Hi. I've just got rejected by a strat consulting after my 1st interview. I am currently studying for my MA at a top 5 Europe Business School and top 30 FT worldwide. I was not happy with the rejection and appealed for explantion and the reasons for my rejection was the firm's policy of not to employ those whom are not from their list of top schools.I was very surprised as a number of better firms than this firm employ many of our seniors and even have strategic partnerships. I believe I did well during the interview. The only thing that I noticed was the senior manager's discomfort with my detail answers and questions. And lastly, the senior managers who interviewed and sent out the rejection email studied at a school ranked in 80s of FT wordwide ranking.

One thing you will learn in the real world is to keep perspective on the odd 'rejection'. It is entirely natural to take it as a personal affront but to expect detailed feedback pointing out every single issue is unrealistic at junior levels and a waste of your mental energy worrying about. Just see it as a lack of fit and move on. Ultimately you need to maintain a zen like attitude to rejections. No firm is the be all and end all of a career. In 10 years time you will barely remember this.

think of it this way - why be so keen to join this organisation when they have such recruitment policies? their loss. also think you need to get used to rejection and not take it personally - it's about emotional/professional maturity. an opportunity to demonstrate resilience if you like.

I tend to see the process of interviewing as making a business deal. Sometimes the deal closes and other times it doesn't. It is just business after all and the key is to develop the bunce-back-ability that is vital in any long term career. On the scale of professional setbacks that one can encounter during a long career, an interview rejection barely registers believe me.

What I struggle to comprehend every time I log on to this forum is just how hung up people are on which school/college/university they went to. Just because your interviewer went to a lower rank business school does not mean he's any less capable in his role than you would be. In fact, in my experience, he might even be better because he's not "all academics" and has worked hard to get to where he is. Stop your moaning and realise it's not just about your degrees!!!

The obsession is inevitable at junior levels because the school is pretty much the biggest differentiator employers use while hiring for the first job.Once you start a career, your university etc becomes less relevant as your value is signalled more by your professional achievements. It's no surprise that HR departments use the educational institution as an effective filtering mechanism for mass entry level hiring and unfortunately that does signal to the fresh uni/MBA population that your school is very important. In the long run, it really doesn't matter but if you define your career goals in terms of getting into one of 4-5 firms come hell or high water, an obsession with schools is inevitable.

<B>CALL THE FOOLS UP AND ASK THEM WHY THE HECK THEY INVITED YOU TO AN INTERVIEW IF IT WAS PLAIN RIGHT FROM THE START THAT YOUR B-SCHOOL WOULD DISQUALIFY YOU FROM ENTRY. I&apos;M BECOMING VERY ASSERTIVE WITH THESE TYPES OF TIME WASTERS AND BULL$HITTERS LATELY.

Anon he isn&apos;t suggesting that because the interviewer went to a lower ranked school he is not capable of doing his job.What he was trying to point out was that they rejected him on the basis of not attending the right school, yet they employ managers who went to schools not even in the top 80.If anything t is the employers who are making a big thing of which school you went to. I suppose from their perspective it is a easy way to reduce the pile.

They have rejected you for another reason. It was just easier to tell you that it was the school you attended.

Firstly, did you say MA or MBA? Isn&apos;t an MBA that pointless thing people do when they are not quite ready for the real world but cannot be bothered to do an MBA? Mr Assertive&apos;s anger is understandable and I would have done exactly the same when I was younger. However, while you need to get answers, you can get these by asking around the right circles. It is a very small world with alumni networks and business circles running very closely. You do not want to find yourself blacklisted by crying like a baby every time you get rejected. As a fresh graduate and in my early career I was terrible for this so I am not judging.Now I realise that this is not about gay marriage, voting rights or civil liberties, it is about senior members of a club deciding if they want you to be a member. They don&apos;t need a reason. Legally they owe you an explanation but it is pretty easy to make something up.Get advice before you go to your next interview. Prepare better. Don&apos;t pin too much on it and keep getting up. Life is going to knock you down a lot of times in the future. You might as well get used to it.

Ahem, Consequences:I have an MA and an MBA. Neither of these are pointless and both have stood me in good stead as I have progressed in my career.Less flippancy next time, OK?***By the way, your post said an MBA was for people who couldn&apos;t be bothered to do an MBA. If you had, say, an MA, you might be able to construct a cogent sentence and argument.

clearly a typo in the previous message. I actually have a languages degree, specialising in linguistics followed up with an MBA... The point here is that if the original poster has only an MA rather than an MBA from a good business school, the case is far less clear cut than the poster seems to think. Sorry for flippancy - it was a cr@p day yesterday!