How to join a UCLA Business Club
A step-by-step guide for club recruitment 🧸
During my freshman year at UCLA, I knew I was vaguely interested in “business”, but didn’t really know what that meant or how to pursue it. A lot of my peers were applying to different business clubs, so I joined the crowd and applied, too.
Fall quarter of freshman year, I applied for three business clubs, interviewed for one, and didn’t get into any.
Winter quarter, I decided to broaden my horizons and applied to all the business clubs I knew of, interviewed for three of them (maybe four?), and got into one.
The club I got into was The Bruin Group (TBG), and the rest is history.
Three years later, with countless memories, so many professional experiences, and several close friends, I figured it was time to share how to finally get into these mysterious organizations. Getting into TBG involved a huge amount of luck, but I realized in hindsight that knowing the ins and outs of business club recruitment helps a ton in getting in. The benefits of being in such a business club are enormous, and if you know you’re interested in “business”, I cannot encourage you to join one enough.
I wrote a guide for how to join such a club from the perspective of The Bruin Group back in January 2024, and I encourage you to read it here. Below, I’ll be pasting the original text of that blog post, with my personal comments italicized.
One last thing before we get started: Since this article was written from the perspective of a consulting club, it inherently is focused on consulting club recruitment. However, there are clubs out there for all kinds of business careers, such as marketing, finance, product management, business analytics, and accounting (to name a few). Some clubs in these categories include Product Space, Bruin Advertising and Marketing Team, Bruin Asset Management, Bruin Investment and Trading Group, Bruin Hedge Fund, and Bruin Value Investing. They all have similar recruitment processes, but their technical interviews depend on the type of club (don’t worry, they give you more details when applying).
Let’s go!
Everything below this italicized text now comes from the original blog post, now on The Bruin Group’s website. All normal text is from the article, with my current comments in italics.
consulting (noun) - the business of giving expert advice to other professionals, typically in financial and business matters.
So.
You’ve decided to join a consulting club. Congratulations!
Now what?
For many (and probably most) UCLA students, the process of applying to, and eventually joining, a student consulting club seems like an unclear, daunting task.
Well, we are here to help!
Wow, this already seems a little cheesy, but let’s keep going lol
This guide will be broken up into three main parts:
What consulting and student consulting clubs are.
A breakdown of the consulting club recruiting process, with tips and tricks on how to ensure recruitment success.
Some extra resources and good reads to learn more about consulting clubs and the industry in general.
So with that being said, let’s dive right in!
What consulting and student consulting clubs are.
There are a lot of unknowns associated with consulting clubs at UCLA, especially for those who find themselves in the situation of not being in one.
Naturally, the first question to ask is, what in the world is consulting?
Likely, you’ve heard this word thrown around (along with its cousin “ib”, or investment banking) when business students are asked what industry or profession they are interested in pursuing after graduation. Yet the actual meaning of the word “consulting” is unclear for many.
Long story short, consulting is an industry where professionals (consultants) advise or sometimes temporarily join other companies to improve their operations and efficiency with the goal of making the company more profitable, stable, or appealing to investors. This can come in a lot of different ways — advising a company on the optimal pricing for a new product, recommending strategies for entering a new market (with a new consumer or even an entirely new country), restructuring a company to make it more efficient with a clearer chain of command, cutting costs by laying off workers, etc. The exact job requirements vary tremendously.
To learn more about how consulting works, check out my article here.
There are many factors that drive many students to pursue consulting as a career after undergrad, but here are the main three:
Consulting, especially management consulting, is a very lucrative industry. Six-figure salaries for entry-level jobs straight out of undergrad are common.
Consulting offers a stimulating and low-commitment way to explore many industries before deciding which one to dive into professionally. Junior consultants typically work on projects across a variety of industries, allowing them to learn more about what sectors are out there before pivoting into one. The role is challenging, you work with smart colleagues, and you learn a lot, quickly. I wrote this before my summer internship in consulting, and in hindsight, this is 100% true. I now feel like an expert in the particular industry that my summer project was in.
