In this Recruiting Reality Check, Katie Neff and Japheth Mast break down "Procrastinator Annie" – an impressive sophomore at a target school who bought 24 coaching sessions, built a full prep plan… and then didn't start.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- Why waiting until you "feel ready" is the most common trap high achievers fall into
- What to do when you're behind on prep with only weeks to go
- The daily minimum that keeps you moving forward (even when time is tight)
- Why your first coaching session is supposed to be uncomfortable
Want help like Annie is getting?
The April Black Belt cohort closes Tuesday, April 7 (limited spots).
Additional Resources:
- Join April Black Belt
- Book a free 15-minute call with Katie to map out your best path
- Create a free MC account to get Case Foundations, a case prep crash course
Transcript:
You’re listening to Recruiting Reality Check, a monthly segment of Strategy Simplified.
I’m Japheth Mast, excited to be here as your producer, and today I’m excited to be joined by my co-host.
Me, Katie Neff. I am Management Consulted’s Black Belt Advisor and the VP of Consumer Experience. Not only am I an ex-BCG consultant, but I’m also a Black Belt alum. I now pay it back by working with current and aspiring consultants to help them land their dream offer.
Dream offers served up at Management Consulted.
Every month on Recruiting Reality Check, we bring you a real story straight from the conversations that Katie is having with candidates right now, and we’re going to break down where they are in the process, what’s tripping them up, and what we’re doing to help them fix it and get closer to landing that offer.
So if you’re targeting consulting, whether you’re early, mid-process, or staring down the final rounds of an interview, this is your reality check.
Let’s get into today’s story of Ambitious Procrastinator Annie.
Tell me who Annie is. Where’s she at? Where’s she going to school?
Meet Ambitious Procrastinator Annie
Annie is an impressive sophomore at a target school in the Southeast. I was very impressed when I met her. She joined Black Belt.
She’s a double major studying economics and political science. She’s got a rocking GPA, 3.8, strong leadership experience. She founded a student club to help other students get access to consulting if they were first-generation college students. And she has strong internships.
As a sophomore, she’s already completed two internships as an analyst in two industries — tech and healthcare — which is quite impressive.
I see what you mean when you say ambitious.
Right. So Annie is crushing it in school, has some internships under her belt. Where’s she trying to go? What are the target firms? Where’s she at in the process?
So, not surprisingly, Annie is targeting MBB — McKinsey, Bain, and BCG — and Big Four, and has an interest in L.E.K. with that little healthcare internship she did.
So Annie is well on her way because she joined Black Belt in January. She wanted to get ahead of the competition, and she wanted to maximize her prep. She actually purchased Black Belt 24, so 24 sessions with a coach. And we built a week-by-week plan together to make sure that she could stay ahead of the game, which I was super impressed that she wanted to do all this.
Indeed. So up to this point, it’s sounding like unicorns and rainbows. It’s going great. But I know there’s always a trap with every candidate that we bring onto the podcast. So what’s the trap that Ambitious Procrastinator Annie is falling into?
The Trap: Waiting Too Long to Start Prep
If you couldn’t guess from the title we put on Annie, she procrastinated.
She was so eager to get ahead. I heard from her last week, and she had not really made any progress on her prep plan. She had not submitted her résumé and cover letter for edits. And guess what that deadline is? It’s in days. It’s in days.
Actually, it’s out of the realm of possibility for us to be able to deliver fully edited documents for her résumé and cover letter. And she’s behind the curve on prep. She hasn’t met with a coach yet, and she hasn’t even started casing.
And I was so surprised. And now she’s stuck. What to do?
She’s stuck, and we’ll see if we can help her get out of the rut and get back on the horse.
If you’re trying to break into consulting this year, listen up. Management Consulted just dropped a completely redesigned platform, and it’s built to make your prep way easier. No more guessing what to do next. You get step-by-step learning pathways that take you from zero to full case interviews fast.
