Observations from the frontlines: foreign students recruiting for BBM face unusual troubles…
As the dust begins to settle on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounds of interviews in Canada, Australia and parts of Europe, we have noticed some very worrying trends about the manner in which foreign students are treated.
These are our observations from the frontlines of recruiting:
- Assume you are not in possession of a Green Card or Permanent Residency, but studying at a US, Canadian or British school and applying to a BBM office in your country of studies. What do you think will happen? Not much actually! The placement rates are dismal for foreigners across the three regions mentioned. It gets worse as well.
- Canada stands out in particular. Forget about the so-called global nature of these firms, if you are in Toronto and applying for a BBM office in the Middle East or Europe, the Toronto office is really going to ignore your application. Ignore in the sense that they will rarely give you face time and ignore in the sense that they will not even help you. We had a group of Indian nationals who had to bypass the Toronto office, who refused to help them, and network directly with other offices.
- How important is networking? Damn important. We had a candidate who scored 600 on his GMAT, 3.7 undergraduate and 3.4 MBA at Rotman. With a massive network, he has, in the space of 4 months, interviewed at 3 different offices of the same firm. How does he do this you ask? Well, he simply has very good friends at these firms who submit his resume for a referral. Much better candidates are being rejected but this guy, due to his personal network, just glides through the system.
- Do not get seduced by all the dinners and “personal” emails. We had a brilliant Slovak MBA student at an Ivy League school get wined and dined by every major consulting firm. She was so thrilled to be receiving these emails expressing interest in her background. Do not be too excited about this. Consulting firms do this often. At the end of the day, she received offers from no firm purely due to her residency status in the US – in this climate of immigration issues and recessionary speak very few firms are sponsoring students.
- Consulting firms are posting ridiculously confusing messages. From the same Bain office, we have seen the same HR coordinator send contradictory messages to three of our candidates.
The reality is that foreign students (without residency) are facing a much tougher battle. No matter how smart they are or accomplished, they are just going to face more obstacles, and all other things being equal, lose out to the local candidate.
BBM will deny this – but ignore the rhetoric and look at your own experiences, that of your friends and look at the numbers. There was a time when consulting was about intellect, accomplishment and presence. The best were selected even if they did not network themselves aggressively. Today, consulting is becoming more and more like investment banking. The most networked get offers and the rest fade away irrespective of their abilities. That cannot be right and consulting firms should actually place a quota, per office, on the number of interviews generated to internal referrals. Since the problem is NOT the quality of vetting the pipeline, the problem lies with what is getting into the pipeline.
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Geat analysis !
I my self received multiple emails from HR representatives (ZS Associates, Mars & Co, Oliver Wyman, Roland Berger, …) typically asking me about work authorization!
I had to leave NY because of this constraint – right now, I am located in Casablanca Morocco where I hope to make my dream true.
Best of luck to all candidates.
Thanks for this thoughtful comment. Did you end up working in management consulting in Morocco? Are you Moroccan? And I see you went to the Ivey leagues as well! Amazing isn’t it? Great talent let go!!
Hmm… looks like if you’re a local student currently reside in your country where there is no Bain office, and you want to work in say, Bain Singapore, you’d have slim to zero chance of even getting your resume pass the app round?
Yen – Bain is probably the worst example since they are the weakest firm in emerging markets. The only way to get interviewed at Singapore is to have a direct link to the country or someone to refer you. No other way!