consulting Stories from UCLA Students

Meet carrie su, an incoming associate consultant at bain!

Tell us about your recruitment process:

For internship recruitment, I started practicing casing and networking in the spring quarter of my sophomore year! After applications were submitted in late June, I received invitations to interview from several firms in July and got my offer in early October. For full-time recruitment, I began the process of casing lightly in June and submitted applications for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG around July. Following submission, I received interview invitations from all three companies and decided to sign with Bain after the process, which ended in August for me.

Why Consulting?

I chose to pursue consulting because I wanted to work with passionate individuals in supporting businesses with solving their problems! I think it's fascinating getting to work with a variety of people in differing industries and it's been a sweet opportunity for learning and professional growth.

Tell us about your summer project & current full-time project:

This summer, I worked on two cases at LEK, a firm that is known for having shorter project timelines. One case was in the TMT sector and the other was in consumer! Both were opportunities for me to learn how to manage an interview campaign, conduct market research, connect with senior team members, and build presentations for clients.

Meet ashley chan, an incoming aci at bain!

tell us about your recruitment process:

For Bain ACI:

Applied to CREW (sophomore women’s 1.5 day diversity program) in October of sophomore year; attended CREW in January of sophomore year; first round April 19th sophomore year (2 30-minute cases with Consultants; just casing, didn’t have time for behaviorals), final round April 24th (2 45-minute case and fit interviews with Partners) **this is a unique process because of my diversity program but usually interviews are in the summer.

For BCG Summer Associate:

Applied to Advance (virtual sophomore women 1 week program) in February; attended program in March; first round April 17th (1 30-minute fit interview with a Project Leader from another office, 1 virtual case bot interview - 7 questions, some multiple choice, some free response, 1 recorded video of final recommendation), final round April 26th (2 45-minute case and fit interviews with Partners) **again this is diff because of diversity program - interviews are usually in the summer.

why consulting?

Interested in strategy and how to grow companies - a skill / mindset I want to adopt through consulting and apply to my own ventures in the future.

meet eric pan, an incoming associate at bcg

tell us about your recruitment process:

Had 3 interview processes for internship, 2 interview processes for full-time

why consulting?

Flexibility and the types of people the field attracts!

tell us about your summer project & current:

A large TMT post-merger strategy project for a recently acquired gaming division

walk us through a day in the life?

Check emails in the morning, meet with teams/managers throughout the day, and build out slides/models for any upcoming deliverables