Hi everyone, I applied for various consulting firms this year at the undergrad level but was not successful in obtaining a job offer. I currently hold a BA and was wondering if there are any good Masters programs (non-MBA) out there that can improve my qualifications and allow me to try for a top tier strategy consulting firm (MBBB, OW, Mon). I have heard from other forums that LBS has a Masters of Finance programme that is very good and LSE and Oxford also have the MSc in Acc & Finance and MFE programmes available. Are these programmes geared towards finance/i-banking jobs? Would they be helpful if I want to pursue a career in Management Consulting?Appreciate the help.

From what I know about these MSc programmes, the target job generally is for landing a front-office role in IB, typically S&T. It won't be of detrimental effect to your future apps for management consulting but I'm not sure how much value they'd add, plus you have to factor in cost of the course etc

If a Masters is purely to help you get a top consulting job, then you need to consider why you didn't get the job, and what it is that might be able to improve your chances next time.Did you get passed the CV stage? If so, academics aren't your problem and so Masters is not worth it. If you did get rejected at CV stage, look at your CV - is academics the weakest bit or is it other areas (like work experience) that is weakest - ask friends for advice. If academics are not your weakest then Masters probably isn't worth it.If academics are the weakest bit of your CV (and your CV wasn't up to scratch before) do you really think that a masters is going to make the crucial difference (in my experience this is rarely, if ever, the case)? If not, then Masters isn't worth it. Synthesis: I have maybe once or twice seen someone use a masters to good effect to help their chances at MBB (Judge has a good one-year masters for instance), but it is very rarely a good investment if all it is for is improving your chances of getting into one of 6 consulting firms.

My guess is that jake didnt even get any feedback for his application..correct me jake.When applying to these companies, network is almost the biggest gap that non "LSE and oxbridge" students have.

Hi, thanks for the responses. Actually, I got through the CV round and received interviews from Bain, OW, and Mon (not BCG and McKinsey). However, I was unsuccessful in all the first round case interviews. Because I live in a remote area in the US, these interviews were all conducted over the phone, and I must say I'm not the best at phone interviews.I wasn't sure whether I would be able to interview with these firms again if I simply apply again next year - would they not blacklist me as the person who "failed" last time around? Therefore, I have been thinking about obtaining a Masters in London to add to my CV and hopefully also improve on my case interviewing skills in the meantime.Thanks.

Under these circumstances the effort and expense of a masters degree would not really help much Jake, unless you are looking for a plausible way to while the time away until you can re-apply (usually about a year I think). Instead, look at 2 things:What are you going to do while you wait? MBB and OW will be looking for growth in your experience, and experiences which grow you as a person. Look at travelling if you can get onto a worthwhile project somewhere, or get some working experience in consulting or a blue chip.Work on your phone technique. Best initial advice is that interviewing on the phone you need to slightly exagerate your response and tone so that you don't come across flat - we rely a lot of non verbal signals in a traditional interview, and appearance etc all give more colour and texture to the meeting. You need to replace this by coming across energetic, interesting and with a strong personality on the phone. Don't worry too much about too much personality as it will get beasted out of you anyway.

Thanks for your comment, Mars, and especially your advice on phone interviews - I never thought about that before!Currently, I only have an offer for IT consulting in one of the giant tech firms. I completed my BA in economics, but was offered a job in IT Systems instead. Should I take this offer? Would MBB/OW/Mon like to see this on my CV?That is my dilemma - to try out IT Consulting or pursue further education - any comments??

(bump)Any comments RE: trying out IT Consulting or pursuing further education (in hopes of being better positioned for Strat consulting)??Thanks!