Ranking your office preferences for McKinsey, Bain, BCG

So some of you have asked about how to rank offices to max your chances of getting the offer, getting into business school, and to achieve other ends.

Here's my advice:

If you want to break into private equity: Boston, New York, and San Fran have the most exposure to those clients.

If you want to get into Harvard business school / Graduate School of Business at Stanford / Wharton: from my view it may be harder to get into NY or Boston office of MBB, but that doesn't mean consultants from NY / Boston have a higher chance of getting into a top business school. MBB all place very well in top B schools, regardless of office location. Keep in mind, for B-School , the location doesn't matter as much as the type of experience and level of exposure. It can be argued that a candidate is slightly more attractive for B school if he's in SF/ NY -- with exposure to large PE clients, F50 first, instead of Miami or Dallas where there can be local clients.

IF you want to land an internship offer or full time offer: IF you aren't an exceptional candidate relative to other applying at your school, I recommend that you place one of the less-sought regional offices as your top choice(s). For all three firms, there are more and less selective offices - meaning many applicants apply to the NY / SF / Boston offices but may not get them if it's a difficult year recruiting-wise. In that case, candidates can get offers for the "less selective" locations.

I don't normally comment on prestige of offices because I think it doesn't mean that much. Here are general thoughts on industry exposure according to office location (not necessarily true in every or most cases, so consider them for what they're worth):

• For McKinsey, it doesn't matter so much which office you are staffed in since cases are staffed globally. For example, you can be based in Dallas and be working from San Fran, Atlanta, Hong Kong, or another international office.
• For Bain, offices tend to do as much local work as possible, meaning there tends to be less travel than McK and BCG. So if you want to media, don't go to Atlanta.
• For BCG, it is in-between McK and Bain in terms of case mix and amount of travel.

Standing out for the right reasons

"Why should I hire you?"

You are guaranteed to get this question in all your interviews. Answering this in a unique, compelling way will increase the chances that interviewers will remember you. Otherwise you are another nameless face in a pack of resumes when it comes to making offers.

We have given examples of outstanding stories that people used to land their jobs.

The point in answering this question is not to say something that you think is impressive. An interviewer has listened to bullshit pretty much all day. The last thing they want to hear is a wannabe banker/consultant regurgitate the Vault guide or something they heard from an informational session.

Studies have shown that people only listen to about 40% of what is said in a conversation. There's a higher probability that what you say will stick in the interviewer's head if your story is unique and personal while being interesting.

There is one caveat. Many readers have emailed us asking if they could spin their stories in a certain way to make themselves more interesting. In some cases, this "spinning" makes them sound like a complete tool. I can say from my experience that those who try to be too creative with their stories tend to fail, save those who truly are distinctive and can say something substantive about it and back it up.

Case in Point: A reader recently asked us if

1. he should use his ethnicity, first-immigration status, and lineage from an obscure tribe in his sell pitch during an interview

2. in response to a question -- "Can you give me an example where you faced a tough-love or tough-hate reaction in school and how you reacted to it?" -- use an anecdote about how people have been ignorant of his ethnicity (this was an actual interview question from an MD)

Stories about your political leanings and your ethnicity are on the risky side -- don't mention them unless the interviewer starts the conversation. If you are passionate about these topics, and are convinced that you absolutely want to bring them up in your story, be tactful and as objective as you possibly can.

This is easier said than done, which is why I advise against pitching yourself on these criteria. Of course you should take pride in your heritage, but that doesn't demonstrate any merit for why you are better for the job. It comes off as you trying too hard to stand out.

People holding unfair assumptions of you based on ethnicity is a terrible thing. But using such an anecdote to answer question 2 would not help you, in my opinion. This is because finance -- and especially trading -- requires thick skin and someone who can take insensitive comments. The MD is gauging how you respond to conflict and how you are proactive in resolving even the slightest conflict, since working well in teams is vital to doing well at the job.

In sum, as you prepare for interviews, keep this in mind:

The point is to be sincere about your desire to break into the industry, but not to say that too explicitly through a trite, overused story.

