Is it important to be interviewed as early as possible in a hiring cycle?

Hi there,

Is it important to be interviewed as early as possible in a hiring cycle, to avoid vacancies being “occupied”? Or, for MBB firms, as long as the candidate has strong performance, this shouldn't be an issue to consider? 

In your case, it won’t probably make a difference assuming the deadline is relatively soon (ie a couple of weeks from when they notified you).

In other situations – when you may choose between date 1 and date 2 and the difference is several months – there may be a difference, as the company may look for a specific number of candidates. Most of the time, if they cannot hire you at that particular moment, they will either (i) ask you to join later or (ii) propose a different office.

I helped a candidate once with MBB that was told he passed the interviews, but the particular office said they could not hire him due to lack of needs and proposed a different office. This was last year when COVID was yet to be controlled by the vaccines and there was a lot of uncertainty, so probably a pretty exceptional case.

Best,

Francesco

Hi there,

Where a company has a specific deadline and does explicitly have interview cohorts/phases, I'd be surprised if being in an earlier round doesn't help.

That said, most of these companies wait until all interviews have been completed within a cycle before sending out offers/invites.

Now, ultimately, what do we have control of? How ready you are. So, it is not a winning strategy to accelerate interviews if you won't perform well. Keep it simple: Interview when you're ready. This is the winning strategy.

To be honest, its difficult to say if within a hiring cycle places will fill up in order of timing of application. I think not. 

I haven't seen transparency on this but most firms have hiring windows and application end dates and will look at all shortlisted candidates before making a decision.

Regardless, you must apply when you feel you are ready and feel confident.

Hi!

Interesting question!

MBB firms usually have a fixed number of vacancies to fill so that interviewing earlier might be beneficial.

However, the most important factor to consider is your level of preparedness. If you excel during your interviews, it will be hard for MBB not to make you an offer.

Good luck,

Anto

• What is critical is that you do the interview when you are ready for that interview.
• Doing earlier may be a bit of an advantage, but how big it is depends on the economic situation. Right now there is a significant shortage of people, so should not be a factor.

You should only interview when you feel confident to do so. You will never feel 100% ready but there is a point at which you know that you have prepared a lot and that you can tackle the interview process.

The point on timing is not an invalid one but the reality is that you can't really solve for it. If you interview very soon but do not perform well then the role is not going to be yours anyway. If by some chance the role has gone but you do really well by interviewing later, they may recommend you to other roles that are a good fit. Especially in today's market there is no need to rush things given the huge demand for resources.

Best,

Udayan