In an engaging exploration of MBA pathways to top consulting firms, John Byrne, Maria Wich-Vila, and Caroline Diarte Edwards delve into the nuances of business school rankings and career pivots into consulting. Maria opens up about balancing parenting responsibilities as her high schoolers approach AP exams, while Caroline shares her insights into the growing appeal of Canadian business schools for international applicants, noting the enticing work permits available post-graduation.

A key discussion point revolves around the changing significance of school rankings to employers. Maria points out that while rankings held more weight two decades ago, the landscape has shifted. Major consulting and finance firms now extend their recruitment efforts beyond traditional elite schools, thanks to digital testing and virtual interviews that uncover talent across a broader array of institutions. This means that a candidate’s personal attributes and performance during interviews have become crucial differentiators in securing positions at competitive firms.

Caroline highlights the strategic expansions in Canadian MBA programs, citing schools like Rotman and McGill as hubs attracting international students interested in consulting and finance sectors. She discusses how Canada offers attractive opportunities, such as work permits for longer programs, drawing students to cities like Toronto and Vancouver. For prospective MBA applicants, this conversation underscores the importance of considering diverse educational paths and the evolving priorities of potential employers in the global market.

Episode Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by AI and may contain minor inaccuracies.

[00:00:02] – Paula

Hello everyone. I’m Paula Lemm with Poets and Quants, and welcome to our weekly podcast, Business Casual. So I’m joined today by my lovely co-hosts, Caroline D’Arti Edwards and Maria Wickvila. And Caroline, as a reminder, was head of admissions at INSEAD and is now founder of Fortuna Admissions. And Maria is the founder of ApplicantLab. Given we’re at the start of the week, I thought I’d ask you, Maria, what’s your Tuesday vibe today and what does the week ahead hold for you?

[00:00:37] – Maria

The week ahead is a very parenting-heavy week. We were chatting before we started recording about having high schoolers and the AP exams are coming. 0 out of 10 stars. Do not recommend. So that’s kind of my— I am primarily focused on being a mom this week. That’s my vibe is flashcards.

[00:00:59] – Paula

Flashcards and cookies.

[00:01:01] – Maria

That’s what I’m missing.

[00:01:03] – Paula

Oh, the cookies. Oh yeah. I remember those days. APs. Caroline, what about your week?

[00:01:11] – Caroline

Uh, well, lots of, um, lots of balls in the air, like Maria. So, well, something I’ve been working on recently, which we hope to get out today, is we’ve been working on a piece about, um, business schools in Canada, which has been really interesting to dive into. So, I’ve been working on finalizing that and hope to get that out in the next day or two. And then also I’m working on a campaign that we’re gonna be running with Poets and Quants in the next week or two. So.

[00:01:38] – Paula

Oh, exciting. All exciting stuff. Funny, business schools in Canada were on my mind today in a chat with someone talking about, you know, student flows, what’s going on with Canada. Do you wanna give us a 30-second take on that?

[00:01:54] – Caroline

In terms of demand, you mean? What’s happening with the— Yeah. Well, so I mean, I think that you’d have to check with the schools. I’m not sure, but I get the impression that the schools outside of the US are benefiting from concerns about coming to the US. Some of the schools are expanding their programs. So for example, Rotman has a flagship program. They have just launched an accelerated program in addition to their core program. So they have a 1-year format, which is new for the school. So they’ve expanded the number of MBA students. So I think that that suggests that they are seeing increased demand. And also if you do pursue your MBA, it has to be actually a program that is a minimum of 16 months. But if you do a program that is 16 months or more, then you can get a work permit to stay in Canada for 3 years following graduation. So that’s also very attractive to international candidates. So they are very international programs. They do attract people from all over the world. And they have great recruiters, top consulting firms. Toronto is a great hub for finance, for example, a lot of big finance recruiters there.

[00:03:11] – Caroline

So quite large proportions of the class is going into consulting firms, the top consulting firms, into finance, into technology. So yeah, could be interesting to discuss them in more detail one day.

[00:03:25] – Paula

Definitely, definitely. And just one, one final quick follow-up on this. So are most of those business schools in Canada clustered around the Toronto area?

