From a Dream to Become a Pilot to MBB Analyst – Noah’s Story (Podcast)

Noah’s dream of joining the military as a pilot was shattered by an injury his sophomore year of college. Now, he’s entering the workforce through a completely different pathway – as a consulting analyst at MBB.

His story is inspiring and helpful, so listen in for:

• Inspiration on how to bounce back when life throws you a lemon
• How Noah rebounded after receiving 0 consulting internship offers
• Keys for getting and passing consulting interviews
• Insight on how to tailor your resume for consulting
• Keys to take the sleaziness out of networking
• 3 practical case prep resources

Relevant Links

• Join the next cohort of our Black Belt case prep program
• Upcoming application deadlines

Transcription: From a Dream to Become a Pilot to MBB Analyst – Noah’s Story

MC  

Noah Schmeisser. Welcome to Strategy Simplified, excited to have you on today. How is your Wednesday going?

Noah Schmeisser 

It’s going pretty well. I’m really excited to be here, thank you for having me on. And I’m looking forward to this.

MC  

Yeah, excited to have you for what I hear is your first podcast conversation. But can you just go ahead and kick us off? Tell us who you are? Where you’re from what you’re up to now?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, absolutely. So I am a very recent graduate of the University of Virginia. I graduated a couple months ago. I did commerce. So finance and management, at Virginia. Did some quantitative finance as well before that. I’m from Milford, Connecticut, which is where I am right now. I’m taking this podcast from home. And, and yeah, I’ll be going to go into consulting this fall.

MC  

Amazing. Well, congrats on both graduating, a big accomplishment in itself, but also on the consulting gig, which I’m excited to dig into more throughout the course of today’s conversation. So let’s just go there right away. You’re starting at MBB this fall? Can you kind of go back to the beginning, and give us a high level overview of that journey.

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, absolutely. So to start the story off, I’d probably go back to the beginning of college. And I actually came into college and came into Virginia on a very different path. And I was very interested in being in the military, being a military pilot. That had been a dream and a goal of mine since since I was a kid. And coming into into college, I was in ROTC, I thought that would be a great path. And that was really my 5, 10, 15 year plan. Because you know, when you’re in that, being a pilot, it’s a ten year service commitment after you graduate. So that was kind of where I was going, where I was headed. 

And then at the end of my sophomore year, I injured my back and the whole process with that kind of took that military option off of the table just from, you know, a waiver and technical perspective. And so I was sitting there at the kind of summer before my junior year, end of sophomore year, really trying to decide what I wanted to do after college and where I saw myself going for the next you know, 5, 10, 15 years. And consulting was an option. And it was an attractive option. 

I liked the idea of traveling and you know, having a big impact early, being exposed to multiple fields. But it was really an option because I knew a lot of people that were applying for it, you know, studying finance and management. And consulting, banking, those are kind of the two big paths that most people go down. So I applied pretty extensively to a variety of places, sending a bunch of applications, but didn’t really have a great sense of what I was doing, why I was interested in the industry, and didn’t really get very far with internship recruiting at all. 

And so then, the year afterward, this past year, going into my senior year, I focused up and decided that consulting, as opposed to banking or finance, was a path that I really wanted to go down and did a lot to understand the industry a lot to prepare and ended up with an offer.

MC  

Amazing, okay, though, that’s quite the roller coaster there for you, I’m sure having this kind of track, like, you know, what you’re doing military that’s going for you, but then kind of have that taken away from you, in a sense, and, you know, a couple years later you find yourself about to start consulting so, that’s an achievement in itself, just I’m sure rebounding from that. 

But you mentioned the first go around, going for consulting internships, you didn’t manage to secure a consulting offer, but you did the next year. High level what was, what was the difference? What was the change there that ultimately led you to, you know, being able to overcome the hurdle this past year?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah. Well, David, it’s a good question. And I think, you know, what it really comes down to is understanding the process. In the first time I went through, I really didn’t understand how recruiting worked. I didn’t really even understand how and not just consulting recruiting, but recruiting for business jobs in general. And I think it’s really difficult to succeed in a process that you don’t fully understand. 