You demonstrate this candidly by using your own words and your own story to sell yourself.

Don't refer to things to make yourself sound impressive. I guarantee you will come off as insincere and a tool.

Have a sanity check on what you are planning to say. And think about what the interviewer is testing when he/she asks you a question.

Don't try to spin yourself out of answering a tough question because interviewers will know that you are dodging the point. Be candid and dispel any concerns the interviewer may have.

How to get informational interviews

This commentary applies to you if:

• you're a senior and looking to land a full time gig
• you're a junior and haven't had any luck with getting interviews so far (it's still early)
• you're a sophomore and the bulge brackets and management consultants won't look at you because you have no experience and don't stand out
• you're a freshman and have no idea what banking / consulting / finance is

Basically, if you don't have a job and want to significantly increase your chances of landing one, you should know how to get informational interviews and then nail them.

1. What is an informational interview?

It takes place at the firm's headquarters or firm representatives come to your campus. You get to speak with people at all levels, from junior analysts to managing directors and partners. You get one on one time to talk about your interests, and get to ask those questions you can't get answered by Vault guides and even websites like these. You get a personal understanding of what goes on as a potential hire and learn about the type of people that tend to succeed at the firm.

2. What is there to gain from an informational interview?

As I've said before, it's hard to stand out in a pack of resumes. When everyone has a great GPA and great experiences to sell themselves, 75% of the time recruiters will give a first-round interview invite to students that showed initiative in learning more about the firm. This means getting on the phone, speaking with firm representatives in person, and reaching out to ANY contact. Few students take advice from firm employees and follow up.

McKinsey and other firms hold coffee chats with students on some college campuses. It takes initiative for a student to ask around or be on the lookout for these events, and there are limited slots open. Those students who end up having an informational session had a 50% chance of getting selected for a first round interview, which is much more promising than the average 7% invite rate.

3. How do I get informational interviews?

If you are set at working at a couple of firms, email a contact there (preferably couple months before the official resume drop or in advance of recruiting season if they don't recruit at your school). Don't ask for a job outright and don't email your resume in the first message.

Keep the email short - no more than 5 sentences - and mention the reason why you're contacting them (i.e. interested in learning about the industry, want to hear about his experience, how he / she broke in)

If you get a response, have a phone call with 3 or 4 pointed questions prepared.

If you don't, email others until you get a response.

Once you get a response, build rapport with the contact. Every couple months send an article over that might be of interest or give a few book suggestions. Be genuinely interested in what they have to say. Don't use these contacts as means to an end.

There's no guarantee that everyone will want to give you an informational interview over the phone or in person, but you need to keep contacting people and trying to be personable, friendly, and serious about wanting to break in. The ones that like you will give you a shot. Others may not but that's part of getting yourself noticed in a positive light.

About us, Frequently Asked Questions, and Resume/Cover letters

1. Why did you start this site?

Despite being at a top school, our university career centers gave poor advice on how to write resumes for finance and consulting jobs. From working at top management consulting firms (McKinsey/Bain/Boston Consulting Group) and interning at a few of the bulge bracket investment banks (Goldman Sachs and others) in New York, we know exactly what the most selective firms are looking for.

We’ve reviewed hundreds of resumes from students, including those from target and non-target schools. We were also on the recruiting teams for our schools at our respective firms -- and have the experience of deciding who is given an interview slot and who isn’t.

Many people have the credentials --good grades, good scores, good experiences – but lack the inside perspective to write a winning resume/cover letter and subsequently nail the interview. At a target school (Ivy League plus MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Michigan and other top undergrads where firms have formal recruiting cycles), it’s difficult to stand out among the pack of resumes. At one target school:

• A bulge bracket received 500+ resumes for a sales & trading summer analyst position.
• Only 32 interview slots were given out.

• One MBB received 300+ resumes for a summer internship.
• Only 20 first-round interview invites were handed out.

That means for about every 100 resumes seen, only 6 are interviewed -- this is where good writing and a solid story really make a difference when it comes to deciding who should be interviewed.

