After serving in the U.S. Army, Travis Washington (McCombs, ‘22) came to University of Texas-McCombs to pursue an MBA. During his first year at McCombs, Travis ultimately decided to pursue an internship in Management Consulting, and was successful in landing an opportunity at BCG. During this interview, Travis spoke about his virtual COVID-19 recruiting journey with Management Consulting, navigating the internship interview process, and his advice for other MBA interns who are navigating the internship recruiting process.
MBASchooled: During your first year, why did you choose to recruit for management consulting?
Upon entering business school at UT-McCombs, I had consulting high on my radar but left myself open to learn more about other particular career paths. In doing so, I decided to use the first few weeks exploring various career options. With the guidance and advice of mentors and alums, I evaluated companies and functions in Marketing and Finance, as well as Investment Banking, Real Estate Finance, and Consulting. Through this discovery time, I realized that I loved different aspects from each industry function and just business as a whole. With this realization, I wanted a career opportunity that would allow me exposure to each one and continue quenching my thirst for business knowledge and growth. Additionally, my previous career serving in the military gave me a lot of variety in work and opportunities to learn very fast in short periods of time, and I wanted to keep those aspects in my next professional career. These factors ultimately led me to why I chose to pursue an MBA internship in Management Consulting.
MBASchooled: What was the virtual recruiting process like for you? What was good and challenging?
I found the virtual recruiting process to be more efficient from a time management perspective. It was much easier and more efficient to connect and get to know alum and employees at different companies as the entire networking and connecting process was virtual.
For example, in previous years, if you wanted to go to the Dallas office, you couldn’t connect with folks in the Houston office on the same day. Now, you can, because you don’t have the constraints of traveling time or logistics.
Also, when you aren’t worrying about if you have enough time to make it back home from campus after class to change into your recruiting attire (again, because there are no in-person events) you actually save a lot of time.
That said, like many other virtual opportunities there was always information overload. There were so many events and opportunities, with in-person events, sometimes you can filter things out due to constraints (ex: you can’t physically be in two places at once) but that is removed in a virtual environment
Another thing that was challenging was being able to make sure you are making a genuine connection. In the virtual world, you don’t have a lot of smaller non-verbal cues to play off of, paying attention to gestures. With that, it means you have to be diligent in your follow up and really hone in on your communication skills. It’s going to be hard for an employer to remember your face or your comments in a virtual setting versus physically being face to face.
MBASchooled: What was the interview application and interview process like?
All MBA students especially those who are recruiting for management consulting spend their fall preparing for the spring recruiting process. For me, what that looked like was a lot of preparation and working with the McCombs Graduate Consulting Club, the McCombs Career Center, and the various resources and events such as case prep, workshops, seminars, and work with second years. Since BCG was at the top of my company list, I made it a priority to learn about the company and be very diligent with my networking with McCombs alum and employees that worked at BCG. Tactically, what that looked like was I put together a spreadsheet of the alum that I wanted to connect with, and took notes on all of my interactions with each of them. Before applying to a company on my company list, I made sure to have had at least 6-8 quality interactions before submitting an application.
What was the Interview process and timeline like?
Early December is the time I submitted my applications (resume and cover letter) and about a week after I submitted my application packets I found out about where I was invited for interviews.
- 1st Round interview – The first round interview was with a project leader, and then, there was a secondary online case.
- 2nd Round Interview – During the second round, I conducted two case interviews with two separate partners. Each case was about 30-45 minutes each.
The interview process was challenging, but one of the benefits paid off in the form of networking that I did earlier in the fall. During one of the interviews, the interviewer across the Zoom meeting was someone who I had spoken with during the fall. While I still had to perform well in the interview, seeing a familiar face immediately put me at ease to start the interview off.
Another example of how networking paid off was in the form of having advocates within the firm. During the fall, I spoke with a BCG employee who talked about how he developed a great relationship with a fellow Alum, who went to bat for him during the interview process. I developed a great relationship with this individual, who in turn, became an advocate for me within the interview process. I’m fairly confident those connections played a critical role in ensuring that I received an offer.
MBASchooled: What was your most difficult interview, and what was hard about it?
During one of my consulting interviews, I had a very quantitatively-heavy case in an industry that I did not have much familiarity with. This was difficult from a numbers and familiarity perspective.
Furthermore, we had to take an online assessment that is very quant heavy. There was no feedback, which made it difficult to gauge how you were doing.
Finally, there was one interview where I had to participate in a virtual group case. You are put in a virtual interview with other candidates, and you have to work together to come up with a solution. I think this would have been challenging done in person, in terms of understanding personalities, learning quickly how to collaborate but also stand out, and having it done virtually just made it even more difficult but unique. It definitely allowed us to flex different muscles and techniques that we may have not used in an in-person setting.
MBASchooled: What did you learn from the interviewing process?
- Relationships are important – A lot of people miss that when they were preparing for consulting interviews. You need to make honest and genuine connections with people in the office you are aspiring to work at. It needs to be good mutual relationships.
- Be yourself – Be comfortable in the interview setting and bring a unique aspect to the table. Innately know your profession story and leverage your strengths in a way that is an asset to the company you are looking at.
- Don’t get too caught up in frameworking – It’s good to know those things, but what is most important is that you understand business problems and operations and can discuss them. That is much more important than memorizing frameworks. Consulting is about solving business challenges, and a case interview is your opportunity to articulate your understanding of a business problem and to talk through how you might solve it.
MBASchooled: What advice do you have for others who are trying to navigate the virtual recruiting process?
- Be on Top of your Networking – I encourage everyone to be diligent and thoughtful with their networking. I found it very useful to create a tracker, go on Linkedin and find people. Take notes. Furthermore, networking is not a one-time thing. It’s important to actively build a relationship.
- Ask For Advice – Ask for referrals at the end of the conversation of who else you could talk to. Instead of just asking for anyone, be specific in your ask, to ensure you get a good answer. I also made sure I asked for someone else to speak with to keep a successful networking chain going.
Perfect your stories – You need to know your story and how you will present that in an interview. Understand your strengths, know your flaws, embrace your story, and present it with passion.