October 4, 2004
Dear EC Student,
On behalf of Pristine Reputation International Consulting, I’d like to give you a warm welcome back to HBS!
We know that you applied for a Summer Associate position with our firm last year, a position that we were thrilled not to offer you. This year, we’re pleased to report that the economy is picking up, and that means we’re looking for a large pool of hard-working, na‹ve labor to come on board. We think you just might have that perfect combination of no life and total obedience, and are hoping you’ll forget all of the bitterness from when we totally dissed you last year and will apply for a job with us again. You see, we don’t just think of it as merely “rejecting” internship candidates. Rather, we like to think that last year, we extended to you a selective invitation to not join our internship program. We hope that this provided you with an opportunity to reflect upon your many mistakes and to emerge from them, transformed, like a magnificent and shiny monarch butterfly. A butterfly that will flap, flap, flap its way to new heights in our firm.
Clearly, this will be a year full of choices. And drinking. And choosing what to drink. And while you’re drinking, and choosing, and occasionally snoozing, it might occur to you to think about which strategy consulting firm best suits your career aspirations. This is where we think we can help.
Have you long dreamed of having significant impact on font size? Are you looking for chances to interface with the Fortune 500’s most senior peons? Do you like using the word “leverage” as often as possible, even when ordering in restaurants? Then we think we have a place for you on our team. Unless you’re still as hopelessly incompetent as you were during your interviews eight months ago, in which case, we recommend that you stop reading this letter immediately and put it in someone else’s mailbox.
We deliver large amounts of value, and even larger bills, to our clients. And the best part of working here is that we’ll pass some of those revenues on to you. Not at the same rate at which we pay ourselves, of course – if we gave you as many of the profits as we keep for ourselves, we’d be pretty lousy business strategists, eh? Har!
We believe that our firm has a unique culture among other consulting firms – for example, other firms have logos that are in a boring blue or an insipid indigo, whereas our logo is in a stunning sapphire color. In addition, we put this logo in the center of our letterhead, not off to the left or right. Putting our logo in the center is a symbol of our balance, strength, and solidarity. Firms that put their logos off to the left or right are weenies.
We’ll be at the Charles Hotel, and infiltrating Spangler to spy on you, next week. We hope you’ll come by and grovel with members of our team!
Regards,
Ann Sincere, Recruiter
Pristine Reputation International Consulting
