Hi there,
Q: How hard will it be to move from boutique to MBB firms? Any advice to bridge the gap.
It’s always quite challenging to get into MBB, regardless of the background.
Starting with the invitation, if you want to be invited for interviews with MBB you should work on 3 things:
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1) CV
The key elements they will look for and that you can optimize are:
- University brand
- Major
- GPA
- Work experience
- Experience abroad
- Extracurriculars and volunteer experience
The fact you don't have consulting experience is not a problem if you structure your CV correctly.
Red flags include:
- Low GPA
- Lack of any kind of work experience
- Bad formatting / typos
- 3-4 pages length
- Lack of clear action --> results structure for the bullets of the experiences
- Long paragraphs (3-4 lines) for the bullets of the experiences with irrelevant details
- Long time gaps without any explanation
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2) COVER LETTER
You can structure a cover in 4 parts:
- Introduction, mentioning the position you are interested in and a specific element you find attractive for that company
- Why you are qualified for the job, where you can report 3 skills/stories from your CV, ideally related to leadership, impact, drive and teamwork
- Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons
- Final remarks, mentioning again your interest and contacts
In part 2 you can write about experiences that show skills useful in consulting such as drive, problem-solving, leadership, teamwork and convincing others.
It is important that in part 3 you make your cover specific to a particular firm – the rule of thumb is, can you send the exact same cover to another consulting company if you change the name? If that’s the case, your cover is too generic.
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3) REFERRALS
To find a referral, you should follow three steps:
- Identify the people that can help you
- Write to them a customized email
- Have a call and indirectly ask for a referral
You can find more information on networking and referrals here:
▶ How to Get an MBB Invitation
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BONUS: INTERVIEW PREPARATION
After you managed to get an invitation you need to find out how to pass the interview. You can find more on that at the link below.
▶ How to Prepare for an MBB Interview
Good luck!
Francesco