While I respect your opinion, I note times have changed. A lot. None of these clubs foist preparation on unwilling students-most kids do the level they need to be comfortable. Most have full lives outside of their business club, and such clubs can and do sponsor fun social activities-trips, games, parties, service opportunities. Yes, preparation is available elsewhere ( there are even courses and tutors for it now) and everyone agrees prep can be obtained elsewhere as well. Some prefer this venue.
Suffice to say students are substantially more prepared for such interviews now than 10 years ago. My source is 3 close family members at MBB. FWIW, none of them were in such clubs, but they see their value.
My kid in finance from a non-elite school credits her job to her business fraternity. Probably valid. Loved every minute of it,very social.
Excellent post. Thank you for reminding us what’s really important!
I guess perhaps I am overstating the importance of these clubs. I just am tired of the constant competition that our kids have to go through. When I heard about the concept of competitive clubs, my heart sank.
Just a suggestion, but maybe time to change perspective on competition-the same will be true applying for jobs, houses ( these days, at least). Try to make peace with it. No one wins or loses all the time.
I just thought that clubs were something that wasn’t competitive and allowed kids to explore things out of the classroom. I just wandered about schools that apparently had “competitive clubs.”
Perhaps it’s not the problem I thought it was.
But, yes, do your best rather than be the best is Dad’s mantra for Ds.
Same experience here. My S looked into both the consulting and IB clubs at his HYPS. He thought they were kind of cliquey (made up of kids with parents in the industry or friends of those kids) so he passed. He’d rather spend his free time playing his club sports (which did have tryouts), student government, the community service work he did or just “hang out”. Was able to secure a consulting internship summer soph and a BB IB internship summer junior (where he works now) using the career services resources and help from upperclassmen that he was friends with that had gotten those kinds of jobs. He then played it forward to the underclassmen behind him.
It’s been a long time since I have hired into IB, but for analysts from target schools, grades, major, courses and experience were the primary things of weight to me. Clubs and EC’s rounded out the conversation more along the lines of “would this be someone I would enjoy on a personal level” on my teams vs “can they do the work”. I can see this having changed though with focus and specialization coming earlier for many young people.
Those connections are very real. For example, when finance and consulting companies visit campus, quite often they have separate social functions just for students in the selective clubs. The employees from the companies are typically recent alumni graduates from that college, and want to find the most talented students and help them land a spot in the firm. Once a contact has been made, those employees readily provide interviewing advice.
Roycroftmom- fantastic that your D had such a positive experience in her fraternity, and equally fantastic that it helped her get her job.
However- for the benefit of folks whose kids are at colleges where these clubs are competitive, OR non-existent- I might also point out that perhaps your D got her job because of the enthusiasm with which she spoke about her fraternity involvement. Just like some of her colleagues at work- who didn’t join these clubs- spoke about their own activities and involvement. Perhaps she got her job because she aced the interviews- due to her practice sessions- and might also have aced the interviews by watching a tutorial at career services. Maybe she’s a great natural interviewer!
D2 was quite upset about not getting into D1’s dance club, but she got her first internship through a referral from someone at her dance club.
When D1 was in college I asked her if she wanted to join one of those business clubs. She said, “Why would I? Club is supposed to be fun.” She also never wanted to attend CTY summer programs.
Your kid can make join clubs as competitive as they want, or just join the club that he/she gets into and have fun.
You are right that there are a lot of ways to get some place. Some are more structured (and often therefore more efficient) than others. There is a reason why kids like to join these clubs, and entry is competitive. Entry is competitive because the coaching resources within the club are limited.
To some degree whether you prefer a structured or an unstructured environment is personal choice. As an example, my kid prefers an unstructured environment. But we don’t arbitrarily dismiss the value of a club.
You are incorrectly discounting the value of these clubs. The interviewing advice I am referring to is company specific, not general.
My daughter was in a competitive club, and in addition to the club only social events, she was told multiple times in interviews that she was selected for an interview because she was in a “known club”. Some companies kept track of college clubs that were known to have rigorous training, and like interviewing from there because it is a target rich environment. This rigor proved to be true during the education “boot camp” portion of her internship, where she breezed through the material because it was largely review.
It is certainly possible to get these positions without being in these clubs, but the path is harder.
I am not discounting the value of the clubs. I am pointing out that there are multiple entry points- and that the clubs- valuable though they may be- are not the “screening out” devices some students and parents believe them to be.
Seems pretty straightforward to me. And no, path not harder. Different, not harder. It isn’t rocket science to learn how to interview.
I have this debate on CC with the folks who claim that if you don’t major in finance you can’t get a job at a top I Bank. I point to the thousands of employees at I banks who didn’t major in finance- and also point out that it doesn’t take Goldman Sachs too much time to teach a geology major how to do a discounted cash flow analysis-- and folks go nuts that I’m “discounting” the value of a finance degree.
Go study finance. But it is not the only way to “break in” to many competitive fields, and no, it’s not “harder”, in many ways it’s easier. A top physics student is going to find it a breeze compared to a run of the mill finance major…
Incidentally you find a lot of econ and business kids in these clubs, and a bunch of stem kids going into banking wing it – i.e. less structured paths.
One might think that it should be the opposite case. Because the stem kids are coming from outside the field and may desire more structured training. It is often not the case. Maybe because the stakes are low, and banking / consulting are just an afterthought.
The point is that some kids don’t NEED structured training. And agree with you, that many are successful winging it, and that’s great. There is no “sorting mechanism” at various employers to weed out students who did not join competitive clubs!
I agree with this. And as @roycroftmom mentioned above, preparing solo can work, too. Maybe my experience is outdated but it worked for me when I interviewed at an MBB many years ago and I am not a “superstar.” I was several years out of graduate school and didn’t have a support infrastructure around me but I had experience interviewing at highly sought after places (outside of management consulting) and engaging with senior leaders. My preparation consisted of reading a management consulting guide bought from Barnes & Noble, organizing a session with a friend to practice case questions and speaking with another friend at the MBB I was applying to to get a sense of what to expect.
My D got a really good job with an excellent consulting firm. The people who interviewed her were extremely interested in discussing her job as a barista at Starbucks. There is more than one path.
I won’t make light of having the right connections in some circles, of course. But I am guessing that there is often even more at play in these cases. I suspect that the real connection is being from the right background and/or family. Privilege does beget privilege, from what I have observed. I mentored a young man whose background did not lend itself to doors opening, even though he hoped that doing well at an elite college would help. My advice was to blaze his own path rather than to focus on the unfairness of not being able to follow the path he wanted to follow. He did, and he is happy in a different kind of career path. Life can be unfair, but it’s our response that dictates our own happiness.
You were several years out of grad school and had experience with senior business leaders? No, you wouldnt need a club to guide you, presumably, you should have been in a position to guide others by that time.
As another poster noted, some of this is driven by the accelerated recruiting schedule now in place, which seems to get earlier every year despite efforts to rein it back later. At least the clubs usually advise their members of the schedule so they don’t miss it. As students interview earlier and earlier, it is no wonder many seek additional support and practice. FWIW the IB summer 2024 season has just begun, for sophomores.
I agree with this. I’m thinking of a number of kids I know (primarily NESCAC grads) who were certainly not in any of those clubs and are working right now at Big 4 firms or top management consulting companies. In fact, I don’t even know which, if any, of those schools have clubs like that.
How many high schoolers know they want to be in consulting anyway? I would not base any decisions on how hard it is to get into what sounds like, frankly, the most boring club ever😆. I would definitely consider club offerings at a college as a whole. If I was super interested in being involved in a capella for example, and I learned that getting into any a capella group was next to impossible, that might give me pause.