Consulting Recruitment Opportunities at LBS

So Round 1 results are out for the LBS Class of 2019 so congrats to all the new LBS MBA Admits - you made it!!! If you decide to go ahead with an MBA at LBS, it will be the start of one of the most challenging, intense, fun and exhilarating periods of your life.

That said since I've had a few PMs regarding school choice from admits, I thought I should perhaps do a quick post primarily for those who are looking at doing consulting post-MBA and aren't sure if LBS is a good choice - which is where I was last year, having to decide between LBS and INSEAD (see previous post about this here).

I'd like to say that thanks to the great folks on the GMAT Club forums, I made the right decision in deciding on where to go by looking at location first. I want to work in London post MBA, not Singapore or France, and if so, picking London was definitely the right thing to do.

The London offices of big consulting firms do a lot of activity on campus at LBS - and I seriously mean a lot. It's not just the "official" events through Careers Services, but they do many "unofficial" events through the clubs at LBS e.g. Women in Business Club, Healthcare Club, Military in Business Club, Rugby Clubs. For instance just next week alone I have 5 McKinsey events on campus - comprising of 3 coffee chats, and 2 interview training sessions. Plus a Bain coffee chat and a Strategy& offsite event.

Before the start of the MBA and early in August I had already been to events at both Bain and BCG's offices (BCG is walking distance to LBS btw!). Since then there have been numerous meetings with BCG, Bain, AT Kearney, Strategy& and Roland Berger, just to name a few. When BCG told us "you'll see us so often you'll get sick of us" at the very beginning - they meant it. What does this mean? It means that you'll get to know the London office of the consulting firms very well - excellent if you wish to work in the London office post-MBA, not so good if you wish to work at other offices.

That's not to say that you can't get a spot in the London office if you were to attend another school, but I'd say it definitely looks like you're in a more advantageous position being at LBS. And in fact, the largest proportion of summer interns and full-time hires at the London office are from LBS. Contrast this to the consulting firms in Singapore where the larger proportion are INSEAD alums.

Additionally, since LBS has a 15-21 month program, it means an opportunity for an internship. Since entering the MBA and having talked to a lot of people, attended a lot of different events etc, I am no longer 100% certain I want to do consulting post-MBA. In fact, you'll find that those who know that they definitely want to do a certain job post-MBA are very rare - everyone will change their minds 100+ times over first term. Hence the opportunity to do an internship in consulting and test out your future job is a pretty handy thing to be able to do - which of course you can't get with a 1 year program.

Lastly, there's also the visa issue to consider. While firms are fine with sponsoring full-time visas, getting a visa to work in a country where you don't already have one just for an internship is challenging. It's why unless you already have the rights to work in the US, if you want to intern in the US or work in the US post-MBA, don't do your MBA at LBS. Most firms will not sponsor you for internships - go do your MBA in the US instead.

To sum up my advice to MBA Admits: if you want to work in London, definitely pick LBS for the highest exposure to London offices.

On a completely separate note, I'm absolutely buzzing from the LBS annual hackathon - HackLBS. It was an amazing experience, especially if you've never participated in a hackathon before. I actually pitched an idea, managed to get through the first round, formed a team (got lucky with amazing team members), created a working prototype app and pitched again in the final. I've learnt so many things on leadership, time management, teamwork and presentation this weekend and had a blast doing so. Perhaps if I do find some time, I might do a separate blog post.

Two Weeks of Crazy

Where have the last two weeks gone? Technically, although the MBA programme doesn't officially begin till tomorrow, life has already become a whirlwind of studying, socialising and travelling....oh and settling into London.

Studying

Since July, we've had quite a few things to do as pre-course work for the Leadership module at LBS. Mainly these have been surveys - lots and lots of surveys. I've lost count of the number of surveys I've completed from LBS. Our pre-course reading list also got released not that long ago, with a case and several articles that we need to prepare before our first class next week. There's also an official assignment to submit before the end of next week - and yes, that's a graded assignment.

Amongst all this official pre-work, some of us are trying to finish up the online pre-courses in finance, accounting and quantitative methods (some of us have given up); some of us are studying to try and pass the waiver exam for Managerial Accounting and Finance; some of us are brushing up on our language skills to get ahead in/pass the language diagnostic test (of which level 2 is scarily difficult for a second language).

