How much of an advantage to minorities have in the initial hiring process? I.e getting interviews, etc.

A lot. There are specific slots at some companies for minorities. The way it's done is that there are maybe 10 interns from a conference each year. And the conference is specific to a minority group. Ex. National Society of Black Engineers.

What about in general full time hiring? If you're pretty well qualified and then they see you're a minority, do they consider you a little more seriously?

The conference thing still applies for full time slots. Additionally, many companies like PwC fill a majority of full time slots with interns. At my company, minorities don't get any extra benefits per se, but each candidate is examined every closely and given as much help as can be done (extra practice interviews, more attention from recruiting etc.). The interview is still the interview and we don't let anyone though if they had a bad case.

Negative, unless going through diversity recruiting track. Like what D1 described. Outside of that, I don't see it.

At our firm, the only Thing I've noticed is directors/or SM that are rock stars that happen to be minorities seem to be fast tracked to partner a bit more. Due to the lack of minority partners. I see it a bit with women too.

A lot. At my MBA program, the conversion rate for black people recruiting for consulting was 100%, compared to 50-60% for the normal population. People with back office operations jobs prior to bschool and 680 GMATs got McKinsey consistently.

Consulting internship recruiting*

Yeah we have a big push to increase our black and Hispanic numbers so you'll definitely be more likely to get an interview. But like D1 said, there's still a bar you have to clear to get an offer.