At a non-target, the standard is often even higher -- firms could fill their entire analyst and summer internship classes with students from target schools, and thus it’s absolutely necessary to have the resume/cover letter in top shape.

This is a no-nonsense look at these fields. We give the most realistic, personalized advice out there.

2. What's your background?

We attended a target school. In finance, we worked at bulge bracket firms. In consulting, we worked at one of the top management consulting firms–McKinsey, Bain, Boston Consulting Group (MBB).

We managed to successfully land positions at the most selective firms because we pitched our stories in our resumes and cover letters.

We did this without having special advantages and without traditional backgrounds. We DID NOT have:

• any alumni or family connections
• a pre-professional education in business/finance
• formal (case) interview preparation from other websites
• resumes/cover letters reviewed by other professional editing services

In spite of this, we were specifically told by recruiters at the top firms that our resumes were the highest rated in our starting classes.

We didn’t mimic the resume templates already out there. We customized our applications to portray our strengths in the highest light.

We were successful in landing our jobs through experience, insight, and judgment.

We’ve each been through over 60 interviews and know how interviewers will ask questions based on how the resume is written. It is crucial to have your story down, know how to think off your feet based on what you have done in the past, and steer the interview and resume to your strengths. Having this success in recruiting all starts with the resume and the cover letter.

3. Who have you helped break into banking and consulting?

We've reviewed hundreds of resumes of students from:

• Liberal arts backgrounds (with no finance / economics coursework)
• Engineering backgrounds
• Math/Economics/Finance backgrounds
• Non-targets and semi-targets, including: a Business and History major who wanted to work in consulting; a freshman who wanted to start getting finance experiences; an Arts & Sciences student wanted to break into a hedge fund at a university with an undergraduate business school; a Math major who wanted to do risk management at a bulge bracket
• Top targets, including : those with prior internships at Goldman Sachs who wanted to move into consulting for full-time; those who interned at Sales and Trading for their sophomore summer and wanted to move into Investment Banking for their next summer internship; a Neuroscience major who wanted to do banking his junior summer; an Art History major who landed a job at a hedge fund; and countless others
• Those with no finance or consulting experience whatsoever

Regardless of your background, there is a right way to write a resume and specific core competencies recruiters are looking for.

Unless you’ve successfully landed jobs at several firms in the past and have been on the recruiting team, you wouldn’t have a clue of what is an exceptional resume and what is a good one.

We have the inside perspective to help you start landing those interviews.

4. How is your cover letter and resume review service different from others?

1. Our editors include past management consultants, investment bankers, traders, equity researchers, and those who worked at hedge funds and in the investment management division of bulge bracket banks. When we receive your resume, the editor reviewing it has worked in the same position you are applying for — and will give a personalized, professional re-write. At other sites, the editor is oftentimes someone who works only in one position (e.g. in investment banking) and can only give general feedback for someone applying to trading or consulting — they do not provide detailed and precise knowledge on how your resume will be reviewed by the recruiters at the division you're applying for.
2. At least two editors will review your resume/cover letter. So say you are applying to sales & trading and investment banking -- you will get feedback from people in both positions. You tell us what you're applying for, and we'll give you tailored advice at one price.
3. We have an incentive system where the editor’s interest is aligned with your interest. After getting your winning resume, you provide feedback and give a rating, which determines that editor’s discretionary pay.
4. Editing is a two-way process, and it doesn't end with the resume or cover letter. We give extensive, actionable comments, and will ask you to makeover parts for our immediate review. This means you will get to know how your reviewer thinks, and afterwards learn how to pitch yourself in a light that resonates with recruiters and interviewers at any firm for any position.

How to turn business cards into your high-powered contacts

It helps a lot to have a point of contact at a firm. An insider can coach you through the interview process and gives tips on who you'll be interviewing with. They can also put a good word in for you to HR. When you are in the "maybe" pool, having a contact more often than not can make you get the offer. It goes without saying that the odds tip in your favor when you have a contact.

We've had posts on how to collect business cards at networking events and informational sessions. Remember to have a casual conversation and try to get to know each analyst or MD beyond work. If given the chance, talk about where you grew up, where you like going on vacations, what music you listen to, any interesting books you read lately. MDs don't forget it students that have shared interests.