[00:03:35] – Caroline

Well, so there are some in Toronto and then another great school is McGill in Montreal. So they have the Desautels Faculty of Management, which has an MBA program. And then the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Those are the primary hubs for, for business education. Good.

[00:04:01] – Paula

I’m looking forward to talking about more Canadian school things in a coming episode. So we talked about last week about the US News Business School rankings and following off of that, I thought I’d ask you both your thoughts on how much rankings in general, not just US News, matter to to employers. So Maria, what’s your take on that?

[00:04:26] – Maria

So I think maybe 20 years ago it mattered a lot more, but I think that employers have recently, in the past several years, have learned that really talent goes to all kinds of schools. And so I know that a number of programs, especially the big feeders such as the management consulting firms and also the banks, I think that may, whereas perhaps they would, you know, in the past only recruit at a handful of select schools. They’ve really started casting a wider net because I do think that digital— the ability to do digital tests of people before they even set foot in an interview, the ability to do Zoom interviews, it really does mean that if I’m a recruiter, I can really find terrific talent anywhere. So my understanding— and we can talk about this more based on what we know— but my understanding is that these top firms, they have sort of an open recruitment process at all of the top schools. And then they, at that point, it comes down to you as an individual. If you show up to the interview and you’re not prepared or you don’t have good social skills or your background simply isn’t a good fit, it doesn’t matter the ranking of your school, and conversely, I’ve had clients from the past who have gone on to schools that might not be quite as fancy, but they end up after business school in the same management rotation program at Amazon or Microsoft or Bain or McKinsey, as their peers who went to Harvard, Stanford, or Wharton.

[00:05:51] – Maria

So I don’t think it’s as important as people think, especially not to that immediate post-MBA job.

[00:05:59] – Paula

Yeah, it’s funny when you said their background, a student’s background sometimes doesn’t fit, my immediate thought was about the Zoom background. That’s how the kind of online interview and online world is so, You know, so embedded these days. But yeah, I think that, that rings true based on what I heard from a recruiter at a, a top consultancy this week that, you know, he was saying that COVID really helped in democratizing things in a way that, you know, that now obviously there’s a lot more interviewing online and people don’t necessarily have to be located nearby an office, um, at least for initial interviews, maybe final round. That’s, That’s more in person. But yeah, I mean, Caroline, I guess we’ve been talking about those top consultancies specifically, but does how much employers lean on rankings vary by the different types of employers? So you’ve got obviously tech or, you know, boutique firms outside of big consultancies. Is there any kind of group that cares less generally about school prestige?

[00:07:09] – Caroline

Yeah, I would say that, for example, the McKinseys and the Goldmans of the world are going to care more about school pedigree than some other firms. For example, startups or some tech companies, smaller businesses, regional companies are going to be less concerned about school prestige than some of the very top firms. I agree with Maria that online recruiting has really changed the landscape and opened up avenues from candidates from schools that might not have had the opportunity to interview before. So, you know, that, that’s a great thing. I’m sure that it’s still the case though, that schools are investing more in going to campus and hosting info sessions and networking events on certain campuses. They just don’t have the resources or the time to go everywhere, even though that they know that there may be some fantastic candidates at a broader list of schools. And so the rankings can play into the list of schools schools that they go to. Although, when we were talking about rankings last week, we talked about how, of course, publications, when they publish these rankings, they don’t want to publish exactly the same list every year because otherwise there would be no story.

[00:08:28] – Caroline

So, of course, there needs to be some shuffling around for them to be able to spin a story out of it. And recruiters—

[00:08:37] – Paula

cynical take, cynical take.

[00:08:39] – Caroline

Recruiters are not going to shuffle the list of which schools they visit and which schools they recruit from every year. So, it’s more about the long-term trends of where schools are in the rankings, and schools and recruiters care more about that long-term trend of where they stand, right? So, if they have, if they decline a bit every year, then that could, that is obviously a concern versus one year where, you know, they drop and then they come back the next year. So, it’s really about that longer-term trend, and then also, recruiters in schools, they care about the cluster of schools that a school is within, because as we talked about last week, it’s quite clear that there’s often very little to choose between, um, the data underlying the ranking when you look at the schools that are, um, in a, in a peer group. So say in the top 10 or schools that are ranked 10 to 20, the actual, um, numerical difference in the underlying data is very, very small. And so, it doesn’t necessarily matter a huge amount whether you are number 6 or number 7, or whether you’re number 15 or number 16.

