Hello all. Wow, I sure am on a roll in the month of March, aren’t I? And, four entries posted this week alone too. 
I’m typing this email yet again from about 35,000 feet, but this time I’m on my way back to Chicago from a business trip down South. Once upon a time, traveling for work used to wear me out, but, now that I don’t have to do it often, I actually enjoy the travel experience again. It’s amazing how a change in scenery/environment can change one’s outlook on things.
The message below is from a PhD graduate with a couple of other grad degrees who is looking for some advice on positioning himself for interviews with my former employer. I guess I should use this opportunity to remind y’all that emails asking a lot of questions will not get great responses from me because they take too long for me to respond to. Just wanted to give you a heads up about it before you see my comments about it in the response below. Forreal-forreal, I know that I’m an incredibly useful resource and what not, but I’m going to need people to start considering how much time it takes for me to think through and address these requests for advice. I’m going to keep on saying it in hopes that the message will stick, but I hope that I eventually won’t have to do so anymore.
[EDITED ON MARCH 28] –> Gotta send a shout out to my mother for letting me know that my response to “MS” didn’t appear up here the first time I posted this entry. She emailed me asking why I hadn’t responded to him and I was all kinds of confused. It would be pretty janky of me to just post someone’s email message up here with no response, so I hope none of you thought I’d done that in this case to clown the guy. By now, I assume that y’all know I’d never do that
——
MS wrote:
“Hi:
My name is ‘MS’. I have been following your weblog for some time and after reading your interview on Management Consulted, I finally decided to write to you in the hopes of getting some advice–especially since you are a Brother and can perhaps give me some special insights. I have a strong interest in competing for a job at McKinsey. During the summer of 2007 before graduating, I took the IWIA exam that they give to PhDs and flunked. When I applied again last year, when the recession was accelerating, I could not even get an interview. Ironically, I competed in the BCG interview process during the fall of 2007 and advanced to the final round of interviews. If I hadn’t screwed up on a private equity case, I’d probably be working there now.
I’d really appreciate it if you would take a look at my resume and give me some feedback as to how to tailor it so as to get the attention of the recruiters at McKinsey, particularly the London, NY or DC offices which is where I will be applying. I really like McKinsey because of the size of the firm and the opportunity to work on a great variety of projects. My plan is to apply in the fall after the required 1 year hiatus from submitting an application lapses. I will use the summer to do cases and to prepare for the GMAT. Given how difficult it is to land a job at McKinsey, if I fail this time, I will be applying to business school as an older applicant. I’d like your advice on that as well as I understand that the fact that I already have advanced degrees and am over 30 will hurt me in the application process.
I plan to take a ManhattanGMAT course but if there are other courses that you would recommend as being better or other resources than can help me to produce a competitive score, I would appreciate it. I am also curious as to how the recruiting process at both consulting firms and business schools may have been changed by these unique economic circumstances. Last fall, my friends and I discovered that it was much more difficult to get interviews because of fewer slots and a flood of MBAs who could not get jobs in finance that were turning to consulting. I am also curious as to how PhDs are perceived by the recruiters at consulting firms and business schools and the special challenges that they may face.
I would really appreciate your advice. I am lucky to be working right now but this is a job not a career. The volunteer work that I am doing at Ashoka is more exciting to me than my day job.
Thanks!
MS”
——
My response:
MS,
I hope this finds you doing well. It’s been a little while since you emailed me, but, as you saw in my Management Consulted interview, I always get back to reader emails. If you’ve really been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of emails where readers ask me a lot of questions because it takes a long time to develop in-depth responses. Take a second to re-read your email and you’ll see that you asked a lot of questions. In these cases, I either pick and choose which questions to delve deep into or give quickie responses to as many of the questions as I can. In this case, I’ll do the latter because that might prove to be more useful given your circumstances. I’ll try to do a decent job of covering the bases though.
Thinking through your email, it seems that you’re basically looking for insights in four areas:
- Resume review and tailoring it for reapplying to McK: A couple of years ago, I used to do really in-depth resume reviews complete with suggested edits and restructuring for my readers a because, quite simply, I’m fantastic at it and it used to be fun to turn a “lump of coal” into a “stack of diamonds”. Then, cats started getting ridiculous and acting like they were paying me for the service (constant emails asking for a quick return on the review, requesting repeated reviews of drafts, etc.)…as if they were doing ME a favor by giving me the opportunity to help THEM. Basically, a few bad apples ruined it for the whole bunch and I stopped doing good resume reviews for readers. If I ever feel like starting a for-hire resume review service, I might go back to doing it, but, until then, I restrict that to my friends and family. I don’t blame you for asking, but I just wanted to let you know what the deal is. I did look over your resume though and can give you some VERY high-level comments about it because I’m in a decent mood today First, it is pretty difficult to digest everything because it’s so long and the number of work experiences you’ve got listed…it might make sense for you to group your past jobs by functional area (i.e. consultant vs. research vs. …). And, since your educational and professional background is somewhat varied, it might make sense for you to write a cover letter to tie everything together into a cohesive story.