If you already have access through your school or a course, log in. Your updated materials are ready.
And if you’re just getting started, you now get access to a brand-new free case prep course to kick things off. Plus, there’s a mobile app so you can keep your prep going anywhere — on your commute, between classes, whenever you’ve got a few minutes.
Bottom line, if you’re serious about breaking into consulting, this is how you stay consistent and actually improve. Links to create a free account and download the app are in the show notes.
For context for listeners, this will be released after the March 29 deadline for McKinsey, Bain, and Oliver Wyman internships. And so the goal now is case prep, case prep, case prep. If you haven’t already started, if you have, keep going, keep meeting with a coach, and keep getting that feedback.
Katie, what’s the reality check that you’re walking Annie through?
The Reality Check: There Is No Perfect Time to Start
So, this is to your point, Japheth: keep prepping.
Waiting for the perfect time to start is impractical. There is no perfect time.
And because Annie is ambitious, she really wanted to make sure that she was ready for the first session she had with the coach. She didn’t want to embarrass herself. And this is kind of a false reality. Coaches don’t expect you to be ready.
And that first session is always a little uncomfortable. But that’s the point — so that we can pinpoint where you need to improve ASAP.
So it might get a little messy, but that’s kind of the point because you’re not working with a coach because you’re perfect already. You’re working with a coach because you’ve got gaps.
Exactly. Yeah, I love that.
Yeah. So Annie is feeling really stuck. What should she do?
One, I told her, you need to accept where you are. Accept that you are not ready.
And what’s next? Commit. And girl, you need to hockey-puck that prep.
So it needs to go — we’re in the exponential growth phase here — and this must be your priority. If you really want it, we’ve got to dedicate some time.
I don’t know if I’ve ever heard that saying, but I think I’m going to steal it from you.
All right. What does that prep look like? What’s the plan that you two are now working on?
How to Recover Fast When You’re Behind on Case Prep
We don’t ignore the foundations. It’s still important to get some of the theory, do some of that self-paced practice, and also work with a coach.
We follow along the same path, whether you have this much time, very little time, or a ton of time.
She needs to go through our Case Introduction module. It’s going to be a little abbreviated, but we need to get through this stuff. That is one piece of our Black Belt prep plan — the Case Introduction module in the advanced case pathway.
Then she needs to practice a case each day and do one drill — just one drill from our dashboard every day.
Now, this is the same guidance I give to someone who has time, but it’s accelerated. You don’t have time to do five to 10 drills. You don’t have time to do case after case. It’s one, one, one.
And then you must meet with a coach this week. There’s no debate about it. And meet with a case partner every other day.
It sounds like you’re able to come alongside candidates as the guide no matter where they are or what timeframe they’re on, but you help them tailor prep to their specific situation. In this specific situation, there’s a very condensed timeline, so you’re helping adjust the plan based on where they are and the end goal, which is passing those interviews.
So I just wanted to call that out. I think it’s a valuable part of Black Belt.
Yeah, and I will say, Japheth, at this point I have literally met with hundreds of candidates. And while there may be some things I haven’t seen, I’ve seen a lot.
And I’m not surprised much. There was a time when I was Ambitious Procrastinator Annie. So part of me can relate to that because I waited until the last minute to prep. So I know I have some lessons learned that I can share.
Is Three to Four Weeks Enough to Prepare for Case Interviews?
I think a lot of people are asking, is it too late for me? Realizing that, hey, I might have three to four weeks to prep for case interviews. Is that shortened timeline doable?
Yes, it is. It’s very doable.
Okay.
It requires commitment and allocating time to doing it. So it is doable. There’s slightly higher risk, but like I said, I went through that pain and landed an offer. So the reality is it’s still possible.
For all of you ambitious procrastinators out there — you’re high achievers. Sometimes you just wait, and you shouldn’t. Just do something.