[00:09:52] – Caroline

It’s more about the cluster of schools that you are within and who are your peer schools. So, companies will have a list of schools that they will be targeting for their in-person recruitment on campuses, and that isn’t going to shift dramatically. From one year to the next based on rankings. What can shift that list is not, it’s not just the rankings, it’s also the economic cycle. So, if they need to, if they’re in a year where business is booming and they need to recruit a lot more students, then they’re going to lengthen that list of schools that they will visit and invest in. And if we’re in a recession and they’re not looking to recruit so many students, then they’re going to recruit at a shorter list of schools.

[00:10:40] – Paula

That’s quite interesting. So, they’re not just taking more students from the top schools. They’re really kind of spreading the wealth around a little bit there and pulling from more programs.

[00:10:52] – Caroline

Yeah, because they can’t necessarily rely on a shorter list of schools to fill all of their positions. And they may also— it depends also the geography that they’re looking to recruit for, because they may be going to, obviously, the East Coast schools to recruit for East Coast offices. They may be going to the West Coast schools to recruit in the West Coast. At a school like INSEAD or London Business School, they’ll most likely be recruiting for multiple offices in multiple countries. So, geography and relative demand for recruitment in different offices can play into their recruiting strategy as well.

[00:11:31] – Paula

Yeah. I think you touched earlier on timeline, and I think one thing that really surprised me is just how early recruiters from the top shops, at least for consultancies, for big consultancies, agencies go to schools, like they’re getting there in September, right? When students have, you know, you, what have you done? You’ve found your flat, you’ve kind of like, yeah, you’ve got your living place and then, and you’ve started school and already the job hunt has begun. But I guess that’s kind of the nature of the beast because you’ve already been working. It’s not like you’re, it’s not quite like you’re starting undergrad, right?

[00:12:08] – Caroline

Yeah. So something to keep in mind is that of course students are always concerned about the competition that they face to land a great job when they graduate, but recruiters are also in competition with each other as well. And they are looking to market themselves to MBA students because they want to be the top choice and they want to start building that relationship early. And they want to attract lots of candidates to apply so that the competition goes both ways.

[00:12:38] – Paula

Mm, yeah, that’s a really good point, that it’s not just a one-sided thing. Maria, you know, sometimes people say, if I go to the less competitive school, I’ll stand out more. Is that logic flawed?

[00:12:52] – Maria

I do think it’s flawed because I do think that especially— and just because we’ve been talking about the consulting firms, I mean, it makes sense about a third of a lot of these classes end up going into consulting. I think for the consulting firms, they have a very set list of what they are looking for in the people that they hire. And if you, you might be the top of your smaller school, but if you don’t meet that minimum bar of what they’re looking for, say, in the case interview, or if that sort of interpersonal interview, if for whatever reason you’re not doing well, it doesn’t really matter who your competition is on a given campus, especially because, yeah, there might be sort of a geographic, you know, the Atlanta office might be looking more to Emory or to Vanderbilt, but still, people from all sorts of campuses end up going to all kinds of offices. So, I would go to the school that is most likely to do the best job preparing you for those, say, case interviews, whether it’s through coursework or through the extracurricular club having sort of a mentorship program to get you up to speed, or whatever that might be.

[00:13:56] – Maria

So, I would not necessarily think of it, that seems sort of a little bit small-minded. Now, if you are looking at a smaller company that happens to be based have their headquarters in a certain geography, then that might help tilt the scales towards a quote-unquote smaller school or a less competitive school, because I think there’s a lot to be said for establishing yourself in a certain geography, you know, get kind of getting a jump start on that professional networking angle. But if you are looking for one of the big typical employment recruitment machine types of careers, I wouldn’t necessarily think so much about, you know, if I go to Wharton, are my competitors going to be better or worse than me? Because as long as you’re fitting what they’re looking for, then that’s the main thing that, that I, that matters in terms of getting that offer. Yeah.

[00:14:43] – Paula

I mean, specifically in top consultancies. So if, if I am not at a, say, top 10 school, what’s going to put me, if I’m in a, you know, the top, the top 20, the top 30, 50, what’s going to put me ahead of a student at that top 10 school, Caroline?

