Would-Be Bankers turn to Consulting

Yea, I heard from a friend at Bain that supposedly they are pushing 300 applications per school this year.

Does he have any estimates for those of us graduating in '09?

Do you think the recruiters care at all that they normally wouldn't apply (clearly they can tell from most resumes that these people clearly have their hearts set elsewhere)? Or will they really just choose whoever they deem best?

I feel like if I was a hiring manager, it'd be a bit of a minus compared to someone that clearly intended to go into MC.

I disagree that you can tell from a resume. An overwhelming majority of top b-school students are career switchers. How could a recruiter tell that someone working at a non-profit or a start up or in healthcare wants to go to banking over consulting?

As far as your avatar goes, the Cubs didn't choke this year. The better team won. My Boys in Blue beat the crap out of them three games in a row.

For full time recruiting, you can kind of tell who is fudgin' and who aint. If the guy's resume reads:

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO GSB
* Concentrations in Finance, Accounting and Economics
* Member of Investment Banking Group, Warren Buffet and IMG Group

Summer Associate, Goldman Sachs
* Bla bla

VS:

UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO GSB
* Concentrations in Strategy, Marketing and Operations
* Member of the Consulting Group, bla bla

Summer Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton
* Bla bla

I agree with rhyme. I am thinking that the people really interested in IB would still major and concentrate on finance and join the finance clubs. Those who want to do consulting would do likewise.

I am still interested in finance, and would be real hard for me to major and concentrate in strategy operations to get a consulting gig,because the finance industry just got rocked, or maybe I am being naive.

For full-time positions they can definitely tell if people were initially focused on banking rather than consulting. Still, the consulting firms know that many people get involved with banking recruiting as first year students because the banks come first, and it's pretty much impossible to go after both banking and consulting because of how much time recruiting takes up.

I actually believe that firms have the opposite view from what highhopes suggested. They would rather get a superstar transferring from banking rather than a bench warmer who went to a lesser consulting firm over the summer. Consulting firms are actively targeting people who had banking jobs over the summer. I've been contacted directly (meaning outside the course of normal recruiting) by each of the big three and several others; and I know people who were with Goldman (only gave offers to about 25% of summers), Lehman, Morgan (offers might start evaporating soon) are all getting lots of love these days.

To take Rhyme's hypothetical, would one of the big three prefer someone who summered with Goldman Sachs or Booz? Well, let's see, the person who went to Goldman beat out a bunch of other folks to make it to the top of the heap. The person who went to Booz almost certainly didn't make it into any of the big 3. Based on first year recruiting, one of these people is among the elite at their school (a true statement for pretty much any school); while the other is middle of the pack. Which one would BCG or McKinsey rather hire? Take a look at some of the recruiting guides out there and you'll see that the top consulting firms consider the bulge bracket banks (maybe I should say considered RIP) to be their primary competition.

Another interesting tidbit to gnaw on. I've been told directly by BCG and McKinsey that that their yields from their summer class were way above normal levels (not a surprise). Both firms also said that they were keeping hiring levels steady from last year (BCG said they might increase). But if you add it all up, the constant hiring levels, the higher yield from the summer, and the the flood of job seekers from banking mean that the consulting job hunt will be brutal this year. Might be as tough this year to land a job at AT Kearney or Deloitte as it has been in past years to get to the Big 3.

A few more things to consider. The market meltdown of the past week has cause the banking job market to shrivel even further (from already raiseny levels). Earlier in the fall BW published an article quoting mid-market banks saying that they were going to take troubles at the big banks as an opportunity to land some talent they wouldn't otherwise be able to get. Here at Darden, 3 mid-market firms canceled in the past week, including at least one of which was quoted in the BW article. Strangely, T. Rowe Price canceled on-campus interviews due to lack of interest. I guess the economy and job hunt are not yet tough enough for people to consider living in Baltimore (someone's going to get their panties in a bunch over that one) .

