Are referrals worth it?

Referrals are great to get you an interview invite. After that, they don't help anymore, so they only get you a foot in the door, but you need to impress in the interview nevertheless.

Hi!

Not sure what you are exactly asking? Worth what? The effort? Well - if your objective is to land an interview at the big consulting firms, then the answer is mostly yes. But as usual - if you want a high quality answer to your question, then providing context in terms of target firms, geography, time line, your situation etc. would greatly help. :)

Cheers, Sidi

100% 

How would they not be? You spend some time and energy and you improve your chance of getting an offer.

Lucky for you, I actually have the data on this :)

I leveraged Stern student records as well as a personally deisnged multi-year survey to determine the key factors to recruiting outcomes through Naive Bayes regression and a few other statistical methods.

 What mattered most? Networking! 

No singular action improved a students chances of being invited to interview than NETWORKING (This includes referrals)

Have a further read here if you're curious:

https://www.spencertom.com/2018/07/01/data-driven-recruiting-part-1-networking/

https://www.spencertom.com/2018/08/05/data-driven-recruiting-part-2-invite-only-events/

Hi A,

A referral can be a great instrument that helps you secure an interview invite.

However, it is not a 100% guarantee that you eventually get an offer because some points and effort must be given from your side as well.

The question is: How much do you really want to get the job? Of course, it is better to provide yourself with a referral for the targeted firm. Otherwise, you can not even get invited.

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GB