Recruiting Journey | Consulting: Ritvik Pochampalli ’26

What is the recruiting process like in your industry?

I came to SOM with the goal of transitioning from tech to strategy consulting. Since we’re at Yale, all the major consulting firms visit the school at least once. These visits start in August and September. They usually involve a presentation where you learn about a particular firm’s culture, what you can bring to the table, and how working at the firm can help you reach your own goals. The biggest firms—like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG—feature SOM alumni in their presentations.

After the presentations, we get to have informal coffee chats with those alums. That part is really helpful, because these are people who have been in our shoes. They know exactly what kind of attributes their firms seek in a candidate, and what work looks like at these firms. They’re also genuinely invested in seeing you grow.

Between those initial visits and the internship application drop in November, it’s a self-paced journey of talking to various people and figuring out where you want to apply. I knew I wanted to end up in Atlanta, because my sister lives there. So I spoke to four or five people at each firm I was interested in that had an Atlanta office. They were able to tell me what industries their office caters to, and what kind of people I would be working with.

At the same time, I was working with the Consulting Club to prepare for the interview process. The club runs a very structured interview prep series. Every Wednesday, there’s a three-hour session where we learn to ace case interviewing. The first-years also form case teams of six or seven, with a second-year leader, that meet on another day every week. During those additional meetings, we practice among ourselves and get to know the second-years, who can give a lot of advice on behavioral interviews.

I submitted my applications in November and received an invite to interview with McKinsey by mid-December. The interview process involved three back-to-back in-person conversations, with casing and behavioral components in each interview. The next day, I received my internship offer.

Once you start your internship, the firm really wants to see you excel and give you a return offer. Interns from SOM have a great reputation, and people usually live up to it. I got my full-time offer in the last week of my internship; the icing on the cake was that I got to go home to India and tell my family the news.

Which SOM classes prepared you best for your post-graduation role?

There have been so many. Generative AI for Managers made me better equipped to leverage AI to create change at the organizational level. Interpersonal Dynamics helped me become better aware of myself and how I work on a team. Last semester, I got to participate in the Discovery Projects, a class run by the Yale Center for Consumer Insights where you work with a company to solve a real-world marketing problem. I worked with HP for five months and got to meet weekly with stakeholders involved in the project. I definitely plan to apply the insights I gained there in my future work.

Which SOM resources helped you during the recruiting process?

I’m hugely indebted to the Consulting Club. Before I arrived to SOM, I was asking people what I needed to do or learn to prepare for recruiting. Pretty much everyone told me that the Consulting Club would guide me through the whole process once I got to campus, and they were right.

The Career Development Office (CDO) has wonderful coaches who helped me prepare for the behavioral interview, which at McKinsey is very important. I did several mock interviews with a CDO coach, and they also connected me with an external interview consultant. The folks at the CDO are also just really caring—after my internship was over, someone from the office reached out to ask how it went and if I was returning.

SOM alums working at McKinsey were also a huge help. They offered great advice on navigating different parts of the process, standing out in coffee chats, and understanding how I was being evaluated. A few alums even helped me practice casing before my interviews.

What advice would you give to current students recruiting in consulting?

I would say to just trust yourself and believe in yourself. Recruiting can seem like a Herculean task—the first semester was particularly hard for me, because I had never lived alone outside India and I was trying to balance classes, recruiting, and my social life. But if you keep your head down and practice hard at whatever you’re learning, that will take you a long way.