An MD from the Carlyle group presented to my corporate finance class a couple of days ago and he said that his group of 80 people had completed a total of one deal so far this year. Private equity has been totally dead, and of course hedge funds have been melting down in the market.

The student may not inform these clubs, and become a member now of the Consulting Group., Concentrations may be hard to change, hehehehe. The GS thing is impossible...

Peli,

Thanks for the insider input, as usual.

I know that in 2001, several banks, tech companies, and consulting firms were trying their hardest not to "revoke" offers. Instead, they were offering pretty sweet "Flex Leave" packages. From what I've read, they varied from being given a lump sum payout and being told to look for a new job, to being paid 50-80% of your salary for the year, forgoing benefits, and agreeing to delay your start date for approximately 1 year. A lot of kids apparently got to hang out, do non-profit work, and overall have a pretty awesome severance package for not even having started work yet. I'm sure there were all sorts of other packages in the mix as well.

Given the current economic situation, and the fact that people are having a very difficult time judging how long this one is going to last - are you and your classmates seeing any such packages being offered? Do you believe that we may have to wait until Spring time before such packages start coming out of the closet?

Have not heard of any such offers being handed out this year. I think you are right in that if they do end up doing something like this, it would be in the spring when the people holding their offers have few other choices. I don't think firms would do something like that when people still have the opportunity to go through the normal recruiting process.

What we have noticed was that firms held off giving out their offers as long as possible. Even firms that seemed to be doing well like Google and Goldman waited a month+ after school started to hand out their offers - this was tough because firms started second year recruiting the very first day of classes. I think this indicates that many many firms had no idea whether of their ongoing business or recruiting needs.

It's impossible to say how things will shake out this year. I think current second year students are optimistic, but we'll get a much better picture in a couple of months. Firms are still coming to campus to recruit, but who knows whether they will make fewer (or no) offers. The finance industry as we know it slowly collapsed over the summer, but I get the feeling that the job market in general took a substantial hit with everything that has happened in the past two weeks.

as for MC consulting jobs..the days of the generalists are over..MC fims are going to be hiring people who can add most value to them, and that would be people who can help in post-deal related specializations, people with actual business experience or in the case of finance services, someone who has a good idea of managing an organization.

In my own firm, we are big on recruiting specialists i.e. MDs, Lawyers, Scientists, Operations research etc, people with specific background experience relevant to upcoming projects.

Aren't M/B/B philosophically against hiring specialists? I have heard that they try to place as many MBAs as possible into the generalist pool and generalist program and have them specialize after a couple of years.

Well, some demographics are going to be highly recruited, physicians are a good example, because there's less of them and they don't have too much incentive to leave their current practice. It seems like they'd always place a heavy emphasis on recruiting these people, but I'm sure the hiring patterns don't generally change.

From what I was told by our career office and my classmates who previously worked for them, M/B/B love to hire people with backgrounds in some specialized areas but the vast majority of these do at least a few years as a generalist. Those who dont really do much generalist stuff are located in regional offices where their area of expertise dominates the business for the office. Right now healthcare (bio/pharma included) and energy/oil backgrounds are rather desirable. So though you may start as a generalist you are brought in for your expertise in certain areas.

A few things on this banker to consulting thing. 2nd years are going to have a hard time this year. Yes there will be more competition but as Rhyme pointed out where you did your summer internship wont hide where your real interests lie. Also talking with 2nd years and career services, consulting companies are hiring more from their internships than before...they brought in more interns with the idea of converting them into fulltime. That lets them know you fit and also that you know what you are in for when you start. For current and future students, the recruiting for these overlap so its not like you can try for one, fail and then try for another. If you want IB or MC you are going to have to hit the ground running almost right when you arrive on campus.

A classmates husband used to work for one of the Bulge Brackets (now rendundant), and he told me that even though they had a headcount freeze, they were still asked to go to recruit at schools. The main reason was to keep the relationship with the school. Although they never overtly said there would be no positions, he knew very well it was all for show and for relationship building.