With the above point being said, consulting offers excellent “exit opportunities” (a common term to describe the careers or professions you can join, or exit into, after moving on from a company or role). It is very common for junior consultants to stay at a consulting firm for 2-3 years, then move on to another company completely or to grad school for an MBA.
With that being said, a natural follow-up question would be, what is a student consulting club?
A student consulting club is basically a group of ambitious, like-minded students who do consulting projects for clients that are one or several quarters in length. Students complete projects for clients from a variety of industries, helping boost the resumes of students as they prepare to apply for summer internships (especially for the summer after junior year) or full-time roles after graduation.
I have an entire experience on my resume exclusively dedicated to consulting projects I did in my student consulting club, The Bruin Group (TBG).
Students have the opportunity to hold leadership positions and be involved in the management of the club, further giving students something to discuss with interviewers and recruiters as they hunt for competitive jobs. These clubs have many social events and lots of opportunities to make close, lifelong friends.
I met some of my closest friends at UCLA through TBG!
And, they provide a large network for you when applying for internships/jobs, preparing for interviews, and looking for referrals.
In TBG, we have a specific Slack channel called “recruiting” where we share job postings, programs, and referrals with each other. We also have special recruiting events where companies send recruiters to directly talk to only the students in our club. The network-building aspect of these business clubs is massive and cannot be emphasized enough!
At UCLA, there are many different student consulting clubs, each offering a great group of students to join, interesting projects to work on, and social events to partake in. Typically, these clubs also have a specific focus on the type of clients that they take for (the healthcare industry, tech, retail, environment, etc.). Here at TBG, for example, our focus is on start-up and nonprofit clients, though we occasionally take on other types of clients.
Here is a helpful list of some major student consulting clubs at UCLA, along with their website links to explore further. Keep in mind that this list is not exhaustive, and new clubs are founded almost every year. Check out the full business club directory here!
The Bruin Group (TBG) —> focused particularly on startups
Do your research into the clubs you find interesting, and apply away!
A breakdown of the consulting club recruiting process, with tips and tricks on how to ensure recruitment success.
Note: This article was written by The Bruin Group (TBG), so this does not reflect the exact recruiting process for all consulting clubs at UCLA.
First and foremost, it must be said that these consulting clubs are extremely competitive to get into. Most clubs recruit at the beginning of each fall and winter quarter (with a few recruiting in the spring quarter as well) and receive hundreds of applications per cycle. More often than not, less than a dozen students are admitted, creating acceptance rates lower than that of UCLA itself.
This fact is extremely disheartening to learn, but hopefully, this guide can help you get into one of the clubs. Just like college, these clubs have very competitive admissions, with very high rewards for success. It’s unfortunately necessary to keep the clubs small (no more than ~30 active members) since the mentoring and resources become significantly less tailored (and therefore much less helpful) the larger the club gets. 30 active members seems to be the natural limit for an effective club’s size.
And, you find yourself competing against other UCLA students. Yikes.
The process of applying and getting into a consulting club at UCLA is shrouded in mystery and the source of much stress for many. Generally speaking, consulting club recruitment can be separated into a few different phrases, which we will dive into individually:
Learning about the club and meeting its members.
Online application with resume and written responses.
Coffee chats / first-round group case interviews.
Final round interview (and hopefully, an offer to join the club!).
Let’s get started.
Learning about the club and meeting its members.
Most consulting clubs have events before the application deadline for prospective applicants to learn more about the club and meet its members (these are great for you to figure out if you want to apply). There can also be a workshop to learn more about the casing process for the interviews.
Clubs will post about and promote their recruiting events on their websites, Instagrams, and newsletters. We cannot stress enough the importance and benefits of attending these events and meeting members of the club, especially if you do not know anyone in the club beforehand.
Meeting current members at these events allows you to interact in an informal environment and make yourself known to the club. This becomes very important because active club members can vouch for you during application deliberations based on your good impression. Since hundreds of students apply to the club each cycle, being vouched for by an existing member is an extremely helpful way to move on through the recruitment process.
This point mentioned above is extremely important. Meeting current members, leaving a positive impression, and making yourself known are huge. When current members review dozens of applications, having a distinct positive anecdote about someone is a huge plus.
Needless to say, attending these info sessions and speaking with current members gives you an idea of what the club does, what its vibe is, and gives you a better idea of if you’d like to apply for the club.
Online application with resume and written responses.
You will initially apply to a consulting club through an online application, typically a Google Form. You’ll be asked for your name, email, grade, etc. as well as a resume and a few written response questions.
A guide to formatting your resume can be found here.
I also recommend checking out my resume-building guide here.
Make sure your resume is formatted top-notch, as a poor resume format (inconsistent spacing, color on the page, more than 1 page long, etc.) is nearly certain to end your recruitment journey with the club you applied to. The importance of having a correctly formatted resume cannot be stressed enough.
Your resume is by far the biggest part of your initial application. If an active member looks at your application’s resume and it’s poorly formatted, your entire application will be thrown away immediately almost every time. Take the time to make your resume look good!
The written responses typically ask about your interest in consulting and the particular club you are applying to (with sometimes a fun question in there as well). We read a lot of these applications, so make sure to put effort into your responses. Some common mistakes to be avoided are these:
Using ChatGPT in your responses. Trust us, we notice. Please don’t do this, pretty pretty please :)
Mentioning another club in your responses for a different club. Don’t bring down other clubs. And definitely don’t forget to change the name of the club you’re applying to when you copy and paste a response from another club’s application. Yes, we know what you’re doing. Yes, try to differentiate your club application responses. We understand that you may be applying to different clubs in the same quarter, but put some effort and thought into each application you submit. Respect the time of everyone involved. The fact that we get students writing other club names instead of TBG every application cycle, despite explicitly warning applicants to double-check their applications, is absolutely mind-boggling to me. If you’re applying for one of the business clubs, please please please check the names you write. We all get that you’re applying to several clubs (nothing wrong with that, everyone did/does it), just please please please don’t write another club’s name when you’re applying
Being cliché. Enough said about this.
Stand out and be memorable in your responses. Remember, we are reading dozens of these. For TBG, one fun question we previously had on our application was “What kind of cake would you be, and why?”
Many applicants went with the cliché of being a layer cake because they have many layers. Oof.
But someone said that they would be a Costco carrot cheesecake for no particular reason except for the fact that they like the Costco carrot cheesecake, and included the link for Costco’s listing for that exact cake.
They moved on to coffee chats.
I was the one who graded that Costco carrot cake application and I absolutely loved it.
Being memorable and having good responses is SOOOOOOOO important to this entire process. Each member of TBG literally reads at least 30 applications per recruiting cycle (some clubs have many more applications than us and their members read many more applications each), so standing out here is crucial to getting an interview.
My advice for these written responses is to share a personal story that answers the questions without flexing your credentials. So many times, students just highlight some internship experience or their GPA without actually giving a meaningful response to the prompt, and this makes the reader cringe every single time. We already saw your resume and know your work experience. Take the written sections as an opportunity to share something new. A personal story, written in an interesting way, is sure to catch the attention of the reader.
For example, my favorite ever response to the “Why consulting?” question we ask on the TBG application is below:
"I grew up surrounded by business. From the bottom up, my dad built his own fiber company, my mom was a business consultant, and lastly, when I was younger, my brother would use his really well-crafted yet bizarrely manipulative sales speeches to get me to re-buy his broken toys. I suppose my quest for vengeance against my brother first drew me to business when I was a kid. With age came the realization that business consulting provides a unique blend of skills lacking in many other occupations: collaboration, global perspective, and creative critical thinking."
