"Competitive clubs" in colleges

Parents Forum
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Just a quick reply to the “would I want to be stuck at an airport with this person” screen.

It is RAPIDLY dying out. No organization which is taking DEI seriously can move forward with hiring screens that revolve around the notion of “People Like Us”. And organizations which don’t take it seriously, are being told by their clients “You either show up with a diverse group of professionals to do our work, or we don’t retain you”. It is do or die in some industries. The days of the lacrosse bro telling the hiring managers which of his lacrosse bros to interview are rapidly coming to a close.

I think many of the anecdotes which have been shared here overestimate the amount of pull that young interns have, the amount of influence that brand new hires have, etc. The recruiting calendars and schedules have gotten out of hand in terms of being so early that the younger students have no meaningful runway to evaluate- that’s a problem which is routinely discussed in the recruiting community.

But I would caution any parent here that just because your kid goes to a recruiting event staffed by recent alums from their college-- that does NOT mean that someone who has three weeks of work experience is calling the shots. There are actual grownups in the room.

Recent alums can be helpful- in some situations- but their presence is really more like the much maligned alumni interview to get into college. Your interview is egregiously bad? That can hurt you. But otherwise? It’s just nice PR and a “high touch” way to try and personalize a global institution which isn’t very touchy-feely.

If your kid was in such a club AND got multiple offers at the desired companies, it is of course easy to conclude that the club got them in (or helped them get in, or made it MUCH easier to get in, etc.) And yet- the number of hires who do other things in their spare time and don’t go near anything pre-professional other than interviewing- seems to suggest that clubs work except when they don’t (even the most bragadocious of these organizations do not claim that their track record is 100%.) So what about the kids who makes it in to one of these clubs, works his or her tail off prepping, going to coffee hours and networking events, etc. and ends up- horrors- in a training program at a P&C insurance company because they struck out at all the “more prestigious” companies? Yes, this happens. Club didn’t get them in. Interview prep and case prep didn’t get them in. Oh well.

To me (and I do this for a living) this is a sad way to think about your college education. One more go-round on the treadmill/hamster wheel.

But- the days of the good old boys hiring their college friends are coming to an end- at least at the big, global organizations which are getting pressure from their clients that they need to see a diverse group of professionals showing up. Leaders at the top firms are getting evaluated on how they promote, develop, mentor “folks who are not like me”. I will be curious to see what impact this has on these selective college organizations. Recruiting professionals are being urged, encouraged and evaluated on their ability to find “new pipelines” of talent- not just the kid who at age 19 self-selected into a professional club or business fraternity, but the brilliant kid studying geology who has no clue what investment bankers do, or the brilliant kid majoring in materials science who wouldn’t show up at a networking event if she got paid to go!

And for First Gen college students- who lack the social capital to know what the high paying jobs are, what the higher paying jobs are, and what the incredibly high paying jobs are- companies are trying to work harder to level the playing field. Will be interesting to see what happens to all of this if/when the recession hits.

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I have to say that at the LACs with which we’ve had experience, the career services were spectacularly helpful. One was placed at a top consulting firm and there’s no doubt that career services helped her a great deal. She accepted and then had a change of heart and chose to go directly (sort of) to grad school. The second one was progressing well but always know she wanted to go to grad school for her PhD and opted for a position that she learned about through her department. As it is a research position, faculty recommendations were the most important thing and she did her own interview prep. In that case it made sense.

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I wonder what effect Covid will have…more operations executed via zoom with work out of the home…may lessen certain social aspects that were previously prioritized. Even strategic management consulting is experiencing a shift from onsite visitations, and given economic savings that is likely to continue.

Could this mean a lesser emphasis on social skills with a greater emphasis on analytics?

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This thought has occurred to me as I’ve read through and participated in this thread. At our company, we are doing a lot of work to understand and control the sort of biases of which you speak.

