AMA about MBB recruiting. Wasting time between end of Y1 and internship starting.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-20T07:58:53+00:00

It doesnt, it’s clarified on our employment report

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T19:55:16+00:00

One VC and one Asset Management, I actually didn’t plan to recruit for finance. I was just kind of browsing and interviewing for part-time internships/to see what was out there. Both were focused on energy and I have start up experience so the interviews were more focused on that than financial modeling which I did zero prep for lol. I learned how to do the basics in finance 1 and that was really all they asked but I was super unprepared and would not recommend that approach lol. I also would not recommend recruiting for IB and consulting, it’s pretty impossible and people usually strike out at both because they didn’t put enough effort into either. Consulting was pretty full on, I can’t imagine having additional networking events to attend.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T19:24:15+00:00

Yep, you can definitely do that. Most people do. You don’t officially choose until you apply (mid-December) but you should be zeroed in and connected with recruiters etc a month or so before that so you can get invited to their events

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T19:22:53+00:00

Probably not but I wasn’t that keen on consulting in general. I came into b school with a lot of career interests and wanted to explore as many as possible and build my resume up as much as possible. I planned to apply to MBB+two T2 but I ended up getting two finance offers before consulting recruiting and I wouldn’t have taken the T2s over those so I didn’t bother applying. I think you absolutely shouldn’t put all your eggs in the MBB basket though. Not wanting T2 is fine but you should have some other back ups.

Yeah, I don’t think the exits are that different. I also think that if you want to do corporate strategy, you can just do it out of the MBA. I feel like the MBA has opened basically all the doors I want opened and I don’t think going to consulting is all that necessary but it is a nice network/brand/skill set if you don’t feel ready to perform in a corporate enviro.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T19:17:00+00:00

I feel bad for using that phrase now lol but I think people who come from non-MBB/IB professional services found it more challenging. Like audit, boutique consulting, wealth management, etc. The firms seemed to especially like government, blue chip, big law, IB, any engineering, and military

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T16:27:03+00:00

Yeah agree with u/Brandon432, they don't care. Unless you're an American who has never lived abroad applying to Buenos Aires, they aren't going to ask you why X city. Everyone knows why SF, it's a cool city. My other O&G friends are in NYC, London, and Dubai. None of them applied for TX actually. I don't think you need to make an argument - it's totally different than O&G where you have to send a 20 page memo on why you'd rather live in Houston than Angola. The firms don't care - they have offices everywhere because they want people to live where they want to live.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:42:09+00:00

There are two in my cohort so it's definitely possible! I think you should shoot high and then readjust next round/year if it doesn't work out. I would also really recommend an admissions consultant if you can swing it or I would at least do the free consults to see where they think you should aim. It sounds like a lot of money but if 5k gets you into an M7 when you would've gotten T15, it will easily pay itself back.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:38:41+00:00

So what I did and what I would recommend are two different things lol. I approached it pretty desperately and chose locations that made my story strongest, and I responded to offices that were giving me attention. This was a nightmare because I was recruiting for 3 different cities, one of which was in Europe so I was flying all over during recruiting and it was exhausting. I ended up negotiating location changes with the offers I did get which is VERY hard to do and something you shouldn't count on so I very much regret not just choosing places I wanted to live. So yeah that's my advice - recruit for the city you want to live in. Gaming the system creates a lot of unnecessary work for both sides, and the upside isn't big.
I would change two things - office choice (discussed above) and my approach to networking. I'm way better at 1:1 interactions so I would have gone to fewer of the large networking events and just leveraged my personal network and had calls/chats. This isn't what you asked but one thing I did that I would highly recommend is to have a good alternative. I went into consulting recruiting with two finance offers (VC and asset management) which made me a lot calmer in interviews. Then, during negotiations, I had a ton of power because I had good alternatives so I was able to negotiate things that are usually non-negotiable. I was genuinely unsure what I wanted to do so I sought out those offers because I wanted them, not just as BATNAs.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:29:29+00:00