[00:15:04] – Caroline

I think that the process starts early, and as you mentioned, the, the whole recruitment cycle and the relationship building process starts quite early in the MBA program. And so it could be, for example, getting involved in the consulting club at your school and getting involved in those networking events. Perhaps you could even take a leadership role in that club. If you’re doing a longer program where you have the opportunity to do an internship, then of course, try to get an internship in consulting, even if it’s not at your target employer, then at least you’re getting that exposure, you’re getting that experience, and it helps to build your resume, or perhaps it is with your target employer. And then that’s a wonderful route to actually landing a full-time job if you can get the internship. And so I think, you know, it’s through those on-campus networking events, it’s through the consulting clubs. It’s through projects as well, where many schools offer experiential courses where you can do real-life consulting projects for companies or organizations outside of the school. So if you can get involved in those types of projects, that can give you a great story to tell as well.

[00:16:19] – Caroline

It helps you to build your skills and to get exposure that can help you position yourself. So most MBA programs offer a lot of different ways that you can build your profile for whether it’s consulting or for finance through the core courses, through the electives, through the clubs, through the networking events. But it does help to have a clear vision of what you want to do when you start the program so that you can take advantage of, of those opportunities and really focus your time and energy. Because one of the, the issues that MBA students face is that they have so many fantastic opportunities to take advantage of, and you really can’t do everything. And so, if you are looking, for example, to make a career switch into working for a top consulting firm, it does take time and dedication. And really building up your profile over a period of time. And what I’ve seen is that the people who are successful in doing that are the people who had that in mind and have really been quite deliberate about the choices that they make during the program in terms of the courses that they take and the activities and the extracurriculars, their clubs and so on, rather than the candidates who have tried out a lot of different things, but perhaps fragmented their energies a little bit too much over different opportunities and different possible paths.

[00:17:50] – Caroline

And that really makes a difference when it comes to the interviews. As Maria said, it’s a very incredibly rigorous interview process and that preparation and that relationship building, as well as the case preparation, that will all pay off at the point when you’re getting to those interviews. And I see that the people who’ve had that focus from early on in the program typically are much more successful than the students who have pursued a wider range of interests.

[00:18:24] – Paula

I would assume given this group, MBA students in general tend to, I think, have, you know, a specific thing they’re aiming for, that many of them do have a clear vision, but I’m curious, what if I am an MBA student and I don’t necessarily have a a super precise point where I want to end up. I mean, I’ve got a rough idea. I want to pivot to working in consulting, but in terms of employer or in terms of the specifics, I’m still kind of getting a feel for that in my MBA. Is that what, what sort of advice would you give me, Maria?

[00:18:59] – Maria

Well, I would say, first of all, a lot of the different consulting firms, yes, they have different cultures or they will focus on, you know, some of them will be broad strategy, some will be digital implementation, some will be healthcare. But I think at first those core skills that you will need to excel in in any of those interviews, as Caroline mentioned, like being able to sit down in front of a case and reason through it and impress them with your reasoning skills or whatever that might be, that’s probably going to be pretty similar from firm to firm to firm. So, if you think that consulting is what you want to do, I would start off with just getting those fundamental skills down and then just apply to as many as possible. And then once, you know, as that process works its way through, that’s when you can start talking to your classmates, right? Because a lot of people go into consulting from business school, but a lot of people go into business school from consulting. So that’s when you can have the coffee chat with the person who worked at BCG and the coffee chat from the person who worked at LEK or whatever it might be.

[00:19:55] – Maria

And you can start to ask them like, okay, what’s it like in general? What was the Dubai office like? Uh, is the London office really competitive or are they really friendly? And so that’s how you start to get a sense of which firm, which specialty it might be. But if you’re sort of, not really sure what you want to do, my advice would be just prepare in general for consulting as a broad path, and then hope that you get more than one offer. Because another thing is that I think people sometimes think like, oh great, I got into a top business school, I’m gonna, you know, BCG and Bain and McKinsey are gonna be duking it out for me. And sometimes, look, if someone doesn’t have the right preparation, you can have any sort of pre-MBA background, but then you have to take that background and turn it into something that becomes compelling for the firm, you know, you might not get any of these offers. So, it behooves you, just like when you’re applying to business schools, to cast a wide net and apply to a lot of schools. I would advise people to really, you know, apply to a number of different consulting firms, especially if they have no background in it.