- Applying to B-school as an older applicant with several advanced degrees: I can see how applying as an older candidate might be a scary proposition, but plenty of folks in their 30′s apply to business school each year and get in. In fact, one of my Stanford classmates turned 40 during our first year in the program. If I were you, I wouldn’t be too worried about being an older applicant because you can still gain admission if you put together a good application package. A bigger issue is whether you truly need an MBA. You already have a PhD from MIT along with a couple of Master’s degrees from Ivy League schools. I wonder if you’ll be able to come up with a compelling story for why you NEED an MBA versus simply WANTING an MBA. You’ll have to put some serious thought into how you’ll tell that story before applying to business school.
- GMAT prep courses: I didn’t take any GMAT prep courses when i was preparing for the test, so I can’t really give a perspective on which ones are good or not. I’ve heard good things about the GMAT courses from Manhattan GMAT along with Kaplan and Princeton Review though. But, I can vouch for the GMAT Prep Guide with CD-ROM from Kaplan though because I used it myself back in the day when I was studying for the test. If you’re interested in going the self-study route, you can find that book on Amazon.com for a pretty low price.
- Recruiting for Consulting firms and admissions to B-schools — How has it changed in the economic downturn and how are PhD’s perceived: I’d agree with your assessment that the economic downturn has made recruiting for Consulting and admissions to B-schools more difficult. Both destinations are flooded with people trying to get in and, with the uncertainty around when the economy will recover, things will probably be shaky for quite a while. Don’t take this to mean that either scenario is impossible though because strong candidates will have a shot…the difference may be that the bar will be higher to be considered as a “strong candidate”. As for the PhD perception issue, I’ve written a couple of entries about this before. Look through my archived entries for ones about APD (Advanced Professional Degree) candidates/recruiting. In short, the perception of PhD’s varies by firm, but I’d say that they value the contributions that they can make. It’ll be up to you to display the problem solving and understanding of business basics that the firms are seeking.
Good luck on your re-application to McK and the other consulting firms. Just make sure you don’t underestimate the value-add from your current position because it sounds like a good place to spend your time for a while as the global economy repairs itself…plus, the work sounds interesting, so don’t sleep on that either.
-Marquis
I’m typing this email yet again from about 35,000 feet, but this time I’m on my way back to Chicago from a business trip down South. Once upon a time, traveling for work used to wear me out, but, now that I don’t have to do it often, I actually enjoy the travel experience again. It’s amazing how a change in scenery/environment can change one’s outlook on things. The message below is from a PhD graduate with a couple of other grad degrees who is looking for some advice on positioning himself for interviews with my former employer. I guess I should use this opportunity to remind y’all that emails asking a lot of questions will not get great responses from me because they take too long for me to respond to. Just wanted to give you a heads up about it before you see my comments about it in the response below. Forreal-forreal, I know that I’m an incredibly useful resource and what not, but I’m going to need people to start considering how much time it takes for me to think through and address these requests for advice. I’m going to keep on saying it in hopes that the message will stick, but I hope that I eventually won’t have to do so anymore.
[EDITED ON MARCH 28] –> Gotta send a shout out to my mother for letting me know that my response to “MS” didn’t appear up here the first time I posted this entry. She emailed me asking why I hadn’t responded to him and I was all kinds of confused. It would be pretty janky of me to just post someone’s email message up here with no response, so I hope none of you thought I’d done that in this case to clown the guy. By now, I assume that y’all know I’d never do that
——
MS wrote:
“Hi:
My name is ‘MS’. I have been following your weblog for some time and after reading your interview on Management Consulted, I finally decided to write to you in the hopes of getting some advice–especially since you are a Brother and can perhaps give me some special insights. I have a strong interest in competing for a job at McKinsey. During the summer of 2007 before graduating, I took the IWIA exam that they give to PhDs and flunked. When I applied again last year, when the recession was accelerating, I could not even get an interview. Ironically, I competed in the BCG interview process during the fall of 2007 and advanced to the final round of interviews. If I hadn’t screwed up on a private equity case, I’d probably be working there now.
I’d really appreciate it if you would take a look at my resume and give me some feedback as to how to tailor it so as to get the attention of the recruiters at McKinsey, particularly the London, NY or DC offices which is where I will be applying. I really like McKinsey because of the size of the firm and the opportunity to work on a great variety of projects. My plan is to apply in the fall after the required 1 year hiatus from submitting an application lapses. I will use the summer to do cases and to prepare for the GMAT. Given how difficult it is to land a job at McKinsey, if I fail this time, I will be applying to business school as an older applicant. I’d like your advice on that as well as I understand that the fact that I already have advanced degrees and am over 30 will hurt me in the application process.