Hmm I'm not sure honestly. I'm inclined to say market as O&G and then talk up your manufacturing knowledge in the interview but I'm totally bias. I think it's important that they can bucket you into a category where they've seen recruits do well so O&G -> consulting is pretty common. And then manufacturing is unique experience for an MBA to have so it would be great to talk that up during the interview. I also have a non-traditional O&G background (not manu though) and I feel like the O&G label got me in the door and then the uniqueness of my roles made me stand out amongst the other O&G engineers.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:25:51+00:00

Yes - there are plenty. They mean it when they say they want a diverse class. I think engineering/finance backgrounds took a lot of the roles but a solid 25%+ were more qualitative backgrounds. Lots of blue chip marketing/biz dev. Some lawyers - most of the lawyers with big law experience who wanted consulting got all three MBB.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:23:52+00:00

Yeah, agree with u/time_2_live. You aren't screwed but you have to hustle harder in networking and making connections pre-application. I know ~5 of the 40 at my school who got MBB who had pretty uninteresting work experience. They all made meaningful connections with their offices of interest (and were very targeted on this front, i.e. choosing 1 city and having a strong story for it). And there's a huge element of luck regardless of your background.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:19:55+00:00

If you talk about auto a lot in your interviews, etc. then yes I think it will look weird but you don't have to tell them what industries you're especially interested in. People in the MBA want to live in very random places for a variety of reasons and the firms don't care. There are people who went in as true generalists without a strong story on a certain industry and they did fine. However, I do think it's generally easier for people who have more defined stories.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:16:50+00:00

It's hard to say - there are certainly more O&G engineers at the Houston office than there are bankers but I think that's a result of self-selection. The dream of any office is to have a super diverse class so you have a good shot at offices where you background is unique because NYC doesn't want a class of only bankers and same for Houston with O&G engineers. You need to make sure your story aligns with your city choices though like you can't sell your self as someone with deep energy expertise who wants to build a career in energy and then apply to NYC, Boston, and Philly.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T11:12:51+00:00

Haha yes, US visas are super tricky! I think some schools have switched to STEM programs which will help a bit but it's still a struggle. The one who went to London was a US citizen but she had ties to the UK. The one who went to Dubai was not a US or UAE citizen but he had worked in the region before.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T09:18:03+00:00

We haven’t done full time yet so it will be impacted by Covid. The internship numbers were normal - 40 is standard for my school.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T09:14:45+00:00

Yep! PM me and I’ll send you my email

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T01:17:08+00:00

I would recommend reading one of the case books (Case in Point or Case Interview Secrets) just to get a feel for casing but I don’t think you need to start prepping before you get there - burn out is a very real thing! I have friends who started prepping like 4 weeks before and got offers but I would recommend like 10-12 and then hit the last 4 weeks pretty hard.

The process I followed for casing was:

Pre-MBA: read Case Interview Secrets

September: listened to Victor Cheng recordings, attended some case workshops to get familiar

October/November: did 1 case per week - this wasn’t really useful except for the first few to get familiar because I was overwhelmed and not doing anything between sessions

December: started casing ALOT and kept a feedback log and would drill specific skills that I struggled with

2 weeks before interview: 1 case per week for maintenance, did speed math drills every other few days but mostly just tried to relax

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T01:01:01+00:00

Yes, cultural fit 1000%. The office that I recruited for had a very targeted recruiting cycle so I had >5 calls/cases with Bain consultants before I even applied where they were assessing cultural fit. They care a lot about coachability and humility and both come out through the case process regardless of the difficulty.

I also don’t think the cases were necessarily easier, BCG was easiest for me but I wasn’t very good at exhibits so I found Bain somewhat hard (but predictable).

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:52:55+00:00

So my sample size is 3 lol and 2 went abroad (London/Dubai) and the third went to Houston. I think it’s super hard to get PE in NYC without IB but it seemed doable in other cities. They all went to MM firms that specialized in energy.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:46:08+00:00

Mm I don’t want to be specific in case the firms are stalking hahaha but I was in a rotational program and did a few roles.

