firms out there not just the BB's

 

3.3-3.4 is perceived as much better than 3.2--I know it is not much different technically, but it is all about perception.

Even for OCR at my school, few people got first rounds not because they were super awesome or had great GPAs. They got in because they 'knew' the analyst level guys who got them first round interviews. Not sure what happened after the first rounds to them, but getting first rounds is a huge deal. So basically, even for OCR, it is important to network or know the guys pulling out resumes--especially at schools like W etc.

"I do not think that there is any other quality so essential to success of any kind as the quality of perseverance. It overcomes almost everything, even nature."
 

I go to a target school as well (maybe even the same school as you), and I have a few friends who got interviews with 3.3 - only because they networked super hard and had people pulling their resumes.

 

Sorry, but a 3.2 at a target is not going to get you interviews at any of the BBs or elite boutiques, unless you network aggressively. I'm not sure why you're surprised with your results. No offense, but the fact is that you're in the bottom 50% of your class.

 
7xEBITDA:

Some firms (even reputable firms) recruit as late as mid-March/early-April. Keep networking, spread your net wide. Hopefully you'll get something. Worst case scenario, go to another boutique.

Appreciate the positive advice. Do you know which firms off the top of your head?

Anyone else care to weigh in their thoughts? As always, thanks guys.

 

While late, it's never too late. At the very least, this gets you part of the way there toward FT recruiting if nothing pans out this summer.

You have nothing to lose by going balls out and networking your butt off, so I'd say go for it. Maybe you end up with an internship at a smaller shop, but there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.

Also, if do indeed have a great resume in terms of work experience and have networked, then I would bet it's your GPA bringing you down as well. Look at it from the banks' perspectives - why should I pick you for an interview if your GPA doesn't meet our cutoffs? You'd have to have someone pulling for you pretty hard, so keep networking, and best of luck.

 

You have had four IB/PE internships and were unprepared for your technicals? That is a big red flag and something that you need to address ASAP. If your internships were at boutiques that only had you bind books, format PowerPoint, etc., take some time to go through the interview guides (I like M&I's guide) and learn the concepts behind that technicals, not just the questions themselves.

To best position yourself for FT, I would start looking at boutiques where you can do your SA at. Stay in contact with the people you networked with. When it comes times for FT recruiting next year, this will be important. I would wait a month or so for recruiting to die down and then really hit networking hard for FT recruiting. Good luck.

 

Thanks. Yeah my IB/PE internships were at boutiques with zero training. All I did was doing pitch books, deal reports or due diligence, and 50% time I was cold calling firms. I really hope I can get some decent training for my next summer. I feel like when I'm studying on my own I spend a lot of time looking up things online and it's easy to learn it the wrong way. How would you suggest me narrow things down and look for boutiques that have decent training? There are so many boutiques out there and it seems difficult to just call every firm up

 
Best Response
avocadolover:

Thanks. Yeah my IB/PE internships were at boutiques with zero training. All I did was doing pitch books, deal reports or due diligence, and 50% time I was cold calling firms. I really hope I can get some decent training for my next summer. I feel like when I'm studying on my own I spend a lot of time looking up things online and it's easy to learn it the wrong way. How would you suggest me narrow things down and look for boutiques that have decent training? There are so many boutiques out there and it seems difficult to just call every firm up

You just need to call them up. No boutique is going to have a robust training program, if they even have one. This is where the work falls on you. You will clearly get good at formatting and getting books ready, but you will have no modeling experience. This is actually the easiest to get since to get good at formatting, you really need someone checking your work, whereas building simple models by yourself is not that tough. I would suggest really going through whichever guide(s) you have and then staying late one day at work and just put together an operating model, a DCF, precedent & comps, an lbo model, and a merger model. You don't need to make them very complex.

Also, for FT recruiting, if you land in this same position again (i.e. no offers), don't discount working FT at a boutique. You will be surprised at how relatively easy it will be to get lateral interviews after six months to a year.

 

Are you at a Target? If so, it'll be hard to go through OCR unless your network is top notch with your GPA. The thing that sucks about Targets is that if you're a rock star you'll get a ton of opportunities - everyone else not so much. Where do the majority of your classmates end up after graduation, geographically speaking? That's the trick here - you want to go somewhere where they don't. For example, let's say you go to Wharton - I'm willing to bet most of your classmates are going to NYC. So if you're going around OCR, pick a city like Chicago, Atlanta, SF, Cleveland, etc. (somewhere where you can spin why you want to be in that region). The smaller firms will be willing to take a look at you since you're out of the way. Either that, or go for the EBs and BB offices that no one wants (i.e. McKinsey Cleveland) it should be a bit of easier ride since most people self select out of anything that isn't NYC, LA, Chicago, Houston. Hope that helps!

"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
 

Network hard and you will be OK. I know a few people who had a similar GPA last semester as a non-URM/non-female, and got interviews at a lot of good firms, and ultimately were able to convert a few to offers.

When I say network hard, I mean it, though... everyone junior on the recruitment team should know your name, in a good sense, and try to get the attention of 1-2 senior people if you can. You will get interviews if you get enough people to like you, and then it's up to you to convert them into offers.

 

Hey ThatOtherGuy, sorry about the delay, but are any of these useful:

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Any pros willing to rescue this discussion? mikey_serbs rike7oct mittenmadman

Fingers crossed that one of those helps you.

I'm an AI bot trained on the most helpful WSO content across 17+ years.
 

Network, network and network. Get yourself out there. Even though OCR is ever more competitive, you still should go talk to the people and ask good questions. I just went to a top undergrad to recruit summer analysts last week. When the resume book came today, I immediately picked the people who impressed me the most (and had to throw away a ton of other solid resumes because I had no other way of referencing them).

Your stats seem good. Just be confident and be able to articulate why you stand out.

 

Both points above are spot-on.

A few more thoughts:

  1. I'd focus on differentiating your resume - would-be bankers are coming from a finance background. Highlighting consulting-type skills (in forms of people/team leadership, entrepreneurship and risk-taking, even client service if applicable) is one way to do this.

  2. You should have a strong alumni network at a top 15. Plug into that for part-time jobs during the school year, references during OCR for summer and FT.

  3. If you don't get a summer, you MUST DO SOMETHING PRODUCTIVE. Generic internships like on-campus research, retail management, etc aren't going to cut it. Try to start a company.

  4. Start a consulting group on campus during the year. This helps build your network, your resume, and provides you a taste of what the job will be like anyway.

Hope that helps.

Kevin www.managementconsulted.com

 

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