We have our Black Belt cohort closing for April pretty soon. What’s the danger in waiting if I ignore your advice and wait until I have an interview invite to start to prepare? What’s that going to look like and feel like for me?
The danger in waiting is that you will feel extremely stressed, panicked, like you need to rush. You need to rush and stay up all night, every day, trying to learn everything.
This is the knee-jerk reaction people have when they’ve waited too long. And it’s not only a terrible strategy when you have very little time, it’s going to make you exhausted and perform very poorly in the interview.
And that will come out. You know what you will look like? You will look uncertain to the interviewer. It will come out.
And you don’t want to look uncertain to the interviewer.
No. It’s a client-facing role, and you want to come in and have them imagine you’re already a consultant with them. That’s the goal.
That’s the goal.
I feel like there are people listening to this and going, I’m an outlier. I can do it.
The truth is, there are some outliers. Every five out of 100 applicants, sure, maybe they can do the prep in a week or two. But for the most part, Katie, I think you would agree that’s a very low success rate.
Yeah, there are low success rates, a low probability of that happening.
Our coaches will work with anybody, right? If you say, I have five days until my interview and I want to be as strong as I possibly can, we’ll get you as close as we can. But the likelihood is much lower, and that’s out of our control.
So it’s not too late. There are still weeks. And so it’s really a good time to jump in, rip that Band-Aid off, and accelerate your prep.
We’re here to help. We’re trying to prevent that last-minute panic-prep situation. We don’t mind getting your emails at midnight the week before your interview, but we’d rather not. We’d rather save you the trouble and have you start six, eight, 12 weeks early and be able to show up calm and confident to the interview.
But we’ll work with you wherever you’re at. We’re just trying to save you that trouble right now.
Exactly.
What Black Belt Includes and How the April Cohort Works
Katie, for those who don’t know Black Belt, when does the cohort close, and what can people expect to get inside the program?
The cohort closes April 7, which is right around the corner.
And it is a really great program, if I do say so myself, having done it.
Not biased at all.
Yeah, but really, it is all the pieces bundled together in a package and developed into a program tailored for you.
So we have editing services if you need them. We have eight up to 24 hours of coaching and self-paced training. We put it all together in a plan when you have an onboarding session with me.
And then, to build that prep community, we have a welcome call and foundational training on Wednesday, April 8, the day after. And if you can’t make it, no worries — we record it.
That is also a chance to meet some coaches if you have time, so I do encourage people to try to make it.
But ultimately, we become a support system throughout that entire journey. And that’s the real value of working with us through Black Belt.
I think one of the most valuable parts of that is the onboarding session with you.
All right, talk to somebody who’s on the fence. They’re going, yeah, I think Black Belt might be for me, but I want some more information, or I have some questions about my specific situation — will it work for me, et cetera.
Do you have any availability on your calendar to talk with candidates right before the April 7 cohort close?
I do, absolutely. Come on, Japheth.
I always open up my calendar the day before our close because that’s where our procrastinators show up. But especially for those of you who are on the fence, book a call with me.
I do open up my calendar as we get closer to those deadlines and to our cohort closes so that we can figure out what is the best fit for you. It’s not one-size-fits-all, and we want to make sure that you succeed.
So it’s 15 minutes, it’s free, and we’ll help you get there.
Final Advice: Stop Procrastinating and Start Now
We can end with this: 80% of Black Belts who complete the coaching land at least one offer. That’s compared to acceptance rates, or offer rates, of less than 5% industry-wide.
Katie, any final words before we wrap it up?
Stop procrastinating. Let’s do it.
Sweet and simple.
Thanks for tuning in to Recruiting Reality Check. I’m Japheth, joined by Katie. We had a great time today breaking down Ambitious Procrastinator Annie’s situation.
Hope that gave you some tactics and some hope.
Get in touch with us. We’re on your side, we’re on your team, and we’re here to help you succeed. It’s the whole reason that we exist. It’s why this podcast exists.
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Thanks for listening, and we’ll catch you next time.