With that said, what I know of the IB world suggests the bro club is still alive and well. Because of the money, people still seem more than willing to turn themselves inside out if need be to appear as a fit, even if their true and genuine selves don’t. Conformity is not a struggle with that crowd. The i banks seem to me to be behind consulting in this respect. Those meetings have a somewhat different feel. Or I may be projecting. Who knows.

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At a firm that my son interviewed at this summer, he said the minimum number of years of experience to be allowed to interview is 6 or 7. And less senior members of the firm are in training / observation mode for a year or two before they are allowed to interview later.

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In my day at an MBB, colleagues with unconventional backgrounds (mostly STEM) who had never heard of management consulting until very late in their studies did as well as - and perhaps even better than - colleagues with pre-professional backgrounds and MBAs. Many stood out because they viewed the world (and business problems) ever so differently.

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Interestingly enough, the competitive clubs are not only aware of this, but they are innovating here as well. First of all, it is clubs like this that enabled students without family connections to join fields like consulting or investment banking. Admission was largely based upon what you knew, rather than who you knew. The diverse racial demographics of the clubs proved it.

But recently, the clubs have gone even beyond that, recognizing that even though the admissions process was fair, they were not attracting certain minority groups or women to apply in the first place. My D was in charge of DEI for her group starting junior year to do just that.

I agree with others who say that this type of thing should be ideally be done by career services. But quite frankly, the one at Harvard SUCKS, to the point his advisor couldn’t keep track of the recruiting timelines for major companies. My son completely ignored them after freshman year.

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It is a challenge for a career services office to keep track of all this. For example, the Facebook RPM program application submission window is open for exactly 3 days. If you miss it, it’s gone. Of course, even if you don’t miss it, it’s gone, because they take so few people :-). But I doubt a career services office will be on top of things for all these random opportunities.

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So to summarize- colleges have competitive business type clubs except for the ones that don’t. They are very important except when they are not. Kids get jobs as a result of the prep, connections and networking that they provide- except when the don’t. Career services is very helpful, modestly helpful, not helpful, totally useless depending on the college, depending on the field of interest, and depending on how assertive and proactive the student is. It is important that low tenured/recent hires who are alums of your college at your target companies know who you are to mentor you, except when it’s not.

Have I missed anything?

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Almost all companies have DEI programs now, and the diversity recruiting is done thru that. Those often include first gen programs. @blossom, my relative is the designated recruiter for one of the MBB at one of the HYPSM. He has been with MBB roughly 10 years. He uses the airport test, as do all his colleagues who are the designated recruiters at other HYPSM. Likeability matters a lot. The information clubs offer can help students prepare for such interviews, but is neither necessary nor sufficient-it does, however, open the field to less connected students who are not as aware of or skilled in these fields.
All companies are performance oriented. So are these clubs, which is why being a lax buddy isnt sufficient for either membership or employment anywhere anymore. Performance counts.
There are tens of thousands of kids who would perform very well at these jobs. Only a very small fraction will get them. Students might wish to maximize their likelihood of doing so, or may not care.

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@blossom Clear as mud

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The clueless geology major can still be competitive for consulting interviews, which rely more on inate intelligence and problem solving. However, IB interviews include "technicals " in their superdays, so that will stop anyone, regardless of major, who is not fluent in finance now. They didn’t used to do so, but I believe all banks use them now, and have for the last 3 years. One could learn finance outside of school, of course. Few do so.

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This is not to say though that “EQ” is not an important factor in hiring and career advancement. Your ability to communicate and get along with others is still important.

The “bro culture” has diminished significantly, even in IB. I saw and experienced a remarkable shift from the mid 80’s to early 2000’s. Client expectations on deliverables, especially quantitative analysis, precludes carrying team members who cannot contribute much other than stories of their time “on the field” or “at the club”.

That seems very unusual. In this day and age there are probably very few people with that much tenure at the elite IB’s and consulting firms. Even if we were to limit it to overall work experience (and not just tenure at the firm), we are talking about pretty senior people (Director and MD level at IB’s and Project Managers/equivalents at consulting firms) unless you include any time as a analyst. We always included junior team members in interviews because of their proximity in age/experience to the candidates. They were usually better equipped to answer questions about job expectations. It’s a different story as to who makes the ultimate calls on hiring decisions when the experience and internal credibility of the evaluators will also be weighed.

