[校园风光] Columbia Business School MBA校友答疑（四）consulting recruiting

Consulting is for sure one of the most popular streams in CBS, if not the most popular one. The management consulting club is one of the biggest student organizations in the school, providing all the helps you will need for the recruiting, esp. the mock interviews. Actually, the top three employers in CBS in 2010 are not those big banks as many expected, but are McKinsey, BCG and Bain. CBS also admits a significant number of consultants as well. In my cluster, there are at least 15+ ex-consultants, from all the major firms in all the major continents. They, by training or by default, love to share experience and provide help. Consulting industry is also well presented in Chinese students community as well. Among 2011 class, I know 6 people will go to consulting in China (McK*2/McK CF/RB/Booz/BCG), and another guy who got Bain but will be going to PE instead. - other CBS'ers please correct me if I omit anybody.

Also, you number you is referring to summer internship. Given the fact that major consulting firms normally have fewer spots for summer than for its full time associate positions (McKinsey 2010 hire 20 summers but 38 fulltime), you can safely expect the number of people who go consulting will increase upon graduation. You may also take into account that ex-consultants with returning offers will try anything but consulting for their summer.

The last point I want to mention is that, given the traditional strength of CBS in financial area, besides the "generalist" associate position, CBS MBA's also have very good presence and recruiting records in Corporate Finance Practice in some of the major firms in Asia/China. It also be a good opportunity for those who want to make a switch but don't want to take a completely different route.

P.S.:
top employers full-time hires (source: CBS employment reports):
class 2010 2009 :
mckinsey 38 46
BCG 25 21
Bain 17 10
Booz 16 20
Deloitte 12 12
Total 108 109

a few things to note:
1. these numbers are people who ACCEPTED offers. these don't not include people who got offers and will be joining PE or IB instead. And don't include people who got multiple consulting offers. if you count all these, the number would be much, much higher. for example, i heard from seniors that Deloitte went on a hiring spree and was basically hiring anyone who could talk from CBS, promising to pay off 2nd year tuition and pay above MBB...although it is not reflected in these numbers as a lot of people still turned them down.

2. when finance industry does well it tends to divert away a lot of competition from consulting, especially in CBS where many people are interested in finance. So the drop from 109 in 2009 to 108 in 2010 is merely a reflection of people's transition of interests, as supported by the strong uptick in finance hiring between the two years' reports.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/business/career/employmentreport/2010/2010-Employment-Report.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/business/career/employmentreport/2009/2009.Columbia.Business.School-Employment%20Report.pdf

3. in CBS to do consulting is so easy as the competition is not as tough than some of the traditional consulting schools. a 2nd year guy who's going to McK prepared for only two days before the interview...

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