Rhyme's Guide to Management Consulting Recruiting

ditto. btw, they also ask for your damned ACT/SAT scores, with breakdowns. WTF? my advice is to dig that stuff out now. It can take some time, so you'll save some frustration and $$$ if you do it now.

True. I had that pop up once too. I just left it blank.

And there I was...a year ago..thinking the GMAT will only have an impact on me getting into a school...

Haha...I think pretty soon it's gonna be important to tell kids in school to get better grades and have documentation ready if they want to break into MC..

I wonder if they really use such old information to differentiate candidates or ask for it just because....

To Rhyme and Audedat

I have been invited to the newly admitted students summer recruiting event at McKinsey, at one of their international offices. They required you to register online. Not surprisingly, they require you to input the undergrad GPA. What do you think I should do? It's a great networking opportunity, but I hope I will not be put on some GPA blacklist for future internship and FT events/interviews once I get to school....what do you guys think?

Anyone else care to chip in their views regarding how undergrad GPA affects MC recruitment?

the more they know and like you, the less those impersonal benchmarks - like ug gpa - will matter.

i would just fill it out and go. they'll find out eventually anyway. and the invite-only events don't start until later in the fall semester.

Absolutely go. Dont sweat the GPA issue. It's likely just a standard form they ask you to fill out, and I seriously doubt they'll even look at it - and they wont care what it is anyway.

Thanks guys, very helpful. I will go to the event and see what's up.

Great Post Ryme !!!! Kudos..

I had an interview with McKinsey in India last year .. (they take very few undergraduates from good colleges in India, but its very tough to get selected). there was a case study for Airports (similar to your museum story) and i blew it big time...... I wish i had seen this post earlier.....

Has anyone ever interviewed with Booz and if so how did it go?

Kudos, rhyme. Pursuing MC just started to cross my mind and this was a great intro to the field.

Thanks - excellent information.

Found more information on this video from vualt..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQUcoun99Vk

Thought I'd add one more thing.... if you get invited to a case prep session with MBB or whomever, show up prepared. These are often done in groups of 3 or 4 people with 1 consultant where you all get to work through the case together. I've been to some where the 3 or 4 students are fairly on par, and things move with reasonable speed and no one looks like an idiot. I've also been to some where people had clearly not prepared at all - and their excuse was "its non evaluative, so I figured I didn't need to prep":

1) Nothing is non-evaluative. You ever meet someone and NOT form an opinion? You really think that if a partner is impressed they wont take note of who impressed them?
2) Bombing a case in a private room and one partner is painful. Bombing it with a partner and two or three classmates is embarrassing and painful.
3) It wastes the time you have - you don't get meaningful feedback because you need so much more work that all you'll likely hear is 'Keep practicing', rather than specific tailored feedback.
4) It makes it frustrating for the others who have clearly prepared.

Thank you for your MC recruiting guide rhyme ... This world is still a better place to live because of ppl like you

I have a couple of questions :

1) Does going to a school heavy on case study pedagogy help in MC ?
2) Is there any book which introduces MC (for people with no consulting background)? Will it help to know the terms and concepts beforehand ?? I do believe in prep

hey guys, a quick question:

what is the average annual % raise for an associate at M/B/B? i have never seen any data on this. is it close to GM, ~5%? or is it closer to i-banking (no idea what %)?

thanks for your help!

1) No. The cases are fundamentally different in style and content. Questions can be straightforward "Why are we loosing money" to pretty wacky "Our client just found some dinosaur remains. What are they worth?". (from a big 3 firm no less!)

2) Most books suck, but if you have no idea what to expect, try "Case In Point". Don't get too worked up about the frameworks yet, I think he gives way way too many (I've got it down to 3 ... I think he has something like 12, its crazy).

Thanks rhyme ....

Hey Rhyme,

This is an excellent thread. Thank you for all the helpful info.

I am an American interested in starting at a Latin American office - hopefully in Brazil - of one of the big 3 after school. Do you know if international offices of the big 3, specifically the Latin American offices, recruit American MBAs? If so, how hard is it for an American MBA to land a position at, say, the Sao Paulo office? FYI - I speak both Spanish and Portuguese.

Thanks.