You know...one thing I've got to learn is not to trust my assessment of how I did in these interviews. yesterday, I told y'all about how I'd got a second round invite from BCG when i thought I'd done terrible. Well, the opposite just happened with Bain...I got the "heck naw" from them after I thought I'd done great on the interview. To make matters worse, I got the bad word over email. That's right...over email. I'm still trying to figure out where I fell flat during the two interviews with them and I've emailed both interviewers to get feedback from them so I can address the issues as I prepare for the rest of my interviews.
This whole process is a crap shoot, but I feel so much better knowing that I've got a job waiting for me, regardless of what happens.
As the title states, the interviewers I had on monday for BCG must've been hallucinating when they spoke with me because I somehow got invited for a second round. I got the call earlier today during one of my classes and the DC office is checkin' for The Kid. I was never able to get the recruiter back on the phone to plan everything out, but it looks like I'll be heading out there sometime in the next couple of weeks. It's a huge relief to have gotten the good word from them because I thought I'd completely bombed their interview. I was supposed to have heard from Bain by tonight, but I didn't get a call, so i'm starting to wonder whether I'd done as well as I thought on their interviews...I'm not going to put too much thought into it though because I'm turning out to be a poor judge of my performance on these interviews.
OK, as a way to round out this entry, I thought I'd respond to the questions that someone posed to me in a blog comment. As always, i'll answer them to the best of my ability, but there are some parts where I'll just have to say "who knows?":
>>Can you go into more detail on what the BCG and Bain interviews were like? What sort of questions did they ask you?
The interviews for Bain and BCG were similar in that they asked pretty challenging business case questions. If you've never seen a case question before, it's hard to understand how tought they can be. A couple of quick examples are things like "Our client is a paper manufacturer whose profits are going down but revenues are going up...what could the problem be?", "Our client would like to spin off one of their subsidiaries. what should they be concerned with in this scenario?", and "Our client wants to release a new product...should they do it?". Usually, you are given next to no information unless you ask for it and that's where the challenge comes in because knowing what to ask isn't always an obvious thing. There is also a fit portion to these interviews, but the case portion carries the bulk of the weight when they're critiquing you.
>>What do you think differentiated your consulting interview experience with your classmates that have done well? Are they taking different classes? Do they have a different background (i.e. consulting background)?
I don't really know how to answer this question because it looks like I've done a lot better on the interviews this time around than I thought. I think the main thing that is differentiating my classmates from each other during the full-time recruiting process is the amount of interview prep that they've done. Some people in my class have been running through practice cases since August and others had only done 2 or 3 cases to practice for these interviews. Practice makes perfect when it comes to case interviews. I only did 4 or 5 cases before the itnerviews, but I'd given cases to about 10 people and I got a lot of insight from how those people broke down the problems themselves. Also, i'd done about 100 cases by the time I got to the end of the inernship search process last year, so a lot of that insight is still in me.
When trying to get internships in consulting, one's background does matter a lot and people with prior consulting and/or banking experience have a leg up, but, if your case game is tight, you can still get a great internship in consulting. My problem was that I didn't have the optimal background to get a summer consulting internship and my case game wasn't tight enough in the early part of the recruiting cycle. By the time I got to Accenture interviews, I was on point though and, now, I'm just trying to get myself back to that level of performance in the interviews. I'm still not there yet, but I can feel myself getting close.
>>Where has Stanford done a good and poor job of preparing you for Bain and BCG? What more could Stanford have done to put you in a better position to do well in these interviews?
I think that Stanford has done a good a job as it could to prepare me for the interviews this year, so, if I don't end up getting an offer from these companies, I'll have no one to blame but myself. During last year's internship process, I was caught off-guard by the case interviews because we hadn't had Strategy or Marketing yet and I really didn't know how to break down a business case at that point. Once I got to the end of the Winter quarter, I felt that my analysis game was at a high point, but that came too late for me to have knocked out a lot of these consulting companies. This year, I think my biggest handicap has been connecting some of the info from the different Core classes to form my end-to-end business intuition. Remember, I had just about no business experience before I got to the GSB, so I'm sure that the business intuition will develop over time and I'm not too worried about it.
Honestly, all a business school can do is give you the business fundamentals and then everything else comes from how you use those fundamentals to break down problems. Aside from that, you can lean on your school's Consulting Club to provide copies of case books and plan case interview workshops and practice sessions and your fellow students to run through cases with you. When it comes to the case interviews, it's all about practicing cases to get sharper at breaking down the problems and developing your business intuition so you'll know what to do once you've got the problem broken down.
Whew, I'm finally finished with the first round itnerviews I had this week and it was a BEAST getting ready for and getting through them. The first was with Boston Consulting Group on monday and those cats DESTROYED me. I wish i was exaggerating with that one, but I did so badly that I walked out of the second of the two interviews feeling embarrassed for having wasted their time. I would go into further detail, but it'd probably depress me all over again to have to type out how they ran over me like a human speedbump. BCG was supposed to have notified all interviewees of their status by tonight, but I still haven't heard anything, so i'm starting to think that they gave me the "Gas Face". I've only heard of 4 people who've been moved on to the second round so far, so it looks like they were hecka selective this year for the full-time positions. Honestly, if they call me and invite me to do a second round interview, I'd be both shocked and concerned about whether my interviewers had been hallucinating when i was speaking to them.
The second set of interviews were with Bain & Company yesterday and I left there feeling pretty confident that I'd done well. Last year, Bain blazed me and my first interviewer yesterday was the same guy who'd done that blazing, so I was shook when i saw him. Fortunately, he didn't remember how I'd crumbled under the weight of his case last year and I was able to comfortably get through his case. The fit portion of their interview was with a GSB 2001 alum who I really clicked well with. She mainly asked me questions about what I'd do if I were the CEO of my latest pre-MBA employer to improve the company, so I had a good time working through the questions she posed to me in that scenario. She also hit me with a scenario with me starting a record label that came at me from left field...I'm not sure if I did well with that part but I still felt good walking out of her interview. I have learned to always be cautious when thinking that I did well on an interview, but I'm really expecting to get the good word from them sometime tomorrow.
It's great to have those first rounds knocked out, but the unfortunate side effect of it is that I've been left so wiped out that it has been difficult to motivate myself to do work since then. Thank goodness I've got that job offer from Accenture in my pocket because I would have probably ran myself into the ground even worse to prepare for these interviews if I hadn't had that extra bit of security. I've still got Booz Allen next week and then a second round with McKinsey & Co on November 18, so I'm not out of the woods yet.
One of my goals coming into this school year was to be less involved in things and allow myself to fall-back and be more relaxed...unfortunately, I'm doing a terrible job at it. This is basically how I was for the first two quarters of last year too and it had me ready to fall out at any given moment, but I'm surprisingly enjoying it this year for some unknown reason.
School is going surprisingly well even though all my classes have a ton of readings. I still haven't mastered the arts of skimming and speed-reading, so I spend a lot of time taking in the info, but, since I actually wanted these classes, it's much more enjoyable learning this material than it is in the Core. As we go through our class discussions, I'm seeing how far people in my class have come in their business acumen and confidence in the classroom in such a short time. Folks who had no business background (including myself) are seriously bringing the thunder in class discussions. People who used to never speak are ready to ump in when they get that cold call and others who used to talk all the time are picking and choosing their times to speak more carefully. A lot of people say that B-school doesn't teach you anything but how to network, but they couldn't be more wrong.
The recruiting stuff is coming up hard and fast and it has a lot of us overwhelmed. This past week was only our third week of class and also was the second week of company presentations, dinners, and activities. It's good to know that these companies are interested in us, but it all seems to be going on too early. As y'all probably know, our school year starts about a month after most schools, so we're at the back-end of most companies' recruiting schedules, but it is still hella early for us when one considers that we are still getting readjusted to being back in the classroom. Don't think I'm complaining though...if companies want to come here and take me out to nice dinners, cool happy hours, and give me a chance to make a ton of money with their firms, I'm all for it, but it would've been nice to have a couple of weeks to chill before all of this activity.
Because the on-campus interviews for the consulting companies will be starting next week, my classmates have been running around like crazy to do case interview practices. As I look toward these interviews, I've been amazed at how quickly my case game has deteriorated since March. When i went into my internship interview process, my case game was weak as watered-down Kool-Aid and I attribute that to the reason why i struggled so badly with the on-campus recruiting (OCR) cycle. By the time, I worked my way in front of Accenture, my case game was on point like an arrow...which makes sense because I'd done around 100 cases by that time. I assumed that my skills would stay sharp through the rest of the school year and the summer, but my man Raj dashed those thought away when he lit me up on a case practice this past Friday. I recovered the following day after attending a "Cracking the Case" workshop and cracking the heck out of a case with my man Takashi. Right now, I don't know where I stand in terms of my readiness, but I've got a whole lot of prepping to do because BCG is next monday and Bain is the next day.
