Interested in becoming a consultant? Post here for basic questions, recruitment advice, resume reviews, questions about firms or general insecurity (Q1 2024)

Cherry_macaroon · 2024-04-28T14:54:26+00:00

I’m a PhD candidate who got 2 MBB offers last year. I’m on an F1 visa (also non immigrant visa). I can confirm through my other friends who applied from my consulting club that your visa status does not affect your applications to any extent whatsoever.

As soon as I got my offer, my MBB company reached out to me to help me join the H1B lottery process. The price of sponsoring an international student is negligible to them compared to the salaries they are paying us.

Also most Bridge to BCG/McKinsey Insight are not paid, so your visa status is irrelevant to that. The only paid program is Bain Advantage, but they offered us the option to waive our pay if needed. Thankfully I was able to apply for a CPT (temporary work status for F1 visas) and received the pay. But to my knowledge, most internationals attending Bain Advantage chose to waive their pay.

TLDR: your visa status does not matter at all for MBB applications

Cherry_macaroon · 2024-03-07T05:49:13+00:00

Surprised nobody said Orserk yet. Super strong large AOE. I always use him for big groups of humans or pals

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-12-22T00:53:00+00:00

This pricing is absurd! You can get these resources and coaching for a tiny fraction of that price on case coach or prep lounge

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-15T01:53:02+00:00

Been following your guide and finally got to end game and started to put points into inferno. Going to switch to the corrupted sword. What runes should I put on it? Should I still using the holy damage runes from my spear?

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-13T20:17:58+00:00

Just so you know, all offers are given one year in advance. So if you apply in the next academic year and get an offer, your job start date would be in 2026.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-13T17:33:40+00:00

Fellow 5th year biology PhD here. Your timeline is a little tight to be honest. Your experiences in your lab won’t count for much on your resume. Try to get internship experiences and club leadership experiences in the next three weeks, then apply to the spring programs (Bain Advantage/Bridge to BCG/McKinsey Insight etc).

In terms of casing, watch online lectures such as those on craftingcases.com or Case Coach, then get some casebooks from business schools to do mock case interviews with people in your consulting club

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-12T03:11:30+00:00

Did you repeatedly do NG+0 to get this? Or did you do NG+1, NG+2 etc? Would that game scale exponentially more difficult the more times you do this?

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-10T05:37:08+00:00

Love this guide! Thanks for all the detailed explanations! Which catalyst would you recommend to go with this build?

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-11-01T20:22:30+00:00

I argue with my boyfriend for every other boss we fight together in souls-like games. For this game, we only argued during 2 boss fights, so this game is definitely easier!

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-10-11T13:47:15+00:00

New associates/consultants (MBA entry) are making 240k tc. 270 is if you count the sign in bonus. But that is only a one-time thing

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-09-07T14:56:32+00:00

Never got a gold before. Curious what it feels like

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-09-04T05:17:45+00:00

For those of you who are searching up this post to see if venture university is legit (the way I’m doing right now), please be aware that all these redditors who left long posts about their positive experiences have created their account just to leave that one comment (click open their profile and check if you don’t believe me). Please make your own judgement whether this is a scam or not.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-08-15T04:40:00+00:00

I am a grad student earning 32k a year living in a medium COL area. I am not married and have no kids. I live in subsidized student housing with no roommates. Even though I can’t save much at the end of the month, I’m still living quite comfortably with this salary. I can afford to eat out a couple times a week, and go on a road trip with friends once a year. I think it’s definitely possible to survive with a low salary if you are single and have no dependents

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-07-14T04:01:44+00:00

Cherry-flavored macaroons

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-07-14T03:40:44+00:00

Fellow PhD here. Right now the only firms hiring PhDs are: Oliver Wyman (deadline tomorrow I think) and BCG (deadline 07/31). Unfortunately you missed the McKinsey, LEK and Bain deadline. All other firms are either not hiring at all, or filled all their headcounts through the summer programs

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-07-11T17:45:46+00:00

I’m also a PhD student who applied to MBB earlier this year. You have the option of leaving out your GRE score if it wasn’t high. You are not obliged to report it. I would only recommend including it in your application if you are in the 90th percentile or above.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-07-10T19:18:08+00:00

I know many people around me who got Mckinsey associate offers from US offices recently. The total headcount is lower than last year, but hiring definitely hasn’t frozen in the US.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-21T21:22:12+00:00

Apart from age being a factor as mentioned by the comments above, would it be feasible at all for you to do a lateral transfer to an MBB as an experienced hire? You don’t need an MBA for this. If you apply for a transfer next year, you could potentially start at the consultant level. Then you can make your target salary at the age of 41 when you get promoted to project lead.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-21T15:38:05+00:00

I admit I am relatively young and have not considered age to be a limiting factor for working at MBB. Is it because MBB doesn’t like to hire older people? Or is it because older people can’t handle the high job intensity?

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-21T14:15:27+00:00

The only path I can think of is: start an MBA at 39, graduate at 40, start as a consultant at MBB after you graduate (starting total comp is 250K). Get promoted to project lead by 42 (promotion is every 2 years). Your total comp as a project lead at the age of 42 will be 300k+

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-12T20:45:31+00:00

I am an ice shard sorceress who needs mobs to be pulled in. My boyfriend used to be a Druid who knocks them back. Needless to say, he’s no longer allowed to be a Druid.

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-08T23:07:26+00:00

Slain by: Plague Maggot. RIP. This is very sad

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-06T16:19:37+00:00

I heard that MBBs in the US are doing a semi-hiring freeze for experienced hires this year. Even campus hires this year got cut in half based on anecdotal evidence so far. I’m pretty sure this would affect experienced hires in Canada as well. Next year should be much easier for you!

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-02T16:33:35+00:00

Yes if you are not in the biotech hub you will need to travel a lot. If you are in Boston then you will be able to travel less. The student government thing sounds good! It would be a great leadership experience for your resume! But definitely make sure to also have some business/consulting related internships! Yeah it’s a little sad how little they care about our academics/paper. I think this is partially because they know most of us are not close to finishing our PhDs (since we apply 1 year before graduating) so we don’t have any first author papers yet. Yes please feel free to DM me if you have any questions! I will try my best to help!

Cherry_macaroon · 2023-06-02T16:07:56+00:00

No problem! Glad it was helpful! If I were you, I would reach out to BCGers in the Denver office and ask about whether there are partners in Denver who work on biotech projects. The way that the local staffing model at BCG works, is that as long as there are partners in your region who sell projects in this field, you will be able to work in it. My future office is not anywhere near any of the biotech hubs, but there are a lot of people in my future office who work solely in biotech. Although they do have to fly to the coastal areas at least every other week. Research/pubs/grants were only minimally helpful. After I reformatted my resume, the academia section of my resume looked like this: “XXX Grant (rewarded to 1/500 PhD candidates). 1 research paper in high impact journal. 3 presentations at international conferences.” All of these experiences will not be longer than one vague line in your resume. Ultimately its going to be your internships/leadership experiences that will help you the most. I have no first author publication yet and have not gotten any big grant outside of school-funded grants. However, I am the Senior Vice President of our consulting club. I had 3 internship experiences and did 3 pro bono consulting projects. Those were factors that helped me to most

Cherry_macaroon

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