Career & Application at The Boston Consulting Group

Hello!

What seems clear by now is that this is truly harming economy, and in the next weeks we will see whether we are heading to a global economic recession.

If this is the case, and we indeed face a global recession -even if not as hard as the previous one-, this will have an impact in consulting. Why? Simply because there would be less clients, less engagements with the usual clients, and an overall freeze in spending.

This, for sure, will impact recruiting, reducing the classes of BAs and Associates for a couple of years, hence, different scenarios:

• Once the offer is extended, it would be EXTREMLY rare that it gets rescinded. If so, I see more feasible that it gets postponed
• If you are interviewing, it will mostly keep running but only in VC
• If you are not yet in the interviewing pipeline, it very much depend on different geographies, but it´s likely that it will be postponed until further notice, when we all know more about this

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi!

Here are my 5 tips:

1) Practice mental calculation daily (percentages, decimal places, large numbers, arithmetic) – even though it's not the most important part of the interview and it's allowed to make mistakes, you need to master your numbers very comfortably. If you don't, during the interview you will start feeling nervous and will perform worse on other things. Here are some good apps for your phone I can recommend: Brain Booster Games and Mental Math Practice

2) Cases, cases, cases – do as many as you can. After you gather a bit of experience of practicing with your fellow students, try to find a person who is now working or has worked in the past at the MBB's recruting and ask them to simulate an interview with you (e.g. coach on preplounge)

3) Prepare and practice personal fit interviews – they are as important as the cases. Write down your stories, practice telling them with your fellow students, or with an expert.

4) Beware of your mental state – try not to stress too much before and during the interview (I know it's easier said than done). Do sports, take care of your health, try yoga, meditation – whatever makes you less stressed. I've seen so many candidates pale as a sheet of paper during my time as an interviewer at McKinsey, all worried and jittery – as you can imagine this doesn't help your performance.

5) If you get rejected, it's not the end of the world, do prepare yourself mentally for this thought! A close friend of mine became depressed for months after being rejected at McKinsey. I think it was because she treated this as a "do or die" situation. Do not do that! There are infinite options of different careers and adventures out there, you don't need to become a strategy consultant to be happy. Just try to embrace this before going into the interview room – and you will be better prepared for both failure and success.

Best,
Daniel

Hi there,

the best thing to do in your case would be to get a connection inside the company. This could help in two ways:

• Understand if Bain is still recruiting (some offices already suspended hiring)
• Get possibly a referral, which is going to increase your chances to be invited

You can find more on referrals at the link below:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

You don’t necessarily need a partner referral, although it would be the strongest one of course. Having said that, it would be a good idea to wait at least one year since your last application to show some improvements, even if you apply via referral.

Not sure why you are targeting only Bain, but a good idea would be to also consider BCG and McKinsey as part of your applications to increase chances to land in MBB.

Best,

Francesco