I mean, we see that, you know, with this kind of stuff, but really in anything, if you don’t understand what you’re doing, it’s hard to do. Well, and I think that was the biggest piece that changed for me is that I spent much of my junior year you know, recruiting and continuing to recruit for internship, sure, but also really trying to get a sense of of what it was I wanted to do. And then, you know, I decided, okay, well, I want to do consulting, what exactly does it take to get there? How can I succeed in each phase of this recruiting journey? 

The other thing I, you know, I’d like to say is, I think that consulting is very much a two year recruiting pipeline. I know a lot of firms don’t consider it a negative at all, if you apply for an internship and don’t get a slot. In fact, you know, they’ve seen your name before, maybe they consider a positive. And I contrast that with an industry like banking, or more financial roles, where if you don’t have an internship coming in, it’s really hard to get a full time offer. I think consulting is much more of a two year process.

MC  

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that should give some hope to people who were in your shoes, where maybe they weren’t able to land the internship. And we hear these stories all the time, right? You try the first time whether you’re, you know, in your undergrad program, or even an MBA, it’s the same, like it’s a two year process. And rather than letting that kind of defeat you kind of decide to take a little more seriously understand it and go for it. 

So Noah you mentioned, you had to really understand how our consultant recruiting works. How would you, How would you break that down? Like, to someone who’s maybe coming in new or, you know, you’re speaking to Noah back then who wasn’t quite sure what he was doing? Like, how would you kind of break down what the heck, the consulting recruiting process is.

Noah Schmeisser 

I can’t necessarily speak for the process everywhere, but I can speak to the process on my end. And and what it looked like for me, I’d say it really breaks down into two kind of big parts and not to sound overly, you know, structured or case interview-esk here, but to, to kind of break it down, I would say it’s all about you know, getting the interview and then doing well in the interview. And getting the interview is your application, it’s networking, and then doing well in the interview. 

You know, you have the case interviews, maybe you know, some firms have personal interviews as well. And for me, most of the focus there was on the case interview, but kind of going back to that first step, getting the interview, you know, networking, networking is a piece of it, having your resume tailored is a piece of it, writing an appropriate cover letter is a piece of it. I think those are all pieces of it, choosing where you want to apply, firm, and then location as well.  

One thing that I struggled with during that part of the process was my resume, tailoring my resume for consulting as opposed to just kind of a generic resume was difficult. Because one thing I was told, going through the process before I was applying, is that you really want to have data, you really want to have numbers, percentages, say okay, well, you know, I did this position and drove this change, which resulted in this percentage and this impact. 

And it can be really hard to put things in college or summer jobs you have had, you know, at 19 years old, in that kind of framework. So that was that was a struggle, and I still don’t know, you know how well I necessarily did that but that was something I definitely took some time working through. And and then on the interview side you know, preparing for the case interviews takes time. It’s a grind, but it’s something that I found that once I got the hang of it a little bit I really enjoyed.

MC  

Yeah, okay. Well I love how you broke that down. That’s a great structure to look at the process through – one, you gotta get the interview- two, you gotta pass the interviewer and not just one interview but multiple interviews, multiple rounds. So it’s not just something you can kind of show up and wing. So, let’s dive into a few of these pieces. I know folks love the kind of tactical tips and experiences here. So let’s start with networking. What did that look like for you? You know, did you reach out to five people or 50 people, like how many conversations did you have? Like, what tangibly did that look like?

Noah Schmeisser 

Well, to be honest, I can’t remember exactly how many people I talked to, it was a good amount. And I mean, for me, it really looked like just reaching out to people that I knew, people that I found on LinkedIn, and I got sort of a LinkedIn premium trial and kind of cast my net as broadly as I could. I was considering really every, every firm, you know, that you would have heard of, and many that I hadn’t heard of before I started the process. 

And so I really just tried to cast my net as broadly as I could, you know, starting with the firms where I knew people, I had friends from school or friends from home. And then really just working out from there. I would say, as far as a number, I definitely talked to dozens of people, how many specifically I can’t really tell you.

