I'm a rising UG senior and had a final round last year at an MBB (for their internship). I got an email from the recruiter to schedule a time for a coffee chat with consultants. I signed up for a specific time slot with an unnamed consultant (just showed their initials on the time slot). Note that the recruiter email specifically said to only sign up if this office was my first choice (it is) and I know other people that interviewed last year who did not get an invite, so it was a relatively exclusive event (I remember there being ~10 time slots). Anyways, I ended up completely forgetting about the chat until that weekend, so it was too late to send an apology email.
I know that this was a stupid (and completely avoidable) mistake, but now I have two options.
A.) I just hope that I get the interview anyways. This office is my top preference due to culture fit, and considering I amde it to the final round last year and was invited to an exclusive event means that without this mistake I would have almost definitely gotten an interview.
B.) I preference a different office. I would probably get an interview at another office as I'm from a national target and got multiple MBB interviews last year. However, I would like to avoid doing this if I'm not likely blacklisted from the original office.
For formalized coffee chat events, do consultants give feedback to the recruiter (ex. He didn't show up), or is this just an informal event that the recruiter won't hear about? If the recruiter does hear about this, will I be automatically blacklisted?
Hi A! I'd be careful putting too much weight on this analysis. For two reasons: (a) It's actually bad consulting practice: Ian throws in fancy tool names and is suggesting causation that might or might not be there. Nobody would claim that networking is not important, but the number of touchpoints is largely driven by e.g. the school - candidates from target schools get flooded with contact opportunities and going to these schools drastically increases chances for an invitation. But the number of touchpoints is not necessarily the driver of this. (b) It suggests that the more touchpoints the better. An anecdote to the contrary: I run the MBA recruiting for my MBB office. We are actually tracking who reaches out to our consultants and sign up to coffee chats. In the past we have actually discounted applications from candidates that flood us with coffee chat requests just to maximize the number of touchpoints for the sake of it. I'd rather hire somebody that respects the time of my colleagues and asks pointy questions when relevant, than somebody that wastes our time just to make their name being recognized by as many people as possible.
Thanks for the response to this B! I'm not worried because I didn't get to have a coffee chat, I have a formal recommendation and have attended other events. My main concern is that the recruiter will see me missing the chat as wasting their time. Do you think they could interpret my actions that way?
Na, I agree with the other coaches on this. Missing a coffee chat isn't ideal but it won't disqualify you from the application, especially if you have a referral.
Hi Anonymous B, I always appreciate active discussion, especially when it concerns data! Now, there's always an issue of causation vs correlation, but I isolated a range of variables and these were strong predictors of success (for example, someone with a high GMAT score may network more, but if we isolate across a set GMAT range, we can see this relationship holds true). Furthermore, the sample size for this data was just one school, therefore your point regarding school differences is moot. Feel free to check out my analysis on SpencerTom where I dive into the actual process. If you still have issues with it after you've given it a fair shot, I'd love to hear how I could improve it! Note: I emphasized how important a coffee chat/networking is, but I never said "reach out to everyone and anyone you can"...would appreciate no strawman logical fallacies against me please :)
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I would also note that, while I worked at the career office for my MBA program, we did know of candidates who were eliminated from the process because they missed a coffee chat. This doesn't mean you are disqualified, but I have seen it happen.
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