[00:20:57] – Maria

Don’t be too picky, just get your foot in the door. Maybe that first summer internship is not the super fancy, super mega elite firm, but it’s something. And then you can use that, you can build upon that experience in your second year, you know, or even like the in-class assignments or those, you know, the consulting assignments that schools will give you that Caroline mentioned earlier. Like that’s when you talk about, you use in the interview in the second year when they ask you like, whoa, why do you think you’d be good at this? Well, now you’re bringing something a lot more concrete versus I don’t know, like I feel like I’d be good at it, right? Which is not very satisfying.

[00:21:31] – Paula

Yeah. I mean, Caroline, you were talking about not spreading yourself too thin. So, how do you avoid that, especially if you’re still in the process of kind of figuring things out?

[00:21:44] – Caroline

Yes. And it’s true that, so, when you apply to business school, you have to normally articulate your career vision. And so, you’re right in that most students do have a vision of what they want to do. For some of them, it may be more genuine than others, right? Some of them actually may have a clear passion of what they want to do. And they stick with that. Some of them may have an idea, but they’re not really quite 100% convinced. So that’s definitely what they want to do. And of course the MBA is a transformational experience. And so many people will change their career vision during the program. And I think that’s very, very common. But I think that people underestimate how quickly the time goes on an MBA program. I mean, that’s certainly true at INSEAD. Where I did my MBA and I worked, it’s a 10-month program, right? I mean, if you start in January, you have 12 months to graduate until December, but you have a break over the summer to do an internship. So, it’s essentially 10 months at school, whether you start in January or September. And those 1-year programs go incredibly fast.

[00:22:47] – Caroline

And even the 2-year programs, it’s just that it’s a very intense experience and it’s a lot to do and the time really flies by. So it is a tricky balance for students because you want to make the most of the exposure that you’re getting and keep an open mind and be willing to be changed by the experience and be open to that transformation, which is a big part of why you’re going to business school is to be enriched and to learn, and that will change you for sure. But at some point you you do need to hone in on a particular direction. And so I think you just need to set yourself a timeframe of a period of exploration in the program and a period when you need to, you need to nail down your choices. And it may be that you still, when it comes to recruitment, maybe you apply for consulting as well as tech jobs. You don’t have to stick to one particular sector, right? Candidates do apply across multiple types of jobs. But for the very competitive jobs, I would say things like investment banking or the very top consultancy firms, what I’ve seen is that the candidates who are more focused on that earlier in the program tend to be more successful.

[00:24:09] – Caroline

And then even more so for the positions where the firms are recruiting maybe one or two, you know, like private equity and venture capital and so on, those are even much harder to positions to land and you have to be laser-focused on that from extremely early in the program. So, you know, there’s definitely a balance to strike. But I think it’s good for students to be aware that if you fragment your attention too much and you’re open to any type of opportunity that comes your way, then you risk not landing anything at all, right? Because when you go into the consulting interviews, you’re going to be competing with the other students who have wanted that job at McKinsey. From when they were 5 years old, but at least from when they started the program and that they’ve been really focused on pursuing courses and activities and clubs and internships that prepare them well for that McKinsey role, right? You’re going to be competing against them and probably they’re going to be the ones who land the job. And then when you go into the tech interviews, again, you’re going to be competing with people who have been incredibly laser-focused on getting into the tech industry and have been pursuing electives and, and, um, and clubs and so on, um, that build into that.

[00:25:29] – Caroline

So I would say that at least by halfway through the program, you need to narrow down your focus quite consistently.