To illustrate, a politics student at an East Coast university talked with an alum, an MD at a bulge bracket firm, about recent elections. The student had worked on the Obama campaign, while the alum had worked on a campaign one summer as an undergrad. The alum mentioned a fundraising event for a candidate, and invited the student to attend even before the student had followed up. The student attended, had built a strong connection with the alum, and got to learn about the alum's job and the industry as a whole. This was the student's "way into" banking.

What should you take away from this?

At informational sessions on campus or at networking sessions, there are always a huddle of students around each analyst or MD. Do have your questions prepared, and also listen in on what they are saying to other students. If the MD and analyst are alums, they are bound to talk about what it was like being an undergrad -- what clubs, teams, classes they were a part of -- and you can strike up a more personal, enjoyable conversation based on the alum's interests.

Maintain professional presence and talk as if you would to a professor you know well. By striking the right balance between professional drive and being personable, you stand a greater shot of landing your dream job.

A non-target success story

This is a guest post by an investment banker at a bulge bracket firm. He attended a non-target school in the mid-west, where no firms come to recruit. Here's his story on how he took a spot at a prestigious firm away from a target school kid.

Hope 2010 is going well for everyone. My first week of the new decade has been packed and hectic at work. It looks like I'll be in the office this weekend--such is the life of a banker!

I started at my bank in June 2008. My journey here was a long one, and I'd like to share my tips and tricks into the industry.

I grew up in the mid-west and decided to attend a public university near home. I had no clue what investment banking was at that time. And it isn't something on the radar where I went to school. There were no info sessions and as far as I know few, if any, who went into banking. That means I didn't have a network base to tap into to learn more about it.

It wasn't until I took a class my junior fall on Investments that I seriously thought about finance. My professor was a trader at a hedge fund for the past 15 years and quit in 2005 before disaster hit. I did well in that course and was ambitious enough to believe I could do it as a career.

I went to my professor's office hours and did my due diligence on trading as a career. I asked him the hard questions - why he had left and if he regretted doing trading. It sounded like a great way to apply my finance knowledge, and make a killing for a few years.

I asked my professor for any contacts he had, for anyone who wouldn't mind my getting in touch. I started reading the Economist, Deal Breaker, and industry classics (Liar's Poker, Barbarians at the Gate), so that I really knew what was going on in the markets.

I got on the phone with traders at hedge funds in Chicago. Because I came from a non-target, the trader did not expect me to have ANY idea what trading was, much less what was going on the markets. He asked me what I thought would happen with a couple indices in the next year and in the next five years. I didn't know what the indices were (one was a credit derivatives index), but I responded by explaining the market dislocation for agency securities. The trader held the same exact view--he was impressed, and put in me in touch with recruiting at the firm.

I was lucky to know how to respond to that answer -- it was my big break. I ended up doing an internship in Chicago that summer, learning anything and everything about the markets. I rotated through three product trading desks, and got high reviews.

I went in an hour earlier than anyone else and left an hour later than everyone--I worked my ass off! I joined professional industry groups and other networking groups for traders. I went to at least one event every weekend to meet others in the industry. My advice is to be vocal and talk to as many people as you can at these events--I am not an extremely extroverted person but realized I needed to find other people to learn the ins and outs of different firms and positions. By the end of the summer, I'd been to around 20 networking events and had met around 130 people, a couple of which became my good friends.

As I went into senior year, I had a full time offer in hand from the hedge fund. I enjoyed and did well in trading. But given that I was a "late comer" to finance, there was a lot in finance I knew nothing about -- banking, asset management, prime brokerage, and even financial consulting.

I updated my contacts on how I was doing throughout the summer and at the end of my internship, asked if they would be up for meeting for lunch on a weekend or for coffee during the week. I ended up meeting 15 people, and they agreed to forward my resume and cover letter to the right people. I was open to pretty much any position, and played up the projects I worked on at the hedge fund. The people meeting with me knew that I could handle really quantitative work and also work with clients on the sales sides. They sent my resumes to a variety of positions -- these firms included boutique banks, a risk management firm, event-driven hedge funds, and bulge bracket firms. I cast a really wide net, because at the very least it would be a networking opportunity for me.

