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College student asking to leverage my connections for an in with McKinsey

by | May 5, 2014 | career, consulting, McKinsey, Networking, professional advice | 0 comments

I often receive emails from people who are interested in joining McKinsey & Company and, in those messages, I’ll be asked general questions about company background, practice areas, interview prep, and the recruiting process. That information is basic enough, so I have no problem with sending a thorough response.

But, every now and then, I’ll receive a McKinsey-related email with a request that is out of bounds for what I can do and, as such, I can’t fulfill the writer’s request..the message below is one of those. The email below came to me from an undergrad at Notre Dame who asked for me to connect him with either one of my former colleagues or someone on the recruiting team at McKinsey in order to give him an in for the summer internship process. As you can probably imagine, this isn’t the kind of thing that I can do, especially for a perfect stranger. I may be a little off, but I think the guy may find some good direction in what I sent to him instead.

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PG wrote:

Hey Marquis,

I loved your blog posts and the snippet I saw from management consulted. I know you’re very busy so I won’t waste your time and I’ll get straight to the point.

My name is [PG]. I am a Junior and Finance major at the University of Notre Dame. I’m also a scholarship student-athlete […] here at school.

I am reaching out to you to express my interest in pursuing a career with McKinsey. I completed a summer internship in 2013 with [an institutional consulting firm in Atlanta, Georgia] and really enjoyed the experience. I feel, however, that McKinsey offers the best opportunity for me to further develop my education in a competitive environment and unbeatable culture. I am very interested in working alongside some of the smartest individuals in the world on various projects and cases in all stages of development with different complexities.

I feel that I am a very qualified candidate to be a part of the McKinsey team and would especially love to be in the Atlanta office. I was wondering if you could possibly put me in touch with any of your colleagues or any recruiters that could facilitate me in this process? I would really appreciate it.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and for being so helpful on your blog. I look forward to hearing back from you soon!

Regards, PG

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My response:

Hi PG,

Thanks for reaching out and for checking out my blog. I’m often shocked when people find my site after all of these years.

It’s great to hear about your interest in McKinsey because it really is a great place to kick off a career in business. Unfortunately, I left The Firm over 5 years ago and don’t really have any contacts that would be helpful to you. A few of the folks that I started with are still there, but they’re at the Partner level and likely aren’t involved in the recruiting process anymore. Plus, it wouldn’t really be appropriate for me to make that sort of introduction, especially since I don’t actually know you.

My suggestions would be as follows:

  • Leverage the on-campus recruiting team that will work on Notre Dame’s campus –> I may be wrong, but, based on the quality of your school, I would think that ND would be one of the campuses where recruiters from McK’s Midwest Region would visit. If you make contact with those folks, you can share your preference for the ATL office with them and they can pass your resume along to the ATL office.

  • Reach out to people within your ND alumni network who currently work for McK –> There are probably several ND alums (both undergrad and grad school alums) who work for McK and these can be good resources for you. Your first step here could be to visit the Career Services office on campus to see if they can help you to identify alums who are at The Firm. Then, once you’ve identified those people, you can reach out to them to set up informational discussions to learn about their experiences. If those discussions go well, then you may be able to ask for them to submit your resume to the recruiting pipeline for the ATL office or introduce you to the right party to take care of that.

  • Try applying through the McK website –> Back when I worked at McK, I met several colleagues who had entered the recruiting pipeline by submitting their resumes online. Most people would assume that recruiters ignore that channel, but McK recruiters within individual offices actually do review them. I can’t promise that it’ll be a homerun option for you, but it is definitely worth a try for you.
I hope that one of the above options works out for you to get into the recruiting pipeline for the summer internship cycle.

Take care and have a nice evening.

Marquis