— Anonymous applicant (who I moved on to coffee chats)
Now that is an amazing response!
Coffee chats / first-round group case interviews.
The first round of interviews is typically in the form of coffee chats or group case interviews. In TBG, we go with coffee chats, so we will focus on them here.
Coffee chats are basically informal but structured ways for active club members to learn more about applicants and see if they are good fits for the club.
A vibe check, if you will.
Coffee chats are my favorite part of the entire recruitment process :)
Remember that club members work on projects together for months at a time, so being a good culture fit is very important for us. If you’re qualified but rude, you won’t make it through to the next round. But if you’re a bit underqualified but interesting, interested in others, and willing to work hard, you likely will.
At the coffee chats, groups of 4-5 candidates sit at tables and take turns answering questions from active club members, who rotate between tables about every 10-15 minutes. Common questions include these:
Tell me about yourself.
What is your biggest strength/weakness?
What is an interesting piece of news you read recently, and why did you find it interesting?
What is your biggest accomplishment?
What are some of your hobbies?
Why do you want to join this club?
Toothpaste or water first? (please don’t say neither)
Basically, we're trying to get a feel for who you are as a person.
What’s important to focus on here is your impression to the active members, both in your responses and in the way you act when you are not speaking yourself. Dress professionally and presentably. Good posture, eye contact, and confident speaking are important. So is your attention on the other members of your group when they are speaking. Don’t interrupt, but appear interested in what they are saying. Nod as needed. Needless to say, don’t go on your phone (some did this once) during coffee chats.
Respond confidently and thoughtfully, show you’re an interesting person, and be respectful.
For more tips on behavioral interviews, check out my article here.
You can’t really practice or prepare for coffee chats, you just need to go in there and give it your best shot. My advice is to think of coffee chats as going into a pleasant conversation — you don’t want to say any hot takes, you want to be a thoughtful and active listener, and avoid being weird. I’m sure you’ve had conversations before where after it ended, you thought the other person was strange or did some weird things. That’s exactly what you’re trying to avoid.
Being good at coffee chats is, of course, very difficult and very subjective. Different active members like different things, so the same response might be viewed as confident by one person and arrogant by another. This is inevitable, so the best way to succeed here is to try to figure out what people like beforehand (by attending the club’s info sessions and meeting active members) and participating in the coffee chats for several different clubs to increase your chances of a lucky break.
Lastly, here are some common myths about coffee chats, and why they may not be as true as you’d think (these eloquently written tips came from my friend Caleb):
1. Being quiet in coffee chats reflects maturity and poise.
It may seem that being quiet and allowing others to talk showed maturity and poise, but in order for an applicant to move on past coffee chats, they actually have to make an impact with their answers.
2. Admitting mistakes is a bad thing.
It seems like making mistakes would be an immediate red flag, but when done right, it shows a level of awareness and change that makes you want to vouch for the applicant.
3. You need to have fancy and exotic answers just to try and stand out.
It makes sense that you want to be memorable, but it’s usually best to relate to the others in your group on shared interests.
Final case interview.
The most important, and challenging, part of the consulting club recruitment process is the case interview.
Basically, a case interview (or a case, for short) is a hypothetical business situation where the interviewer presents a business problem to the interviewee. The interviewee is tasked with finding a reasonable solution and/or a series of next steps to address the business problem, using extra information provided by the interviewer as needed.
Cases can come in a variety of shapes and sizes, but for our purposes of recruitment, they will come in two forms: market sizing and profitability. Typically, freshman applicants will be given a market sizing case, and sophomore applicants and above will be given a profitability case.
For more tips on consulting case interviews, check out my article here.
Clubs usually send out guides on how to practice these interviews beforehand. I also recommend checking out the resources here. They’re more specific to case interviews for actual companies, but consulting club interviews are simplified versions of those.
Unfortunately, if you’re a third- or fourth-year student, it’s almost guaranteed that you won’t get into the club just because of your grade. Since consulting internship recruitment happens during the summer after sophomore year or the fall of junior year, accepting third and fourth years doesn’t make sense from a club-resource-investment perspective.
