One signal you NEVER want to send during McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, PwC, et al. recruitment process…

Question:

"Is it weird if a candidate has to pay the travel expense? I got an interview invite?for an in-person interview in a foreign office (my top choice). They informed me that I would need to pay all travel expenses myself. With international flights, hotels, taxis, and food, it is a lot.?I am glad, though, to get this invite as I am applying from a non-target school, and my grades are good but not great.?

My fear was I would not get any invites, and I had to network heavily using the approach Michael taught in The Consulting Offer to land this interview invite in the first place. But should I try my luck and ask them to pay for at least the air tickets?or a portion of the expense, or should I not look into the teeth of a gifted horse and be glad they invited me??I don't want to affect my chances of getting this job, but it is a lot of money for me."

Today, we will answer a question concerning whether you should incur costs when going through management consulting recruitment. A?similar logic will be applicable to many?senior jobs in other industries. This is something I encountered during my interviews. When I was completing my MBA at Ivey Business School in Canada, almost all 1st round interviews and, to my knowledge, all second and third-round interviews were held in other cities (mostly Toronto), but all MBA students lived in London (Canada).

Most employers expected students to travel to Toronto at their own cost. And that is normal for many industries, especially at more junior levels.?But consulting has its own set of rules, games that people play, and tests that you have to pass. And what works for most industries in terms of your behavior as a candidate?often will not work for management consulting.

So, should you incur travel and accommodation costs when going through consulting recruitment? And, if you do, what signal?would you be sending to interviewers??

The best way to answer this question is to share an email?from one of our case interview coaching clients who initially was taken aback by our feedback on this but, at the end, was able to preserve his image with his target firms and land a great offer because he followed the feedback.?

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Answer:

"A Michael Moment? Hmm…there are so many. And some saved me money and esteem.

For my second round interview with AT Kearney in South East Asia, the company asked if I would be in Malaysia soon and wanted to know if I would be willing to fly in at my own cost. I was excited and thrilled, and ready to go online to spend a few hundred dollars to book the flight and hotel. It seemed normal to me.

When I told Michael about this over Skype, he became upset about it. I had thought he was upset with me! Thankfully, he soon clarified the direction of his anger!

He repeated this a few times until I understood the point. I should never pay for my own trip because it implies two things. I am desperate for the position and because it is a double standard from AT Kearney. If they knew I was desperate for the job, I would lose any chances of getting it. He also felt they would not ask a student from a better school to pay their way. He asked me if I wanted to work for an office with such poor standards.

I was actually quite desperate, and it was hard to see Michael’s point at the time. Like many of his lessons, they are not obvious, and I needed to think about it. I very reluctantly agreed and asked AT Kearney to pay for my trip since it was a cost I was incurring for them. They refused.

Michael seemed fine with it, and we just continued. In my interactions with MBB, I followed Michael’s advice closely. I made every firm think I was heavily in demand and they needed to reach out to me. That worked very well, especially with Bain.

“Image counts. Grades are important but only when packaged with the right image, and desperation is never good.”

That was my Michael Moment. Making a decision on the basis of desperation is a bad idea. Thanks for teaching me that, Michael."

_?

To help you prepare for case interviews you can use The Consulting Offer and Experienced Hire program. If I was in your place, I would use them as follows: In front of computer time:

• Start with TCO 1 with Felix (Felix gets McKinsey offer)
• Then do TCO 2?(Alice gets McKinsey and BCG offers)
• TCO 3 with Jen (Jen gets Bain offer)
• TCO 5 with Ritika (Ritika gets McKinsey offer)?

On the go time:

• TCO 4 with Assel (Assel joins McKinsey after 5 years on maternity leave, with no MBB background)
• Experienced Hire program (done for Darden EMBAs)

You can then watch other candidates and more advanced programs to help you further prepare. But if you go through the programs above, you will have a solid foundation. You will be blown away by what you will learn and how powerful those skills will be for the rest of your life.

The programs above are something we recommend all FC members to work through, regardless of whether they want to join a consulting firm or if they are already a senior VP at a major bank and want to strengthen their consulting skillset.

The programs above help develop powerful foundational skills that can help set you apart in any business setting and cover not only problem-solving but also communication, networking, the ability to position yourself well during interviews at any level of seniority, how to be more likeable and more. To access the above programs join as an Insider or Legacy member (scroll down to membership options) on:

www.StrategyTraining.com

Take care,

Kris Safarova

P.S.?If you are an?Insider and want to upgrade to Legacy, go to the?Legacy section ?on StrategyTraining.com and the system will offer you an opportunity to upgrade without losing any of your credit. Insiders can move between Legacy and Insider?without losing their Insider status provided there are no gaps in membership and they are members in good standing (just email [email protected] when you move back from Legacy to Insider so we can manually reactivate your Insider status).