MC  

Yeah, and for people who are kind of turned off or scared from the word networking, because it has a negative connotation? For you, could you kind of define what the purpose is of networking? What was your purpose for networking? And how’d that tie into, the eventual offer?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, well, I mean, I think people are scared of the word network, and kind of starting with where you started there, because it comes across as very fake. And it feels like, you know, leveraging people, that’s kind of inherent in that word, you know, working your network. But, and that’s certainly something that I’ve been scared of at times, and then you know, coming into the whole business recruiting pipeline, I really had no idea about that part of it. I think, for me, networking is about, really at its best is a two way street where, you know, people at different firms are learning about you, and you’re getting your name out there.  

And maybe you’re looking at a firm that your school doesn’t really recruit with too heavily or something. It’s a way for you to kind of get your name out there and have people know who you are. But it’s also a way for you to learn, you know, learn about that firm and understand if it would be a potential fit for you, you know, maybe there’s a firm that is super prestigious, and really well regarded, but you reach out and you speak with some analysts there are some partners there and get a better sense of what it is exactly they do. And you say, Okay, well, that industry isn’t something that, as prestigious as it is, isn’t something that I necessarily want to do for the next few years. So I think it’s really a two way street and about learning as much about whatever company it is you’re talking to as they are about you.

MC  

Absolutely, thanks. That’s a really helpful overview. So folks, you know, if you’re scared about networking, that’s okay. Do it anyways, it will yield a lot of fruit. And you know, a lot of folks credit networking as one of the main reasons why they got the job. 

MC  

So now moving on, you gave a couple of tips for the resume but as far as resume, cover letter, applications in general, do you have one or two like pro tips or best practices that you feel like helped you in your application?

Noah Schmeisser 

Well, I wouldn’t call myself a pro but I can tell you what works for me. I I think one of the key pieces for me was realizing that you don’t have to include everything you’ve ever done on your resume. You know, I’ve had kind of a resume since I graduated high school and, I had, at one point, there were things I’ve done in high school and another point things I’ve done college and you really don’t need to include everything you’ve ever done. 

A resume, is less of a background check and more of a marketing tool, if that makes sense. You know, it doesn’t need to be a list of everything that’s ever happened to you, but rather, you know, a way for you to put your best foot forward. And I think when you think about it that way, you have a lot more space to really hone in on the points that you want to make and describe the positions that you held that you think, mark you best. And you can really cut out some of the fluff, if that makes sense.

MC  

Yeah, no, no, that’s, that’s really helpful. I think that’ll give peace to a lot of folks not sure how to cram a million years of experience on a one page, or have like a three page resume. Don’t do three page resumes. Firms won’t read it. Cool. Well, we’ve covered networking, we’ve covered application. I’d love to get into interviews, and this will be fun. But kind of describe, you know, your approach for full time recruiting. Did you have a structure for case prep? And kind of what did that look like for you?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, absolutely. So case, prep was something that I really focused, I didn’t focus on much at all, when I was recruiting for internships, and I focused on a lot thereafter, recruiting full time. And I think the case interview was, it was a scary idea to me, because I had a lot of friends that were recruiting for investment banking, which is kind of a parallel sister industry in a lot of ways. And investment banking interviews are very difficult. 

But there’s a lot of memorization and you know, at least from what I’ve been told, if you know what to say, and you kind of know your information, it’s fairly straightforward. But consulting case interviews are very much a process, you know. You can practice all the case interviews in the world, but if you get a question, or a prompt, that just doesn’t align with something that you’ve worked on, it can be difficult to rebound from that and to work through that. So I was definitely a little scared.  

Starting out, I tried to prepare as much as I could, I would say what my overall outline looked like was I started with a couple books, Case Interview Secrets, Case in Point, and kind of gave myself a bit of a foundation about how case interviews worked, how the process worked. And then I really just started trying to do as many cases as I possibly could. I had two case partners, one, a friend of a friend, who was also recruiting, and then a good friend of mine from Virginia. And we would just run cases. 

I would say, we probably ran you know, cases where they would give me a case, I would give them a case three or four nights a week, if not more, through pretty much the whole summer, probably prepped for two or three months. And, you know it’s definitely a roller coaster, because the more you do it, the more you realize how little you know. But eventually, you get to a point where you’re consistently succeeding, and you’re happy with how it’s going. And that kind of aligned with the beginning of my interview process.