In a market sizing case, the interviewee is tasked with finding the size of a given market, typically in the form of total revenue or number of units. For a case interview for a student consulting club, there will be a market sizing exercise; then, you will use your analysis and other provided information to recommend whether or not to enter a new market.
Here are a few examples of what a market-sizing case may look like:
A water bottling company is considering expanding operations into Canada. Should they do so?
A shipping company specializing in container shipping is considering expanding into oil shipping. Should they?
How many hot dog stands are there in New York City? Do you recommend opening your own stand in NYC?
A profitability case is more challenging, and will involve being presented with a business with declining profitability that you are tasked with solving. You will need to identify why a business is seeing declining profits, and recommend strategies on how to combat it.
Here are some examples of a profitability case:
Your client is a mining company experiencing declining profits the last 5 years. What should we do to turn things around?
A software company is experiencing declining sales in one particular product it sells. What should it do?
A restaurant has declining profits despite increasing the number of customers it serves. Why is this, and what can it do to return back to normal profit levels?
Case interviews are modeled after work that real consultants do and test the thinking process, problem-solving, and mental math skills of candidates. Every consulting club at UCLA, and nearly every consulting firm, uses case interviews to assess their candidates at some point throughout the recruitment process. The most important thing to remember about these cases is that they test how you think and approach problems. The focus is less on your final answer and more on how you got to it.
For an in-depth example of a previous TBG final round case interview, see our case workshop slides here. For an in-depth guide of market sizing case interviews (common for freshmen applicants), click here. For an in-depth guide of profitability case interviews (common for sophomore applicants and above), click here. For some more information on case interview frameworks, click here.
An important note: Cases are similar to day-to-day consulting work, so if you find yourself enjoying practicing and preparing for case interviews, consulting will likely be enjoyable for you professionally. If you find yourself dreading cases, consulting may not be the profession for you.
When I was recruiting for consulting internships, I did several dozen practice case interviews and grew to like them quite a lot!
Some extra resources and good reads to learn more about consulting clubs, the consulting industry, and the business world in general.
Morning Brew (excellent daily business newsletter) This is literally the only news I read (only with hearing the updates from the tour guides in the tour guide office)
List of Behavioral Interview Questions. Focus on the first 3, though all of them are good to look at.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to email us at thebruingroup@gmail.com.
That brings us to the end of the club recruitment guide, and I’d like to end with the story of how I got into a consulting club myself.
The tale starts during my freshman fall quarter — I applied to one finance club, made it to coffee chats, and didn’t make it past that.
I was quite surprised, since I didn’t know that you could get rejected from a club. In high school, if you wanted to join a club, you just kinda signed up. But with UCLA’s business clubs, that was definitely not the case.
During my winter quarter, I decided that I needed to get into one of these business clubs, so I went ahead and applied to all ~10 business clubs that I knew of. I made it to coffee chats for 3-4 clubs, and final-round interviews for three. The Bruin Group (TBG) was one of them.
At the time, TBG had one of the latest recruitment cycles of any of the business clubs — most of them were during final-round interviews during Week 2, whereas TBG was doing them during Week 3. What this meant was that by the time I got to TBG’s final-round interviews, I had already practiced by being in final-round interviews for several different clubs.
These other interviews happened during Week 2. I did quite poorly, but practiced my interviewing skills live with others. By the time my TBG interview rolled around during Week 3, my responses were much more polished and my casing skills sharper. And with that, I got into TBG!
So the moral of the story is this: I didn’t choose TBG, rather I applied to many clubs and got into one of them. I’m sure that I would’ve had a great experience in any club I would’ve gotten into, and I know you will, too. The key is to apply to many of these clubs, get into one, and you’re all set!
Best,
Dennis
If you have more specific questions or comments, feel free to email me at dennis@interosity.co!