I've met incredibly smart individuals at non-target schools, and unbelievably dumb people at target schools. It's like these MBB/IB types won't give non-target school geniuses a chance. Personal experience: I interned at #accenture Consulting, and wanted to interview for Accenture Strategy. I was way over qualified amongst my intern peers, but they denied my interview request purely based on the fact that I did not come from a non-target school. #Internship #interview #discrimination
It's not discrimination. Companies want to select the most qualified candidates that will join them. Companies also don't have unlimited recruiting resources, so they focus efforts on a list of target schools that they think will yield the best results for the recruiting effort. Does that mean they miss some highly qualified candidates from non-target schools? Absolutely, and that is their loss. But it's not discrimination. Every company will draw the line somewhere. E.g. how many community-college or state-school resumes does McKinsey look at? None--they're all going in the trash. It's just that not every company is as upfront about it as Accenture seems to be.
Being able to scale recruitment and hyper focus on quality candidates makes sense, but I was just shocked at how draconian their filtering process was even after I was already interning there (Accenture).
From your other comments, it’s not clear that the person who denied your chance to interview knew that you interned there. Are you saying you clarified that you’d interned in a different department and were still denied the chance (or did you try applying through an internal channel rather than a public career kiosk)? That would be more surprising to me (they might’ve still denied you, but I would’ve expected a different reason).
Believe me, as someone who went to a non-target school, it's super annoying. MBB/IB don't only care about what school you went to, they want the clients to be impressed by the background of schools when they go up and present themselves. That's why they're so picky. I originally wanted to do consulting, but saw how elitist some people were and decided to go with tech instead. I ended up really loving tech and now I can make more than most consultants, with less experience, while working less hours. Regardless though, the fact of the matter is smarter people tend to go to better schools, and recruiters have limited time. This is why it matters what school you go to - so it gives you that benefit of the doubt. (I wish I could tell my 18 year old self this when I didn't apply to a single Ivy League because I didn't want to go to a pretentious school and ended up going to the whitest and preppiest school out there...) However, for a recruiter to reject you based solely on your school is absolute BS.
Sour about your 18 yr old self
Of course it is. The question is not is it discrimination. The question is what to do about it.
Strat Consulting is a BS industry that’s all about credentials. They can’t bill their clients thousands of dollars an hour if they can’t show “how many ivy grads are working on the problem “. This is why Tech is a much better industry. Doesn’t matter what your background is as long as you can build (somewhat) reliable products
I'd agree, seems to be an outdated boomer industry to me. I know one dude on consultant track and he's a terrible engineer, yet was top of the entire cohort in the degree. Literally 80%-90% grades, unheard of. He was a complete over-achiever, did 6 rounds of interviews just for an internship at McKinsey. It's really just a clique for private school kids who have no ideas or strategies of their own, but being part of the track in a consulting firm gives them the feeling of superiority and achievment they desperately desire. I earn more than him.
Former BCG here, too many of my colleagues were comfortable with being “non-technical” while their clients were getting eaten by tech companies. I see MBB in its current incarnation not surviving the next few decades.
Well consulting prefers name brand schools because it helps selling its product. It's really hard to evaluate how "smart" someone is. I wouldn't call it discrimination though. More of a screening process. Also accenture is a joke. Even tech companies which dont care much about prestige, I'd hardly call a coding interview an evaluation of a person's intelligence. Ik tons of dumb people that gamed the interview and got good jobs.
Lmao, I get it but that's what sucks. I have a crap tonne of credentials (PhD, MS, MBA...) But I guess those weren't good enough to sell work
A lot of people are talking about qualifications. But let's ask ourselves, what is the definition of "qualified"? Whose defining the qualifications? What I know and have seen as the value of hiring from an Ivy league, for example, is because they are more marketable. Does this mean this person is more capable than that state school grad? No, not necessarily. But the Ivy league individual may offer more opportunity for the business if they can tout that they have consultants of an Ivy league pedigree. In this scenario, "qualified" means the school from which you graduated gives my business the optics to make more money.
So interviews should be framed as "how well can we advertise your resume to sell more money" lol
For strategy consulting...yes
What's the definition of discrimination? Maybe you mean to ask if it is a form of bias. Yes, it is. And yes, it is short sighted. Gladwell has a nice talk about how the best student at the next best school is an order of magnitude better than the kid that beat him into the best school, i.e. the worst student at the best school. But it takes time for lessons to spread, and some hirers never learn. There are still people who believe in water divining.
I’ve seen prestigious firms include some elite schools and exclude other (similarly ranked or higher) elite schools from their targets. I think there’s definitely geographic proximity or historical relationships at play even within the “good school vs bad school” framework
It isn’t discrimination. Most people at Stanford are more capable than most people at a state school. Maybe you think you’re special and more power to you, but they can’t just interview everyone.
Or rather, they don’t need to. And unless you are from a marginalized group, no one will care that you weren’t given a shot as long as the seat is filled with someone else qualified.
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Is that what they told you, or what you speculate? In any case, nah it’s not discrimination. And no, I did not come from a well known school
No it was blatant fact, I was speaking to an Accenture recruiter at an Accenture lead networking event for interns. The recruiter did not know who I was or my background, and they were advertising openings for Accenture Strategy. I asked if I could interview. Then, she asked what school I went to. Based on the single fact that I went to a non-target school then she said I wasn't eligible 🤔 Explain that
I wouldn’t worry about it, Accenture is hardly a company to fret over