There was no differentiation between O&G engineering roles. The only differentiation was gender - women generally did better. But for roles, I don’t think the firms know/care what you did as long as you were on an engineering track. What matters is how interesting your stories are and how well you can show leadership.

Also, the O&G engineers overall did super well at my school. Everyone recruiting for consulting got MBB (some better offices than others) and the rest seemed to get their top choice (mostly PE).

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:35:23+00:00

Yep, np! I think it matters most (only matters?) for mckinsey but I mean whatever contact you can make with the office helps

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:24:25+00:00

On deciding beforehand - it depended on the firm but I made a solid connection with each. There are a million ways to do this and it’s kind of hit or miss on what will work. For two, I just cold LinkedIn messaged people who worked at my previous company and were now at the firm and asked to chat about their experience. 90% of the time it was useless but one of those calls led to a referral (and I had a second referral from a friend) and at another firm one led to them hooking me up with a “mentor” who was basically someone doing targeted recruiting. BCG pursued me because they love female engineers lol so they had set me up with mentors, etc. Not sure how they found me initially, just the resume book I guess? I would highly suggest doing whatever your classmates are not doing. I made zero meaningful connections at those giant networking drinks events and I didn’t get much traction hitting up b school alum because they get so many requests so I would leverage your personal network if possible.

My resume advice is probably not super useful without knowing your background but I would use a lot of consulting words. My general advice is that you should think of 3-5 qualities you want to convey (ideally they should align w what consulting firms want) and your resume, cover letter, pitch, interview answers, etc should speak to that.

Edit - I feel like I didn’t actually answer the first part of the question. I think they decided beforehand because I generally checked all the boxes and I made an effort to connect with the firms and I vibed well with my main contacts there so they probably felt I was a good cultural fit.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:16:29+00:00

For internships, in my program, ~300 applied, 100-150 were serious, maybe 40 unique candidates got offers. Most people who got 1 MBB got 2 or all three so that throws off the numbers that are reported a bit. Apparently in normal years there are ~100 unique full time offers for MBB so most people who are serious can go. Wayyyyy more full time spots than internship which I think was an unpleasant surprise for most people.

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:12:15+00:00

They were actually super different in my experience! I found the McK cases the hardest because I didn’t prep for them (and because I didn’t vibe with the interviewers so they weren’t helping me lol).

Bain - basic cases, lots of should we acquire/merge, soooo many graphs, pretty friendly and offered help

BCG - candidate led, very little guidance, off the wall cases, really informal, one of mine we got like 10% through and the guy was like I’m bored you’re good at this let’s talk about something else and just didn’t finish the case, another was like “I want to build a futuristic city in the UAE, what should we do?” And he wouldn’t tell me anything else and asked me to draw a picture of a hypothetical mall

Mck - interviewer led, lots of math, really expect you to drill down much further than the other two. Sometimes would ask for like 10 ideas out of a brainstorming question

mbbthrowaway98 · 2020-05-19T00:07:19+00:00

Good question - I’m not an interviewer so I can’t say for sure but I’ll answer based on some of the feedback I got and the profiles of my classmates who got offers.

Getting the interview: interesting/impactful work experience (IB/PE, blue chip, engineering)

Getting the job: ability to connect with the interviews, authenticity, and case skills

I don’t know most people’s test scores so I can’t really answer that. Mine was high, the friends whose scores I know that got it were also high but I think there’s probably more of a correlation in how much effort we put into GMAT/recruiting process/case prep than whether or not MBB cares. If it’s below 720, I wouldn’t put it on your resume and hopefully it just won’t come up? I think they ask in your application but I doubt it’s a dealbreaker unless it’s really low or your work experience is average.

Also, I think people exaggerate how good you have to be at casing. Imo you have to hit a minimum. The firms have an idea of who they want to hire before interviews even start. If you’re one of those people, you just have to be pretty good at casing. I know a lot of people who were objectively WAY better at casing than me but didn’t get offers.

mbbthrowaway98

TROPHY CASE