MC  

Okay, so you really put yourself to it, you weren’t gonna mess around. And you got serious about kind of that out loud piece of the case prep, you know, not just reading about it, but actually doing them. Yeah, which is super important.

Noah Schmeisser 

I had an advantage, which I thought would be a detriment, and it ended up being a bit of a blessing in disguise with this process. I tore my ACL at the beginning of last summer. And so I was probably sitting around a lot more than I would have been otherwise. And it gave me a lot of extra time to invest in that kind of preparation.

MC  

Wow, that’s rough but maybe a blessing in disguise. Well, with with the case interview, is there a tool or resource that you credit to, as you know, something you would want to point others to,  starting or you know, in the middle of case prep?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, absolutely. I’d say I have three. The first would be case books from you know, from your college or university. I use the UVA, the Darden case books, I used the Wharton case book, The Duke case book. And these are free case books that are available online that are really great resources to look through to kind of have consistent cases to go through yourself, go through with a partner.  

The second would be this podcast, honestly, especially in some of the earlier seasons of the podcast, there’s some phenomenal case content and you know, if I had if I had time, potentially at the gym or driving, I would turn on, you know, Strategy Simplified and listen through cases and that just gave me a real sense of okay, well, this is how people are doing it, that, you know, do this for a living, do this professionally. And that’s how well this kind of marries up with what I’m doing on my own time, so that was a great resource.  

And then the third, I think a lot of people, myself included, struggled with, structuring, kind of breaking down a problem, framing a problem, more than other aspects. And I think once you kind of spend some time thinking through the structuring process yourself, crafting cases, craftingcases.com has some great structure resources as well.

MC  

Amazing. Okay, that’s helpful. Three practical resources that you can go and find online and start to use. And we’ll just say it. Noah was not paid to say any of that about Strategy Simplified. But we’re happy to have you on in a little bit of a full circle moment there. So you go through the process, can you walk me through, you know, the call or the email where you found out that you got the job?

Noah Schmeisser 

Oh, it was a really great moment. I was in my room at school. And the interview process was right in the first week of school for me, which was a little chaotic with classes starting and everything like that. But I interviewed that day, and I got the call that night. And it was one of the happiest moments of my life. It was a real. It was really exciting, put it that way.

MC  

Yeah, that’s amazing. The smile on your face says it all. 

Noah Schmeisser 

It’s a good memory

MC  

Yeah. Alright, folks, good reminder to kind of, you know, keep your eyes eyes on the prize. And it is worth it. It’s a lot of work, but it is worth it. Well, now, let’s imagine you were sitting down with yourself, you know, two ish years ago.

What’s kind of one piece of advice you’d want to give to yourself? As far as you know, the journey that you’re about to go on with, you know, trying for summer internships, not getting that but then kind of coming back around the next year and landing the offer? One piece of advice you’d say to kind of aspiring consultants in that position?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, I would say as cliche as it sounds, don’t compare yourself to other people. When I was going through the interview, or excuse me, the internship recruiting process, I just started at McIntyre, which is the UVA Business School. And McIntyre is a phenomenal environment. It’s incredibly collaborative. I had an amazing time there. But everybody’s recruiting for similar things. 

And as offers come out, you start to see a lot on LinkedIn. And you’re bumping into people in the hall, and especially at at a place where there’s a lot of really successful people and a lot of people that are succeeding in this recruiting process, if the process is not going as well for you, as it was for me at that point, it was not going particularly well for me at that point at all. I really struggled with comparing myself to other people, it was it was a difficult time in that way. So I would say just, you know, move at your own pace. Handle what you need to handle. Handle yourself and let everything kind of sort out as well. But really try to avoid that comparison if possible. 

MC  

I love that. I think that’s so important to kind of block out the noise and just focus on what you can control. Well, Noah, you’re starting at MBB very soon. Can you tell the audience, what are you most looking forward to on? You know, day one, week one and month one?

Noah Schmeisser 

Absolutely the people. From what I’ve heard, the people at most consulting firms, and especially MBB are lovely, and very intelligent and fun to be around. So I’m really excited just to dive in, meet some new people and hit the ground running.