Socialising

As people settle in and arrive in London, there's always some social event somewhere. The official Flat Hunters' Pub Crawls began on 4th August and so far there have been five events at different pubs around London. Don't let the name fool you though, because most people at these events have already found flats and are just there to party :). There's also been a tennis social and a couple of pedibus tours organised. Plus lots of lunches, dinners, drinks - there's really no lack of company!

Travelling

Our class is apparently the first to have organised a pre-MBA trek. About 50 of us and partners were over in Barcelona recently. Aside from this, we're already had the opportunity to participate in any treks organised by the various clubs at LBS. During this time, it appears that the sailing club has been the most active, it being summer. Signups to the sailing club treks have been on a first-come-first-serve basis, including putting payment down for the trek up front. Aside from this, those who have arrived in London earlier and are more settled, have organised thheir own trips in small groups as well.

Oh and as for recruiting, the consulting firms - Mckinsley, Bain and BCG in particular, have already organised pre-MBA events too where attendees were introduced to the world of consulting. And of course, the opportunity to network with existing consultants.

Does it sound like b-school has already begun? It certainly does to me. Timetables were released a few days ago and our calendars are now chocker. Bring on the mayhem tomorrow!

Shockingly It Happened - Post Referendum Discussions

So the last couple of weeks have seen a flurry of discussion in our MBA class Whatsapp group around Brexit, the referendum and currency exchange. Most of us believed the vote would be to remain, so it was quite unexpected to follow the vote counts today and learn that Brexit won the referendum. Naturally the pound has plunged in value, much to the annoyance of some of us who were keen on capitalising on the volatile pound prior to the vote and converted most of our available cash to pounds.

I must say that I'm definitely looking forward to classes and discussions with my fellow classmates if our discussions are anything like those we've been having on Whatsapp around the Brexit!

We've had discussions around the impacts and potential outcomes of the Brexit. Also around what potential negotiations with the EU might look like. Certainly there's much concern over how this will affect us in 2018 when we graduate, and in the shorter term, obtaining those summer internships. The general commentary in the group is that consultancies will be doing well due to the Brexit. After all, businesses will need strategies to cope with the impacts. Guess that would be where most MBA's are going to be headed!

The lawyers in the class assure us that from a legal standpoint though, the Brexit isn't guaranteed yet. There's still the Parliament vote, invoking Article 50, and then final negotiations with the EU. To be honest, although the world and corporates are reacting to the news now, I don't see there being much change in London in the short term. It'll take at least 2 years before anything even happens. In the long term, who knows? The dust would have settled and the markets adjust, and life will carry on BAU. This really good commentary on the Brexit by Alex Edmans, professor at LBS is worth a read.

So my long term plan of moving to work in London post-MBA still remains unchanged. After all, my belief is that if you're determined enough and willing to put in effort, then you'll be able to find a job regardless of market conditions. The LBS brand still remains strong and I'm confident they'll be able to maintain this. Still, the referendum outcome has definitely been a curve ball and we're looking forward to the interesting case studies that Brexit will present.

The silver lining? Our tuition at LBS just got a whole lot cheaper. Time to convert cash!

Bumping Into a Reader

The world is full of coincidences. During the Admits Weekend at LBS as I was queuing up for the cloakroom, I met a fellow admit from Thailand (yes, you meet new people in queues too!). We had a conversation about how many Kiwi admits there are (making us very easy to keep track of) and he mentioned there was a Kiwi who went to LBS who had a blog.

Which led me to wonder whether one of the other Kiwis also had a blog... "I have a blog" I told him. Thereupon we discovered the blog he was referring to was mine. According to him he had a friend in Japan who discovered my blog, told him about it, and his friend has also now been inspired to apply to LBS after reading my blog.

What a coincidence aye? This bumping into a reader really highlighted to me how words can really inspire people - something I haven't thought so much about before in my writing. I had a bit of a "*gasp* someone is actually reading this" moment. It's both awesome and terrifying at once really. So I just want to say thank you to my readers (now that I know I actually have some), and hopefully you'll find something useful in my blog as you embark on your pursuit of the MBA. And who knows, maybe I'll bump into you at LBS :)

Overview | LBS Admits Weekend Part 1

I recently returned from attending the London Business School Admits Weekend held last week. Let me just say upfront - for those who are planning to apply for the MBA programme at LBS in future, you really don't want to miss the May Admits Weekend! It's part of the whole amazing MBA experience at LBS and is worth every penny and km of travel...at least that's how I felt. So I'm really glad I flew halfway around the world to attend it as I would have been kicking myself otherwise :)

I'll be doing a bit of a series regarding the event, including all the very useful information about the MBA programme itself that I can recall from the event - answers by the program team & current students. It should hopefully provide some helpful information for anyone researching the LBS MBA program and current admits who missed the event.

