Max is an aspiring consultant who is looking to secure an analyst role with one of the top firms for the upcoming recruitment cycle in September 2011. His interest in management consulting was sparked by a failed McKinsey interview last year. In this series of blogs, he will be sharing his background, case preparation process, useful resources, and any breakthroughs or setbacks that he experiences.

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All of my applications have been sent off and I’m now nervously checking my e-mail frequently throughout the day. The firms I ended up applying to are:

• BCG

• Bain

• Oliver Wyman

• Roland Berger

• Booz

• Monitor

• Deloitte

I haven’t heard back from any of them yet with the exception of Oliver Wyman, and I must say that I was quite surprised. The application was sent in around 11pm, and the ding e-mail came at 9am – a record rejection time for any job I’ve ever applied to! I was kind of surprised at how quickly this happened because I listed several references inside the firm that I’ve built good connections with, and thought that the recruiter would at least speak with them first before sending out the rejection e-mail. It kind of made more sense after I spoke with Michael, and he mentioned that OW GMC has reached their recruiting limit for 2011 in Canada, and are now dinging some resumes without even looking – very unfortunate for me if this is the case.

Another thing I’m unsure of is what the timeline is for the review of my documents. For example, I know that current students from my university have received interview invites for Deloitte, but I have not heard anything. I’m thinking that this probably means I’m out of luck, but am hoping that maybe they have a different timeline for reviewing non-campus applications.

As for the other firms, I don’t have any information on where they are with the process. At this point, all I can do is hope for the best. I’ve networked, practiced cases, worked hard on my documents, and now it’s all in other people’s hands.

I will keep everyone posted on how things go!