Looking through this thread and the various experiences shared, it strikes me that this process is analogous to college admissions. Some people want/need/will derive significant advantages through these clubs like some need knowledgeable and well connected guidance counselors, including the expensive private ones. For others, they will do fine on their own through a combination of one or more of motivation, research, perseverance, talent and personal networking/connections.

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Roycroft mom- I’m sure your relative has participated in umpteen trainings to explain the difference between “do I like this person” (aka the airport test) vs. “Does this person have EQ” (which is an actual competency for client-facing roles). The former yields a class of new hires which looks remarkably like the hires of previous years; the latter tends to yield a class which is much more diverse across a number of different dimensions. It is VERY hard to talk the talk on diversity when your interviewers are using “gut” to decide “does this person belong here and do I like her enough to hang out at Heathrow with her for 10 hours while we wait for a canceled flight to be rescheduled”. It is much easier to meet your diversity goals when your screens include behaviorally based questions around relationship- building, influencing skills, ability to work cohesively with a team even if you don’t all agree with each other on various elements, etc.

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Not a bank

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It’s not a very precise term. I don’t mean to suggest that these people aren’t smart and don’t contribute much if anything besides “remember when” material. And I admit that, at this point in my career, I’m not spending much time around the associates and tend to be in meetings with senior people. And, lastly, I’ll say that diversity has improved greatly among those ranks; but I’ll add that there are some demographics that are still sorely underrepresented, some not represented really at all. In my own travels, AA and Latino diversity still seems thin, and Native American diversity is practically non-existent.

Can confirm. The pendulum has swung hard to technical knowledge in IB. The person who led our secondary offering almost 10 years ago with one of the tippy top IBs hails from Williams College with a degree in math. She and I have talked about this given where I encouraged my kids to take their educations, and she cautioned that her background faces tougher odds in recruitment these days. You can’t interview with the banks not ever having heard of a balance sheet, even if you’re brilliant. The odds are heavily stacked against you. D interviewed with a well respected IB, not quite boutique but not the bigs, through the alumni athletic channel I referenced before. They tried to ‘crash course’ this bright physics kid before the interviews so she could stand a chance because they liked her: smart, quant, rigor, athlete, etc. But she only got so far with them. The alumnus partner said that their hiring is dominated by Wharton … they have a business school and those kids are more “plug and play.” He shared that he thought it was a short-sighted hiring practice that may again swing the other way, but maybe he just said that to be nice. Econ kids can still do it, and the bulk of the kids from D’s LACs who got into banks are econ. Separately, that’s what a lot of bros major in, but that’s another discussion.

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The DCF stuff is not particularly hard to pick up. Will take half a day on the outside. I am not sure what else is there. I guess you need to be generally aware as to what a stock is, what it means to be listed, what a b/s is etc.

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Its not hard at all, @blossom. Everyone has specific programs for recruiting diversity which start 6-18 months before the main recruiting. Entirely separate track. Diversity is quite broadly defined too-not just racial, but FG, LGBTQ, veteran-there are programs for just about everyone now. The vast majority of diversity hires occur through those programs, not the regular recruiting, but perhaps you didnt realize that.

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Why don’t the regular recruiting channels cast a wider net? Why is there a “regular” old boys/girls network and another for everyone else?

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I do this for a living- so not only do I realize this, I have led this.

It is incorrect to characterize this as “the vast majority”. It is a non-trivial number of hires, but believe it or not, there are still LGBTQ hires who get recruited as “regular” hires. Surprise! Not everyone cares to self-identify to their potential future employers. Plenty of veterans go through the regular recruiting rounds. They are “easy” to spot (it’s on their resumes after all) but some of them- particularly academy grads- don’t need special programs.

I’m not sure why you are taking a hostile tone towards me- but happy to log off and let your relative take over.