Today's success story focuses on Kevin Drennan, a music major from McGill University and MCN member who will be joining McKinsey full-time in 2014. After an initial, unsuccessful attempt at breaking into consulting, he buckled down, focused on the essentials, and secured multiple offers before deciding to join McKinsey. In this guest post, he discusses his path to consulting, and the factors that helped him succeed as a non-traditional applicant.

The following is written by Kevin, is purely a personal viewpoint, and in no way, shape or form represents the official position of any organization on the recruiting process. The image represents what we expect Kevin to look like next year. 

“From Music-Major to McKinsey”

Breaking into Consulting from a Non-Traditional Background

Last year at this time I was reeling after finishing consulting recruitment with no offers. I had a non-traditional background (music major at McGill; 3 minors in math, economics & business), but I thought that my strong GPA, extracurriculars, and ‘uniqueness factor’ would lead to at least one or two good offers.

I'd like to begin by welcome the newest member of our Advisory Board, Badreddin Edris.

A longtime supporter of the MCN, Badreddin is a Stanford PhD in Genetics and is now a Consultant at Bain & Company, where he focuses on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals. In addition to winning more awards and being published in more journals than he knows what to do with, Badreddin will be contributing to the MCN on various topics, including how to break into consulting as a graduate student. (Full bio below)

His first post is on the qualities that students must demonstrate in order to break into consulting. As a reminder, any and all posts on the MCN represent a personal viewpoint and are in no way, shape or form intended to represent an employer's views. See here for more details. 

I get this question fairly frequently. After all - the leadership essay is optional, right?

WRONG. 

Always write one.

I got forwarded this e-mail from a friend at another consulting firm - a student at NYU applying for an internship sent out an e-mail to JPMorgan and despite a very strong CV, has essentially destroyed his chances of ever working in banking or consulting. A few words of advice, as well as a link to an article with the full text below -

As a consultant, attention to detail is critical. Don't mess up your chances with one of these simple mistakes: