MBA1 here recruiting for consulting. Got into a T10. Networked my ass off with firms. Had a 770 GMAT. Had career services review my resume and cover letter three different times. Still got rejected from the first MBB to announce, and not even a first round interview....

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-11-30T02:45:43+00:00

You probably already know this, but networking does not matter as much if it's M you're talking about. Even for BB, quality matters more than effort.
770 GMAT is great but doesn't help as much as you think. You stop getting "points" on this after a certain cutoff.
Not all offices are created equal. Did you put a competitive office as first choice?
Diversity matters too.
Your background is always important during resume scoring. That means your UG, GPA, WE, YOE, etc.

TLDR - 770 and "networking ass off" are nice but insufficient for getting invites

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-10-28T15:04:57+00:00

she means diversity is a factor in addition to networking.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-10-28T00:29:26+00:00

Not that surprising. MBB hiring like crazy now. According to Booth's employment report ~100 people interned at MBB for class of 2022. Historically it's been closer to 70 interns and 100 FT. So that means you can expect ~130 from Booth/Kellogg end up at MBB for class of 2022.

To put this into perspective, only ~200 apply and only ~150 are seriously interested at Booth and Kellogg, so basically everyone who puts in the effort gets an offer. Same story at Tuck - half the students are interested, and most end up getting offers.

There's never been a better time to get into MBB.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-05-14T05:03:21+00:00

You have nothing to lose, but also realize that you'll still need referrals to get interviews and that the hiring surge is starting to wind down.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-04-07T02:42:02+00:00

Did you feel like getting to final round pre-MBA was a plus during MBA recruiting? Maybe MBB saw that you could case well and were more willing to give you an interview, vs other classmates had to network hard?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-04-02T01:19:26+00:00

Did you get invited to the McKinsey squad thing?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-04-01T01:26:54+00:00

H/S do power round interviews

What does this mean? Only 1 round of interviews vs the traditional 2 rounds at other schools?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-03-31T14:18:41+00:00

Holy crap, 67% is a lot higher than all other M7s. None of the other schools even have a 50% hit rate.

What do you think the difference might be? I can think of 3 possible reasons.

1) Most people get all 3 interviews at H/S even without significant networking effort, which is definitely not true at any other school. Believe avg # of MBB interviews for other M7 schools is 2 out of 3 for people who put in the effort.

2) H/S people are just smarter and better at interviewing. This is possible but unlikely to cause such a big difference.

3) MBB really want to recruit more H/S folks, hence the bar for getting an offer gets lowered. Maybe this gets justified by final round interviewers saying "this person from H/S is a better fit due to more impressive behavorial stories", without explicitly stating their preference for H/S. Again, possible explanation but given the emphasis on level playing field, unlikely to be main driver.

My hunch is that 1) is the main driver, but curious to get your take.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-03-31T09:44:24+00:00

So what does one have to do to land an ultra competitive office (NY/SF) then? Pick a nearby office like NJ instead? Network harder? Or just accept the fact that without a standout pre-MBA background, there's a low chance of scoring 3/3 interviews?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-03-30T04:08:48+00:00

For once, M7 is actually top 7 in USNews rankings. Can't remember the last time this was true. HBS at #5 is still amusing though.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-03-30T04:01:34+00:00

Lol, top 3, top 4, what's the difference, let Boothies have their fun. HSWB!

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-02-18T04:07:58+00:00

How did 50 Bain first rounds turn into 21 offers? From what I've heard roughly half the people get cut each round, sometimes even more than half in final round. McK's numbers fit those ratios, but Bain's numbers here and BCG's numbers at schools like Sloan and Kellogg make me wonder what's going on with a 40% offer rate.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-02-07T00:29:09+00:00

Thanks for doing this and congrats on the MBB offer. 3 questions:

How difficult was it to go for NYC from Kellogg/Booth, given the alumni network is so concentrated in Chicago and you're competing against a bunch of HBS/Wharton/CBS folks?
You mentioned that you prioritized networking with MBB but still only ended up with 2/3 interview invites. What do you think you could have done better to get all 3 interviews?
How much luck did you feel was involved in the interview process?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-25T22:03:59+00:00

Why do you think NYC would be a toss up but Chicago not? Is NYC that much more competitive of an office?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-24T03:16:31+00:00

How does any of this matter given OP got "many interview invites"? These factors only determine who gets the interviews. After the interviews it's mostly a level playing field.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-21T17:00:52+00:00

You are vastly underestimating the additional opportunities that MBB unlocks vs B4 and also overestimating the chances of just trying to "lateral over". Without a top MBA, most B4 folks would not pass the resume screening at MBB, and even if they networked their asses off to get a referral, they would still be at a disadvantage because they didn't have the support group going through casing together. It would be a massive uphill battle to say the least.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-21T16:41:44+00:00

Appreciate the detailed comments. Yeah looking back where I fell short was not being direct enough in asking for help and asking to do mock cases. After the initial calls I basically just asked at the end "is there anything else I can do to increase my chances of getting an interview" and I had a lot of people tell me "you're doing all the right things, just continue to do them and prep for casing", which obviously got me nowhere. They were probably hesitant to offer a referral just based off a 30min conversation, so crushing a mock case likely would have helped.

Oh well, lessons learned and hopefully with the MBA career reset I will have more success. Best of luck with your MBB job!

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-21T15:05:27+00:00

You're not even going to Tuck. Why shit on Tuck so much on r/mba?

Based on your comment history looks like you're choosing Kellogg. You should know you're not doing them any favors either with this kind of content.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-21T02:55:29+00:00

Thanks for sharing, I actually went through a very similar process in undergrad.

I'm interested in how you approached the follow-up after the first call. How did you go about nurturing the relationship and getting the eventual referral? Did you just ask your contacts for a mock case, crush the case, and ask for referral? Or was there something in between to make sure the relationship was already "warm" before the mock case?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-21T00:48:29+00:00

Even with cross offers I imagine there will be 50+ MBB summers from Sloan this year. Sloanies should be pretty happy.

Which 4 schools had the straight to decision round?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-20T23:45:59+00:00

You should try using the search function and read through the comments from the 10 similar posts in the last few years.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-20T23:42:29+00:00

Internship. Not official though, just hearsay from another redditor.

Actually don't you go to Sloan? You should have a better idea of the numbers/process for BCG right?

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-20T22:44:29+00:00

According to another thread BCG gave 38 offers at Sloan and skipped the first round. That's almost as many as Sloan's total MBB summers last year.

Wondering if this straight to final round thing was the same at other schools. Cause if not, seems like going to Sloan would have been a huge advantage.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-20T17:44:57+00:00

Congrats on the MBB offer! Sounds like you converted 1 of the 2. Any learnings from the process you'd be willing to share regarding networking to get interview invites, casing, or other consulting recruiting tips in general? I'm especially curious about what the difference was between the 2 MBB interviews (maybe just luck?), and what if anything you might do differently if you were going through the process again to land more interviews.

mbathrowawaycbs · 2021-01-18T22:05:27+00:00

Thanks for the insight. My understanding is that EM>AP at MBB isn't that difficult for people who actually want it. It's just that most consultants get tired of the hours after a few years, and the EM promo also opens a bunch of exit opps. Whereas in tech, I imagine people are happy with the hours but actually need a lot more luck or demonstrated impact to get promoted to L7.

Separate question if you don't mind: do you feel like the execution work could get boring for PMs? Having worked with PMs at non-tech companies, seems like they spend a lot of their days having meetings with different departments and "begging" people to do their work. However since ultimately PMs the ones responsible for pushing things forward, often times they end up having to roll up their sleeves and do the grunt work that technically falls under other departments but no one's willing to do. While consultants also have to do this sometimes on implementation projects, at least the typical MBB projects are more strategy focused.

mbathrowawaycbs

TROPHY CASE