MC  

Absolutely. Well, we’re thrilled for you excited for you. And, you know, best of luck in consulting And don’t forget about us. All right, well, we’re coming to the end of this fun conversation. And we’re going to do what we do at the end of every Strategy Simplified episode, which is ask you a couple of, you know, a couple of personal or fun questions. So are you ready?

Noah Schmeisser 

I think so.

MC  

Well on your resume, speaking of resumes, as we have in this conversation you have a couple of words saying to ask you how to prepare a New York strip. So I just have to ask, you know, let’s have it.

Noah Schmeisser 

Well, you know, the background of that I’ve always really enjoyed cooking and I enjoy cooking steak. I actually wrote there I started writing a bit of a book on some different kinds of stake cuts and stuff last summer when I was laid up, but again, not to sound overly structured, but I kind of break it down into two processes. 

You want to get a really good crust on the steak. And then you want to get the internal temperature up to a nice medium rare without overclocking the outside. So, I use a cast iron skillet or a stainless steel pan, get your steak really dry, you know, pull it out, put salt on it, put it in the fridge, let it dry, get all the moisture out of there, throw it in the pan for a couple minutes, get a nice crust and season it with salt, maybe some other spices as well. 

I like to use a little sugar to get some caramelization and then I tend to throw it in a low oven, probably 225 to 275 for you know, 30/45 minutes to just bring it up to a nice medium rare, but it’s pretty simple. I love doing it. Definitely something that’s brought me a lot of joy and a lot of stress reduction over the last few years.

MC  

I can imagine. Man you’re making me want to go buy some steak. Well, you know, folks, if nothing else, you got a great way for cooking steak out of this episode. So thanks. All right. Noah, I’ve heard that you’re a bit of a an outdoorsy person and specifically you enjoy hiking. Do you have a favorite kind of memory or place for a hike?

Noah Schmeisser 

Yeah, yeah, I have two. One is when I was in high school. That summer camp we went on a crazy three day hike that ended up with one of the days we were hiking for like 20 hours straight through the night, up in the Adirondacks. But it’s a bit of a wash story. I would say more recently, last month actually I was in Poland, on the border between Poland and Slovakia with my friends from high school we were doing a little post grad trip and we hiked the tallest mountain in Poland which is simultaneously the tallest hikable mountain in Slovakia, it’s right on the border and just had an amazing time during that, had a blast. I will say up toward the top the last 1000 feet or so was very sheer, it was a probably a little more mountaineering than hiking. 

And I have a profound fear of heights, which is a little ironic for somebody who wanted to be a pilot. But it’s more when I’m kind of you know out with a chance of falling off and  that was definitely something that I had to face there, that was a little bit scary. But the views from the top were very much worth it. It was amazing.

MC  

That sounds incredible. A little terrifying, but incredible man. All right final question for you Noah before we let you go, but you played some sports. Do you have a favorite sports moment or accomplishment from your time in high school or college?

Noah Schmeisser 

I’ll just go with the college memory just as a little more recent, but I played you know water polo for the clubs at Virginia and my junior and senior year we made nationals, the national championships for the first time in 20 years, I believe my junior year and then went back senior year. So just being a part of that program and being a part of the team at our regional championships to then kind of make the Nationals that was a big step for our program. That was a really exciting time.

MC  

Yeah, no, that’s incredible. To go back after two decades, it’s a big accomplishment. Awesome. Well, Noah we really appreciate you lending your story to Strategy Simplified today. Excited to get this out to the good listeners. And thanks for your time.

Noah Schmeisser 

Well, thank you so much for having me on. I really appreciate it.

Conclusion 

Noah’s story is a fun one. It’s inspiring. And I hope that you really got a lot out of that. If you’re an aspiring consultant, looking to kind of make the same journey into whether it’s MBB, or a boutique consultancy, or Big 4, then we’d love to help. We have a program called Black Belt. It’s a consulting prep program that gives you everything you need to enable yourself to make the transition into consulting at the highest levels. So we got coaching, we’ve got resume edits, networking strategy, online resources, and a whole lot more. And we’d love to work with you to check that out via the link in the show notes to learn all about it and to register today. All right, we’ll catch you again on another episode.