10 Recruiting Tips From a Second Year Student 

(Success Not Guaranteed!)

                                 

As The Zombies would sing, “it’s the time of the season for…recruiting.” 

Okay, maybe not quite. 

But whatever song lyrics you want to use to describe this time, no one can deny just how important and how intense the next few months are for students hustling to get the internship or job of their dreams. For the past few years, Booth has been #1 on The Economist’s charts for the best MBA program in the world, in no small part because of the strength of its career services.

We’ll write more about the nuts and bolts of recruiting—the scheduling, the resources, and the decision-making process, but in the meantime, have some tried-and-true tips:  

1. Eat breakfast. Even if you have an 8AM interview. Actually, especially if you have an 8AM interview—you’ll need the energy, and it’ll keep you from being a cranky, hangry interviewee. My favorite is Starbucks blueberry oatmeal with the fruit/nut/seed medley swapped out for nuts, and a Veranda Blond, tall, no room, to go.

2. Get your dry-cleaning done the week before. There will be unforeseen circumstances that prevent you from getting your stuff to the cleaners and you do not want to be remembered as the one in the dirty suit. In a pinch, I like Pressed Garments; they’ll come pick up and drop off your dry cleaning at scheduled times. Tip 2a: sometimes they’re late, so allot an extra 15 minute window.

3. Remember to smile and bring good energy. As someone with a naturally stern face, I understand that smiling is not necessarily the easiest thing to keep in mind when in a high-stress environment. It makes a difference, though, and it’s always better to start off the interview with positivity.

4. Surround yourself with people who think you’re awesome, but who can also give you constructive advice about what you can do better. Your mom’s great, but your mentor who went through the same thing you did last year AND has a nifty, prioritized list of your strengths and weaknesses is better.  Even better: Career Advisers, second-year students who are trained extensively to advise critically and effectively on specific career tracks.

5. Crush the math. This! Is! Booth! So, naturally, the quant bar is set high. Make sure you know all the nifty tricks for quick adding and subtracting, and that you can take 15% of anything and apply a 20% CAGR to any base year in your sleep.

6. Do not be shy about asking for help from your classmates. We want to help, and it would be the saddest thing ever if you wanted to know something but didn’t ask because you didn’t want to inconvenience us. I can’t count how many times classmates offered their time and their expertise in helping me achieve my goals; to this day, I haven’t had a single classmate turn me down when I asked to meet with them or get help on case or fit prep. It’s one of the reasons why I feel so strongly about giving back, formally (MCG resume workshop) or informally (coffee chats with anyone who asks me).

7. When asking people about their summers, don’t be a crazy. Slow down and try to build a little bit of natural rapport before bombarding them with questions. Don’t ever underestimate the power of small talk—it’s an effective and frequently necessary step towards building a connection with someone It’s so, so important to treat people (recruiters, contacts at target companies, second years, etc.) as people, rather than a means to an end. Small talk won’t do that on its own, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Right: “So you were in Chicago over the summer; did you get to go to one of the festivals?”  

Wrong: “Which partners and which practices did you get exposure to? Can you put me in contact with them? Also, can you do cases with me tomorrow because I need 1-on-1 coaching ASAP.”

8. Communicate with your classmates in your groups for class. Be upfront so that the group can set reasonable expectations about deadlines and responsibilities. Don’t be the person who’s so busy trying to kiss up to 20 banks that it leaves their group in the lurch: it’s disrespectful, you WILL develop a reputation quickly,  and it will backfire if you ever have to do #6 for re-recruiting.

9. Stay calm. Yes, it feels like you’re sinking into the Mariana Trench, but you’re strong and resilient because you’re a Booth student and it’s in your blood. It gets better; it gets WAY better, so keep that in mind when it feels like you’re one bad crop circle away from meltdown.

10. Re-recruiting is a thing. A huge thing. So don’t stress out if you don’t get exactly what you wanted during internship recruiting. Things happen for a reason, people fall in and out of love with companies and jobs on a regular basis. 

Take a breath; you’re at Booth and you’re going to be wildly successful no matter what you do.  

 

Landing the Perfect Internship

While first-year students have been busy with on-campus recruitment for internships, second-year students have been volunteering to help through various Career Services programming and case interview prep. In this week's post, Nupur Bhargava describes her experience giving back to the Booth community and assisting first-year students on their internship hunts.

Dana
***

Hi everyone,

Hope the new year is treating you well. As an Admissions Fellow I have been spending a lot of time reading applications and continue to be amazed by the quality of the applicants to Chicago Booth. I often wonder how I managed to get in to Booth, but I’m glad I did. Continuing in the tradition of my past blogs on the career aspects as Booth, below is a note on how we as second years get involved with first-year recruiting.

This is the time for me and my classmates as second years to truly "pay it forward". Over the course of the last few weeks a lot of us have been helping first years with interview preparation. I’ve been particularly involved with consulting interview prep since that’s what I did over the summer. There are three avenues that most first years exploit as they try to get as much practice as possible before actual interviews happen in the last week of January/ early February.

1. Case prep with first-year classmates: Most of this happens over the winter break and is the best method for first years to get familiar with the process. Prior to the break the Management Consulting Group hosted a mock interview process where a few second years (myself included) demonstrated how a case is done and try to share the knowledge we’ve gained going through the process over the last year. This is usually the first time first years see how a case interview is conducted and how they will potentially be evaluated.



2. wInterview and ITP: Career services organizes two formal events: wInterview (winter + interview) and Interview Training Process (ITP), in early January.
   
   wInterview is a particularly fun event. The entire first year class took over the Harper Center in their suits early on Saturday morning, January 12,to go through a whole day of interview prep. The Winter Garden was completely transformed too, complete with polar bear and snowflake decorations. I remember being nervous coming to this event last year and about the day and the process ahead. As a second year, though, the day was a lot easier, since my task was to interview eight first years and to give them a feel of what an actual interview would be like.
   
   The best part of the process is that first years are recorded on video throughout the interview so that they can watch how they behave in the interview setting. I distinctly remember watching my own video last year and noticing how much I played with the pen in my hands while speaking! Overall I was quite impressed by how most first years were able to handle the stress as they fielded questions such as “tell me about a time you failed” or “tell me about a time you had to lead without being in an appointed leadership position”. The interviews last about 15-20 minutes and then we spent about 15 minutes debriefing on what was good and what needs further work. It was a particularly rewarding experience for me as I got to meet a number of really talented first years while honing the skill of giving actionable feedback.
   
   ITP is a similar concept where first years register for a mock interview with a firm. As a second year, I volunteered to represent Bain and conducted an hour long interview with a first year. This interview too was recorded so that the first year could reflect on his behavior. I spent about half the time interviewing and the remainder of the session giving feedback on what I believed were his strengths and weaknesses.
   
   
3. Case prep sessions: Individual case prep sessions with second years was where I learned the most and to "pay it forward" at the start of the quarter, I set up a Google doc with free time slots that a first year could sign up for to do individual case prep with me. I shared this document with a number of first years who had connected with me early on in the process and who had reached out to me over winter break with requests to do case prep. Although these sessions took ten hours of my time each week, I found them to be the most rewarding. Having worked with a few first years from the day they stepped onto campus, from conducting resume reviews to now helping them with cases, I’ve seen how they have grown and I’m glad to have been a part of it. Along the way I’ve made some friends and gotten to know a lot of really amazing people. I know a lot of my classmates have been doing the same and we are all rooting for Booth students to secure the right internships for them.

I know that we will all be glad once this process is over so that as a combined group we can all enjoy Spring quarter! Good luck to all the first years looking for internships!