In addition to school and job search stuff, i've slipped up and let myself get caught up in extracurriclar stuff too. Since this is my last quarter as a SA Senator, I'm trying to do as much as I can now so people won't look back on me and think I was lazy and bootleg during my term. This has involved me helping some MBA1's with their Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, helping another senator organize some MBA1-MBA2 integration activities, and doing an audit of all of the GSB club websites to find format consolidation opportunities. If this was all I had, i'd be good, but I wouldn't be writing about it if that were the case. As a part of my BBSA leadership stuff, I spent the better part of the last 2-3 months planning our retreat (thank goodness that's over) and, in an attempt to work off the momentum of the retreat, I've been taking groups of BBSA MBA1's out to lunch and dinner so I can get to know them better. I thought those joints would be easy to do, but each one usually takes a couple of hours and is getting into my study time. Goodness...what else am I into?...oh yeah, I'm also doing some pro-bono consulting work for a GSB alum and her husband, who are trying to start up a new web-based initiative focused on college students. A lot of these things will be finished by the end of the quarter, but it's going to be so crucial trying to make it through to Winter break.
The biggest difference that I've seen this year is that I'm actually having more time to socialize with classmates and more random gatherings are happening outside of the "GSB-centric" events. It seems like I'm getting an email every other day about a dinner, BBQ, or hang-out session at someone's house, so there are tons of opportunities to kick it with classmates. Part of this may be that everyone is just getting back to school and wants to see everyone, but it is great to see people from all over the place at these things. At this time last year, people had starting breaking out into cliques and i never saw much intermingling outside of the school, so this is a welcome change. Too bad we only have one year left here...This year is starting out WAY better than last year even though I feel like I'm ten times busier now than I was back then.
I guess I've fallen back into the habit of taking a long time between my entries now that I'm back in school. I spent all summer thinking that I would just be kickin' it during the second year, but my professors must have eavesdropped on those daydreams and decided to dash away my plans. So far, I've been grindin' pretty steadily and, while it isn't as tough as the first year, I sure wasn't expecting to be spending as much time studying at this point.
Unlike last year when the companies were approaching us in the Winter quarter, they're running at us hard and fast already and it isn't even the end of the second week of Fall classes yet. This week was full of company-sponsored breakfasts, lunches, and dinners and I might have gotten as much information from these firms as I did from my professors in their lectures. Normally, I wouldn't mind hitting up all of these functions, but we're all still trying to adjust to being in class again, so the recruiting stuff is adding on to the mental load that most of my classmates and I have to face. I'm SO thankful that I have an offer in hand because the stress would likely be ten times worse if I didn't...speaking of which, as I'm thinking about these companies that I'm going to interview with, I had Accenture finally give me the details of my job offer yesterday and all I can say is "WOW!" They really must be checkin' for The Kid because, when the recruiter gave me a description of the pacage, I almost dropped my cell phone from the shock of it all. I haven't gotten my offer packet in the mail yet, but that phone call had me seriously thinking about not interviewing anywhere else at all. It's so nice to have choices when it comes to the job thing :-)
This weekend is our second annual Black Business Student Association retreat and, as one of the BBSA Social and Community co-Chairs, it was my job to plan this event. The planning started in the middle of July and I thought that 3 months would be plenty of time, but I was totally wrong. Here I am only a few hours from our arrival time at the location and i'm still wondering whether it will go off without a hitch. Things starting off sour when it took us over a month to find a decent location and followed that up with a comedy of errors surrounding our attempts to get corporate sponsorship for the event. Then, we had to contend with working things out with our facilitators. By the time I got all that worked out, I was just now sending notifications out about the joint to the BBSA members a week ago and having to do so with several separate emails because the information was changing daily. I've heard some grumblings that many of the first years think this trip is going to be bootleg, but, at this point, I just want it to happen without any major problems and don't really care how nice or raggedy it ends up being. Taking on extra responsibilities when you've already got a full plate of other activities and a loaded course schedule is a BEAST!!!