I plan to take a ManhattanGMAT course but if there are other courses that you would recommend as being better or other resources than can help me to produce a competitive score, I would appreciate it. I am also curious as to how the recruiting process at both consulting firms and business schools may have been changed by these unique economic circumstances. Last fall, my friends and I discovered that it was much more difficult to get interviews because of fewer slots and a flood of MBAs who could not get jobs in finance that were turning to consulting. I am also curious as to how PhDs are perceived by the recruiters at consulting firms and business schools and the special challenges that they may face.
I would really appreciate your advice. I am lucky to be working right now but this is a job not a career. The volunteer work that I am doing at Ashoka is more exciting to me than my day job.
Thanks!
MS”
——
My response:
MS,
I hope this finds you doing well. It’s been a little while since you emailed me, but, as you saw in my Management Consulted interview, I always get back to reader emails. If you’ve really been following my blog for a while, you’ll know that I’m not a big fan of emails where readers ask me a lot of questions because it takes a long time to develop in-depth responses. Take a second to re-read your email and you’ll see that you asked a lot of questions. In these cases, I either pick and choose which questions to delve deep into or give quickie responses to as many of the questions as I can. In this case, I’ll do the latter because that might prove to be more useful given your circumstances. I’ll try to do a decent job of covering the bases though.
Thinking through your email, it seems that you’re basically looking for insights in four areas:
- Resume review and tailoring it for reapplying to McK: A couple of years ago, I used to do really in-depth resume reviews complete with suggested edits and restructuring for my readers a because, quite simply, I’m fantastic at it and it used to be fun to turn a “lump of coal” into a “stack of diamonds”. Then, cats started getting ridiculous and acting like they were paying me for the service (constant emails asking for a quick return on the review, requesting repeated reviews of drafts, etc.)…as if they were doing ME a favor by giving me the opportunity to help THEM. Basically, a few bad apples ruined it for the whole bunch and I stopped doing good resume reviews for readers. If I ever feel like starting a for-hire resume review service, I might go back to doing it, but, until then, I restrict that to my friends and family. I don’t blame you for asking, but I just wanted to let you know what the deal is. I did look over your resume though and can give you some VERY high-level comments about it because I’m in a decent mood today
First, it is pretty difficult to digest everything because it’s so long and the number of work experiences you’ve got listed…it might make sense for you to group your past jobs by functional area (i.e. consultant vs. research vs. …). And, since your educational and professional background is somewhat varied, it might make sense for you to write a cover letter to tie everything together into a cohesive story.- Applying to B-school as an older applicant with several advanced degrees: I can see how applying as an older candidate might be a scary proposition, but plenty of folks in their 30′s apply to business school each year and get in. In fact, one of my Stanford classmates turned 40 during our first year in the program. If I were you, I wouldn’t be too worried about being an older applicant because you can still gain admission if you put together a good application package. A bigger issue is whether you truly need an MBA. You already have a PhD from MIT along with a couple of Master’s degrees from Ivy League schools. I wonder if you’ll be able to come up with a compelling story for why you NEED an MBA versus simply WANTING an MBA. You’ll have to put some serious thought into how you’ll tell that story before applying to business school.
- GMAT prep courses: I didn’t take any GMAT prep courses when i was preparing for the test, so I can’t really give a perspective on which ones are good or not. I’ve heard good things about the GMAT courses from Manhattan GMAT along with Kaplan and Princeton Review though. But, I can vouch for the GMAT Prep Guide with CD-ROM from Kaplan though because I used it myself back in the day when I was studying for the test. If you’re interested in going the self-study route, you can find that book on Amazon.com for a pretty low price.
- Recruiting for Consulting firms and admissions to B-schools — How has it changed in the economic downturn and how are PhD’s perceived: I’d agree with your assessment that the economic downturn has made recruiting for Consulting and admissions to B-schools more difficult. Both destinations are flooded with people trying to get in and, with the uncertainty around when the economy will recover, things will probably be shaky for quite a while. Don’t take this to mean that either scenario is impossible though because strong candidates will have a shot…the difference may be that the bar will be higher to be considered as a “strong candidate”. As for the PhD perception issue, I’ve written a couple of entries about this before. Look through my archived entries for ones about APD (Advanced Professional Degree) candidates/recruiting. In short, the perception of PhD’s varies by firm, but I’d say that they value the contributions that they can make. It’ll be up to you to display the problem solving and understanding of business basics that the firms are seeking.
Good luck on your re-application to McK and the other consulting firms. Just make sure you don’t underestimate the value-add from your current position because it sounds like a good place to spend your time for a while as the global economy repairs itself…plus, the work sounds interesting, so don’t sleep on that either.
-Marquis
