gmat4life wrote:
Hi Solaris,
I was group one. How about you? Your thoughts on the visit?
Pelihu - Can you comment a bit on the consulting placement locations. In speaking with CDO they mentioned even some of the big firms will come in and say they are only recruiting for the Atlanta office. Can you comment on this? Does this also occur for Finance recruiting? I had read earlier that you were interested in finance, can you comment on your plan for finance recruiting this year? The CDO staff was saying they are advising students to consider alternate fields this year.
Well, I had an investment banking internship with one of the top bulge bracket banks in Los Angeles this past summer. LA is my hometown. Finance recruiting is very dead for second year students right now. Those that were with top banks over the summer do have shots at some of the openings, but those are almost exclusively in New York. I'd rather not head to New York (just personal preference) so I'm looking at some other things. One of the things I'm interested in is investment management. I'm a portfolio manager with Darden Capital Management and I like that type of work. The challenge is that many of these firms do not make hiring decisions until the spring, and this year it seems that they are really pushing back their schedules. Given the extremely tough economy with more layoffs announced every day, it will take nerves of steel to sit around and wait for jobs that may or may not materialize in the spring.
Regarding recruiting for consulting, I can tell you that comment is not true. I've been recruiting with some of the top consulting firms this year (a safe harbor for a few years given that the financial world is getting crushed - not just banks, but private equity and HFs - anyone take a look at the news from KKR and Fortress?). After on-campus interviews, I had a final round with the LA office of one of the Big 3 last week, and will be heading to San Francisco for a final round this Friday with another of the Big 3. I can also assure you that many students here have been called back by the Big 3 to New York, Chicago, New Jersey (everyone has their own preferences), Boston, Philadelphia and many other locations. I can also tell you for sure that second year students have received offers from McKinsey in Taipei, Bain in several China locations and a good friend of mine just got an offer from Bain Capital in Singapore. We also had people in Stockholm, Germany, throughout Europe and in India as well (these are all just off the top of my head - there are others).
Certainly, most people from Darden head to Atlanta, DC & Dallas, however I believe that's highly correlated with the backgrounds of the people who are here. As alluded to in some prior messages, many people here are from the South and/or would like to live in the South. Such students naturally target the offices around here (Atlanta being the biggest consulting employer in the region). It's also well-known that some locations are much more competitive to get to; San Francisco is the best example, but NY and LA are also very tough. The firms themselves say this so some students choose to direct their attentions at less competitive offices - this is particularly true for international students who don't already have ties to a certain area. Which leads to the final point that the most in-demand offices always cast a wary eye at people who do not have connections to the city in question. For example, of the 300 students in the 2nd year class at Darden, perhaps 20 are from California. Subtract out those who already have jobs, and those who are looking at other industries, and you're really looking a just a handful of people that might target San Francisco as their top choice.
But to say that any of the top firms recruit only for Atlanta is completely incorrect. I only really know about recruiting at the Big 3, but I can tell you that while Atlanta was probably the most popular destination (see above reasons), far less than 1/2 of the call-backs were for Atlanta (certainly not all). There are reasons why someone from here would choose a local as their top choice - for example the Darden community is much stronger in an office if many people head there each year and some people value this a lot. However, if you're from New York, San Francisco or Los Angeles, you'll have a great shot to interview for a job in these cities (up to you to close the deal). If you're from the hills of West Virginia before heading to Darden, you're going to have a tough time making a case for any of the most competitive cities - but that's true for almost any school with any of the elite firms.
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11 Nov 2008, 17:56
