I hope this is not too much of a departure from this thread but I’d like to pick up on the theme of the screening of applicants and the comments made by @blossom@NiceUnparticularMan@Mwfan1921 and others.
Here’s the question: When you have a sea of accomplished candidates (say, at Dartmouth), how do you pick who to interview? Could being “interesting” yield a first-round interview?
The context for my question is what I recently observed among my D22’s Oxbridge cohort applying for MBB analyst roles.
Among the four applicants (all of whom have performed well at Oxbridge), the most academically accomplished one (per students’s major, academic prizes, Oxbridge “college”, etc) received one MBB interview but got an offer. The classmate (a STEM student) who had the most extensive business exposure (via finance and consulting internships, camps, clubs, etc) also received one MBB invite but didn’t get beyond the first round.
Now, here’s the interesting bit. Two students who have mixed STEM and “humanities” (a Classicist who has dabbled in advanced STEM research during college and a STEM student who has dabbled in student journalism and published in other outlets on culture) got interviews with all three MBBs (with each securing one offer). What’s more, these two also had the least business exposure among the four students. and neither have a (truly) distinctive accomplishment, such as representing their countries in an Olympiad competition during HS or serving as Oxford Union president.
In the age of AI, do you think such STEM-humanities combinations are attractive to top employers in consulting and other industries? Or is this simply coincidence?
I’ve been at “MBB” for close to 15 years now and it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the STEM + humanities majors received both interest and offers. A major part of the interview process at MBB is the case, and they’re looking for creative problem solvers who look at things from unexpected and unconventional angles. The consulting skill set can be taught (and at my place of employment, it is preferred and considered apprenticeship to learn the craft here). Plenty of my fellow colleagues have unconventional backgrounds, either via major or sustained outside experience or interests. AI is making that all the more important, as more of the “grunt” work in consulting can be outsourced to agents. (Note: I’m not a consultant. I’m in an “internal support” role, but I work with consultants of all tenures.)
I’m also not surprised. Everything I have heard about consulting over the years suggests they are looking for attributes like being intellectually curious and a quick learner; having the ability to analyze a wide variety of complex and/or ambiguous problems; and excellent communication and social skills. Of course I don’t know much about the people you described, but it is pretty reasonable to think people who have had a real variety to their studies in higher education or similar activities, and as a result have had to succeed in materially different peer and leadership environments, might be promising candidates.
Of course everyone got interviews, right? So I would not read too much into this.
An anecdote to amplify Wjs’ excellent post on case interviews and creative problem solving.
A typical case- yogurt company has a problem with quality control. Their engineers have identified their packaging as being the problem when containers burst in transit and a multi-disciplinary team is charged with fixing the problem. Candidate is told- you are the consultant and you’ve been retained to create a zero defect process for the company.
A common approach is for the candidate to go off dissecting all the ways yogurt gets made, filled, shipped, put in the store refrigerators. An elaborate model of how to create a zero defect process. The interviewer provides more information (candidate asks “how much does each current container cost?", then candidate rattles off how much money would get saved with a new and improved sorting/filling/packaging system– high initial capital expense, but zero defects with a better process and perhaps a pay off with fewer defective cylinders of yogurt but admittedly- high initial costs, but solves the client’s problem.
A less common approach is for the candidate to wonder if yogurt manufacturing is even profitable at all- why fix a business which at the end of the day may not be profitable, why not sell it and cash in on the brand equity. Candidate goes through the model of what that would look like. A good approach with some creativity involved. Don’t solve the client’s problem if it’s the wrong question to be asking.
The really creative problem solver points out that zero defects makes sense when you are manufacturing stents or dialysis equipment or cardiac monitors- but is costly and not necessary AT ALL in the yogurt business. So a solution could be a bonus to the truck drivers for each full truck they deliver with no spillage, no burst containers, no leaky fruit coming out of the bottom. The quality of what gets delivered is entirely in the hands of the folks who drive the trucks and then load the yogurt onto the supermarket ramp and take it to the refrigerator. Low cost, low tech, no capital investment. Just a small bonus to careful drivers who are mindful that they are delivering a perishable product which if a container bursts in transit, causes a very modest financial loss.
So keeping this in mind- someone with a ton of business training and exposure isn’t necessarily oriented to the most creative, cheapest solution here. They want to rebuild the factory with millions of dollars, not ask the drivers to stop dropping pallets of filled yogurt. Someone with less or no business experience (but has seen drivers filling the refrigerator at their local grocery store) intuits that the drivers are the key link- and the least costly part of the value chain.