[00:25:38] – Maria

And I want to, I want to make a distinction between casting a wide net within an industry, say applying to 10 different consulting firms versus applying to 10 different industries, right? So you can cast, you can apply to 10 different banks for investment banking, But it’s really hard to do well if you’re pursuing, especially because investment banking and consulting in particular do tend to follow the same hiring cycle, so they will come to campus at the same time. That’s a very difficult thing to pull off if you have no experience in either one of those, right? Because you’re gonna get into a banking interview and they’re gonna ask you to like, okay, maybe like, how would you build this valuation model? And that’s a different skill than perhaps some of the skills that you’ve been practicing for your consulting. And same thing with tech, right? If you show up to a tech interview and they give you some sort of like a product management type of case and you’re like, I haven’t been focused on that, you’re not gonna do very well. So I think pick an industry or two to focus on, but within that industry, cast a wide net, but don’t start applying to all of the different consumer packaged goods, maybe nonprofit, maybe investing, maybe all, that’s not gonna work out.

[00:26:43] – Paula

[Speaker] Absolutely. This is bringing me back to the careers fair at journalism school. I fell into this pitfall of, you know, there’s so many things, you know, you’re trying to everything and, and you’re trying to get interviews with anyone you can and, um, from ultimately very different publications. And, uh, yeah, I, I think this, had I, had I had this advice earlier, it would have been very helpful. But, uh, I have one final question for you both. Which is in the spirit of sort of capturing my professional journey and what we’re doing at Poets and Quants, I’m trying to build in some habits. So one of those is posting regularly to LinkedIn, and then TikTok is another place where I’m trying to build a presence. But, you know, I find it— I find that my posts have been a bit more sporadic than I’d like, at least on TikTok. I’m still not doing so bad on LinkedIn, but I thought I’d ask What’s a professional habit that you are trying to build, maybe also failing at or succeeding at, Maria?

[00:27:52] – Maria

Absolutely failing. LinkedIn, TikTok, all of that. First of all, I don’t even have TikTok. That’s how old I am. I don’t know what other adjective to use. That’s how old and lame and out of touch I am. So, I don’t really have a TikTok. I know I probably should. And yeah, LinkedIn is one of those things that you see other people posting on LinkedIn all the time and you think, I need to do that and I just can’t. I’m going to drag my feet. I know I’ll start doing it now. I’ve had people be like, you need to start posting. And I’m like, yes, I know, but I don’t know.

[00:28:24] – Paula

It’s tough, isn’t it? Coming up with fresh, insightful things every week.

[00:28:28] – Maria

Oh, and then I don’t want to be one of those annoying— because some people, you know, no one in this, in this room right here, but some people out there, I think we’ve all, we all know one or two people on LinkedIn who really overdo it and you’re like, enough already. So I’m also, I don’t want to be that person. But yes, I am, you know what, Pola, I am going to take this as a challenge. I am going to start posting more on LinkedIn. Thank you for the inspiration and for the push. It is much needed. So I appreciate that.

[00:28:57] – Paula

Great. I will ask you about that next week. I told you to.

[00:29:00] – Maria

No, we’re going to ask how many posts you’ve done in a week’s time.

[00:29:06] – Paula

How, what were the impressions? How many people liked it? Oh, good Lord. Okay, fine. Caroline, any, any things you’ve been working on?

[00:29:14] – Caroline

Well, yeah, I mean, so I also have the same predicament with, with social media. So trying to be more prolific there is a good goal. I’m not promising anything for next week though. So I would say something that I’ve been working on progressively is trying to get better at is just managing interruptions. And I think that that is an issue that we all have with phones and email and everything, as well as working from home. And so the interruptions that that can generate as well. So just trying to carve out more focused time, I find really helpful, as well as getting more sleep. I’ve just realized that as The years progress. I’m not as productive when I haven’t had a good night’s sleep. And so that’s something I’ve been working on as well. I’ll just get so much more done if I’ve had a good night’s sleep.

[00:30:09] – Paula

Absolutely agree. As someone who lied awake for like an hour and a half last night.

[00:30:15] – Maria

You’ve got a toddler, Ola, like, you know, you’re in a different place sleep-wise, I think, when one has a very young child. Then they get older and they won’t wake up and you’re like, come on, come on.

[00:30:28] – Paula

Yeah, I don’t know about that.

[00:30:30] – Maria

But you will, it’s the promised land. You can look forward to it in the future.

[00:30:36] – Paula

And on that happy note, if you like the podcast this week, please come back next week. And also, uh, please come to poetsandfonts.com and check out our stuff. So Maria, Caroline, thanks both very much and see you again next week.