A bit of a run down on what I did in London last week leading up to the event:

Sunday

• Arrived in London mid afternoon completely exhausted from over 14 hours of flying from Singapore. Couldn't sleep a wink on the flights so I'd gone almost 48 hours without sleep due to the time difference.
• Managed to last till 8.30pm London time before I fell asleep mid conversation with the mate kindly hosting me. I tried very hard to stay up to a decent hour to minimise jet lag.

Monday

• Woke up at 7.30am London time ~ yay not really jet lagged!
• Planned to get a UK SIM so I could get data connection rather than using auto roaming - made sense to just get one now since I'd be moving to London later anyway. As I was staying in East London not far from Stratford, I headed out to explore Stratford and the huge Westfield Mall there that was developed for the London Olympics. I'm also a Westfield stockholder so I figured it would be nice to see one of my investments in person ;)
• Spent the day wandering about Stratford, visited 4 different supermarkets and picked up my SIM before heading back for dinner with my mates.

Tuesday

• Woke up early too but felt kinda lazy and tired. Considered going to town briefly but didn't feel up to it.
• Spent the day instead exploring Canning Town and er...the supermarket >.<
• Headed back earlier for another night of good home cooked dinner and interesting conversation spanning risk management, London real estate, Michelin star restaurants and politics.

Wednesday

• Woke up early again and the weather was pretty lousy. Had a mid-morning nap while waiting for the rain to stop so I could go out :p
• Headed to central London to check out the Museum of London. I love how most of London's museums are free. Interesting fact: in excavating to build the Crossrail line, they discovered a tradition Maori weapon artefact. Seems NZ has followed me to London ;)
• Headed to the National Portrait Gallery to escape the rain. The Tudor gallery is highly recommended!
• Met an old schoolmate for dinner in Covent Garden

Thursday

• Met up with another MBA admit for lunch and to wander around Paddington/Little Venice in the afternoon. We'd arranged it via WhatsApp.
• Around 40 of us who were already in London then met up at a rooftop bar (very pretty views and highly popular with the professionals) for some pre-Admits Weekend socialising. This was followed by taking over another bar (much cheaper drinks) and then splitting up to have a very late dinner. Met amazing people and marvelled over the background diversity.
• Some of the group headed out clubbing afterwards. Was getting late and felt bad if I got back really late and woke my kind hosts up, so headed home with people going in the same direction to arrive at midnight.

Friday

• Met up with new friends from last night for drinks in afternoon...and met a few more new people
• Wandered around the area before heading to a pub near the LBS welcome reception venue in Shoreditch.
• Met more new people at the very packed pub and had very loud conversations over the din. Did not make time to have dinner - big mistake
• Headed to the LBS welcome reception starving. Good thing there were nibbles but unfortunately they were nibbles.
• It was a massive turnout with current student ambassadors. Met even more new amazing people and had more very loud conversations over everyone else's very loud conversations. Repeated where I was from, what I did, what I wanted to do over and over and over...you get used to it.
• Had an amazing time but passed on the post event clubbing/partying as I wanted to be awake for the full on Admits Weekend day.

Moral of the story - plan to be in London early for unofficial pre-event socialising! It's much easier to meet and remember names and faces in batches.

Next up is a detailed post on the first official day of the Admits Weekend :)

It Arrived

It's been a week since I got the news of acceptance from LBS and this just arrived via DHL:

The offer pack also contained two copies of my offer letter, information on visa applications and a hand written card from the admissions officer for my region.

Receiving the pack makes it seem so much more "real" and definitely gets me excited about going to LBS. While I was leaning towards INSEAD when I first started doing applications, I must say that I'm definitely leaning more towards LBS now - and not just because I've been accepted there. In this past week I've also joined the LBS MBA2018 Facebook group, met some of my potential future classmates online, had a phone call from one of the student ambassadors and traded emails with the LBS ad com. All positive interactions with really friendly and helpful people. It has definitely helped me feel more like I can really fit into the community, which was one of the things I wasn't entirely sure of during the application phase compared with the many INSEADers with whom I hit off with from the start.

I'm almost tempted to go ahead and accept my place in LBS and not wait for a decision from INSEAD. Hmmm....scholarship announcements for LBS come out next week, which is a major decision factor for me. For now, I'm going to wait and see. In the meantime I've got a murder mystery party to organise.