Whew, I’m finally finished with the first round itnerviews I had this week and it was a BEAST getting ready for and getting through them. The first was with Boston Consulting Group on monday and those cats DESTROYED me. I wish i was exaggerating with that one, but I did so badly that I walked out of the second of the two interviews feeling embarrassed for having wasted their time. I would go into further detail, but it’d probably depress me all over again to have to type out how they ran over me like a human speedbump. BCG was supposed to have notified all interviewees of their status by tonight, but I still haven’t heard anything, so i’m starting to think that they gave me the “Gas Face”. I’ve only heard of 4 people who’ve been moved on to the second round so far, so it looks like they were hecka selective this year for the full-time positions. Honestly, if they call me and invite me to do a second round interview, I’d be both shocked and concerned about whether my interviewers had been hallucinating when i was speaking to them.

The second set of interviews were with Bain & Company yesterday and I left there feeling pretty confident that I’d done well. Last year, Bain blazed me and my first interviewer yesterday was the same guy who’d done that blazing, so I was shook when i saw him. Fortunately, he didn’t remember how I’d crumbled under the weight of his case last year and I was able to comfortably get through his case. The fit portion of their interview was with a GSB 2001 alum who I really clicked well with. She mainly asked me questions about what I’d do if I were the CEO of my latest pre-MBA employer to improve the company, so I had a good time working through the questions she posed to me in that scenario. She also hit me with a scenario with me starting a record label that came at me from left field…I’m not sure if I did well with that part but I still felt good walking out of her interview. I have learned to always be cautious when thinking that I did well on an interview, but I’m really expecting to get the good word from them sometime tomorrow.

It’s great to have those first rounds knocked out, but the unfortunate side effect of it is that I’ve been left so wiped out that it has been difficult to motivate myself to do work since then. Thank goodness I’ve got that job offer from Accenture in my pocket because I would have probably ran myself into the ground even worse to prepare for these interviews if I hadn’t had that extra bit of security. I’ve still got Booz Allen next week and then a second round with McKinsey & Co on November 18, so I’m not out of the woods yet.