I didn't waste any time and started preparing for informational interviews. This means knowing the news, brushing up on my finance knowledge, and asking my contacts for advice on what I should do to prepare. I knew I would face very technical questions off the cuff--and that I would need to answer them without fail to even have a shot. I went to Chicago two times once school started, and also went on my own to New York for a day. This was all on my own time and with my own money.

I got used to talking with senior people during interviews, and was very familiar with my resume. I only had one major finance experience and had to really sell myself based on that. I also highlighted my persistence and discipline in wanting to work on Wall Street. When it came to the real interviews, I had my story down cold. I wasn't nervous and knew how to make an argument in response to any question.

In the end, I interviewed at 8 places and had 3 offers--one at a hedge fund, one at a boutique, and another at a bulge bracket. I decided that starting in New York and at a large, name-brand firm would do the most for me career-wise. I love trading, but again was also excited at the opportunity of doing banking.

So that's how I got to where I am today.

How to break in from a non-target, for those with gaps in pedigree and GPA

Bulge bracket firms and other ibanks tend to recruit at a sample of target schools.

That means that you can spend 100 hours on your resume, cover letter, and interview preparation and be rejected after a 30 second scan of your application. All because you don't go to a target school.

If you:

• don't go to Harvard or Wharton or another top school
• don't have a 3.5+ GPA
• don't have prior finance/consulting experiences, and
• don't have connections to the industry

you can still break into finance and consulting.

1. Attend every information session you can and make a positive impression.

If banks and consultancies don't come to your school, go to your friends' schools and nearby schools where they do recruit. Sessions are usually packed so go early, try to speak with anyone at the firm who is free -- and keep the conversation casual. If you build up that rapport with them, they often ask for your name. At that point, introduce yourself more formally and ask what the application process is for you.

They will tell you to apply online or whatever, but that is bullshit -- honestly, the firm rarely chooses people who only apply via the website (there are easily over 20,000 applications). What should you do?

2. Get to know the analysts and firm representatives and get the real scoop on how you can get in.

Analysts are responsible for reviewing resumes. They are also the youngest people at the firm and the easiest to relate to -- which means you should take the initiative to talk and hit it off with them.

Be persistent but not annoying. Talk to everyone you can, be aggressive in having a few talking points and good questions (not those "what is a typical day like?" questions). If you stick around and show your commitment, and have interesting things to say, it's likely that more than one person will recall your name and they are more likely to give you a shot when they review resumes.

Collect business cards and follow up -- I maybe get one or two students, if that, email me questions and call me to talk more about the position. The worst case scenario is that he or she doesn't email you back. But it's the analysts' responsibility to talk to interested students from info sessions, and they hand out business cards so that students can follow up. So do it.

Even then, it takes well-thought out questions and a certain type of initiative -- while being likable -- for me to push for someone to get an interview.

3. Once you have a network, set up informational interviews and coffee chats.

There is only so much you can do over the phone or via email to get yourself seriously considered.

After a phone conversation or two with an analyst/associate/vp or MD, raise the possibility of getting coffee and talking more about the firm.

At that point, if they are up for it, set a date and meet in person at the office or somewhere nearby. Afterwards, if the banker/consultant is impressed, he may introduce you to more people at the firm. That's a GREAT sign that you'll get at least an interview. If you're likable, and the bankers / consultants think you'd be a fun person to work with, they'd take you over the typical target kid.

We had 8 interns in one industry group last summer -- 2 interns were hired from non-target schools, and had this plan of attack to get an offer.

They had a low 3.0 GPA, but made up for it with outside of school involvement. They also were the most aggressive in networking, setting up informational sessions, and following through in talking to the contacts they made to be successful in the recruiting process.

In the following post, we'll have a guest writer -- a non-target graduate who will give his inside tips on how he became a banker at a bulge bracket in New York.