My Management Consulting <failed> love story

I am going to share a personal story that I have never told publicly before. I got inspired by Polina Gerelchuk 's recent post about failing her French exam and being proud of trying. Now it’s my turn to make this social media world a bit more real, reminding everyone that behind every success there are certainly even more failures.

Long story short? I wanted to become a top management consultant at a Big 3 firm for 10 years. I tried 5+ times at different points of my life, going through 30+ interviews. I spent literally thousands of euros on preparation and coaches, solving hundreds of cases during months of daily practice before and after work, and still failed… and it was probably one of the best things that happened to me 😋

➡️ Want to learn more? Read the article

😉 2011 - Soft Flirting

In 2011, as an economics bachelor's student in Russia during the 2010s, we had only two dream career paths (especially for people like me who had just moved from provincial towns to Moscow, hungry for money and hoping for a chance to make a good living) — management consulting and investment banking. After considering the two, I quickly disregarded investment banking due to its male-dominated and tense work environment. I started my journey learning about management consulting by participating in various business competitions with my university friends. While others partied, we spent nights making financial projections and preparing beautiful slides in Moscow coffee shops that were open all night. How fun does that sound?

⚡️ 2014 - Crush at first sight

In 2014, my first encounter with McKinsey happened by chance through my application to their ambitious women community. To my surprise, my profile was considered as young talent (likely thanks to my first international experience of university and internship abroad), and I was invited to a reception at the McKinsey Russia office. I was completely charmed by stories of firm female leaders and felt deeply inspired to be part of this global community. All invited guests were given a chance to join the recruitment process, and that was the time when I did my first business case interview. I hadn’t prepared or planned for it, but it was exactly at the moment when I realized that this could be my dream career worth pursuing.

💍 2015 - Things are getting serious

In 2015, after completing my master's program in Belgium, my goal was to find a job that would sponsor my work visa, allowing me to stay and work in Europe. Honestly, given the complexity and the short time limit of just 1.5 months to find a job, I didn't really care much what job it would be: I just needed someone to take a chance on me.

I realized that the likelihood of getting an offer from Big 3 in Belgium was extremely low: the concentration of talent aiming to get to a rather small office was too high for them to spend time and money sponsoring someone’s work visa. Additionally, Belgian offices officially require fluency in both national languages (French and Flemish) to work with local clients, even to pass the initial screening. Despite all these complicating factors, I decided to give it a try. Consultants who worked there told me that there are always exceptions for unique cases, who knew - maybe I would be the one?

I applied to all the three firms (via referrals), and one of them worked. I had just one month to prepare, which was very little. However, I did my best to cover all the preparation basics, from listening Cheng to reading Case in Point and solving at least 50 cases with live partners. I passed the first round of interviews easily and was invited to the finals.

However, things did not go as planned: French-speaking Bain partners were certainly surprised to have a candidate who didn't understand a word of French, and I felt uncomfortable and stressed straight from the start, which of course had negative impact on my case performance.

It was (expectedly) a no. I was not shaken, but I regretted the time spent on preparation when every moment counted. I had a more important goal: keep fighting to find someone who would appreciate my value and give me a chance to realize it (and I did, finding my first best manager and mentor, Véronique Lessens ❤️

💔 2021 - Second Chance Misfire

In 2021, after 5 years at my first company, I had managed to build a successful career, find my professional voice, and establish a personal brand. However, I felt it was time to think of next steps and exit opportunities. One day, these opportunities came directly to me through LinkedIn in the form of senior profile recruitment outbound efforts from both BCG and McKinsey.

At the same time, my best friend was going through McKinsey selection process and received her long-awaited offer. While closely following and cheering for her, celebrating her success, I thought it was also a sign for me to try again—this time for real, dedicating the right amount of time and effort, learning from my past mistakes, and the successes of others.

The preparation journey took around 5 months. I did everything by the book, working with three professional ex-consultant mentors who charged over 100 euros per hour to provide feedback and help with preparation. I trained extensively, doing over 150+ cases and spending an average of 3 hours per day practising. I would wake up early to do a case before work and another afterward. I read McKinsey Quarterly and reports before going to bed to get a general understanding of trends across different industries. I even started working with a psychologist weekly, focusing on staying calm under stress, which turned out to be an incredible decision.

When the interviews came, I felt ready and confident. I knew I had done my best. The interviews went great: I was cracking one case after another, smoothly making it to the final interview stage with both BCG and McKinsey, which was, of course, already quite a big deal.

When both partner rounds of 6 interviews were done, I knew that I did well: obviously there is always a room for improvement, but I stayed very calm, I was in control and drove the discussion, I got to the point, and we had fun cracking the case.

However, instead of a long-awaited offer/s, both companies asked me for an additional interview round of partner interviews, which is not so common practice considering high cost of their time - all my preparation partners going through the same process in other offices simply couldn’t believe it

After cracking another 6 cases, I got a no from both companies with a very vague explanation in short« you are great, but your problem-solving is not our style ! You should certainly try again next time at another point of your career »

Of course, it was devastating to hear after all the effort I put, and there were a lot of tears, questions about self-worth and feeling so lost about the future : what to dream about next, and what is exactly my style?

❤️🩹 2022 - Healing: Rebuilding after rejection

It took time and work, but I found my way: even at the lowest point, I persisted:

• I kept relying on professional help like working with psychologist and I found new career coaches to get me more clarity (Hello Evgeniy Akulich )
• I kept exploring what is out there: going to events and conferences to meet and talk to inspiring people and open my understanding of what’s possible (Hello Web Summit )
• And I kept learning and trying new things by doing : from enrolling myself in product management courses to hackathons and advising for free young tech startups

And here I was, 10 months after rejection from big consulting firms joining a unique tech company, moving to France and rebuilding my personal and professional life from scratch - thanks so much Kevin Aserraf & Aurelie Mezbourian Fliedel for taking another chance on me ❤️

♥️ 2024 - True Love: Finding my passion

2 years after of working at high pace tech environment at one of the largest French tech scale ups, I realize that my superpower is not about telling others how to solve their problems, and it’s totally fine! What I enjoy the most is actually building stuff from scratch: spotting a need, and going from idea to realisation from A to Z, having full ownership, flexibility and a lot of room to play, onboarding others on this idea and pushing it forward to make it a success!

I have always had it in me all the time, but I just didn’t realize that the dream I chose would not make me shine

Honestly, every now and then, I think about how close I was to start a completely different career and lifestyle, and keep thanking those partners for the offer rejection 😉

I hope this story will remind everyone facing some painful personal/professional NOs that if you want something really badly, and you are ready to work for it, it will come when the timing is right. If it does not, it’s not yours—it's someone else’s dream that is not worth it, and something better awaits you around the corner ❤️