If you are interested in consulting roles, case interviews are an integral part of that process. Your heartbeat will pulse with excitement when you receive an e-mail letting you know that you made it to the interview stage. Yet, this is also where the challenge begins. The interview is a nerve-wracking experience. No matter how […]
Category: Consulting
Tax advisory is primarily the province of the Big Four: Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG. A major specialisation of the tax departments of all four of these special services firms is transfer pricing, making it worthy of a closer look if you are considering entering this field. Transfer pricing comes into the picture when the […]
In this short post, we will briefly explore how consulting firms work, the hierarchy within firms, the main types of firms, and a few ways to learn more about a particular firm as you chart your career path, prepare your applications, and get ready to matriculate into the consulting industry. 1. How do Consulting Firms […]
For many years, Excel has been a cornerstone when it comes to analyzing data. Released in 1985, it has grown to the point where every workplace is required to have it. Although Excel can be beneficial in any industry, some people dread the sight of a blank spreadsheet. To help you combat your Excel anxiety, […]
Almost every case interview across all consulting industries includes one specific section devoted to evaluating the interviewee’s ability to handle a mathematical problem. Even though it does not include any advanced mathematical equations and it simply relies on basic algebra, this section also tends to be the most dreaded part by applicants without a math […]
Case interviews can seem like a daunting task. You’re being asked to solve a business challenge, while being assessed for an internship you really want … I feel the nerves already. Thankfully, by taking tangible steps you can be well prepared for your case interviews. 1. Get familiar with the format If you are just […]
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Networking: If You Wait, You Are Late!
Whether you are an undergraduate social sciences major, an MBA candidate, or a doctorate engineer, it is never too early to start networking. Many students spend too much time focused on the present: whether it’s homework assignments, working a part time job, or looking forward to the weekend. While those may be important, being a […]
Experienced hire recruitment can be a puzzling, confusing environment. Compared to on-campus recruits (undergraduates and MBA students), experienced hires confront much more irregular processes, prolonged timelines, and unclear standards. As the number of experienced hires have increased during the pandemic and I personally made this transition twice during my career, below I’ll share my thoughts […]
Roaming through a series of management books and business coaching sessions, one can easily feel overwhelmed by the constant reappearance of certain buzzwords. ‘Resilience’, ‘agility’ and ‘holistic thinking’ are all features of effective business management that have gained widespread consensus approval, but the meaning behind these catchphrases often becomes blurred by the hype. I believe […]
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Merry Christmas!
Wishing you a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! During this festive season, we scale back our work obligations and make time for friends and family. Christmas is a season of gift giving. If you are a Christian, then this tradition holds special significance because it echoes the story of the gifts given by the three […]
Software consultants set up customized software solutions tailored to the needs of individual businesses. Software is key to the efficiency of organizations in almost every industry. The increasing use of e-commerce, cloud computing, data analytics, and other digital tools allow businesses to engage in personalized interactions with customers at scale. Software consultants provide the technical […]
As the number of opportunities you have increases so too does the complexity involved in making a decision. For example, think of the last time you tried to pick a movie to watch. How long did it take you? The average Netflix user takes around 18 minutes. This is partly because there are lots of […]
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Early Career Tips for Success
Starting out in any profession is difficult. Starting out and standing out simultaneously is even harder. In this article, we will look at some of the things I learned from my experience interning at a range of consulting firms this summer. 1. The power of networking Although networking is a widely cited element of success […]
Business development consulting is about helping businesses grow sales and profits in order to achieve their strategic objectives. Business development consultants enable companies to reach their full potential and rescue companies that are struggling to survive. Business development consultants engage in ‘prospecting’ which involves searching for potential customers who are likely to be a good […]
4 Stages of Learning to Help your Projects and Career The difference between knowing a lot of facts and understanding how to use those same facts can be observed from the level of insight obtained. Often the same information is available to many people, yet some can reach greater insights and create more value. This […]
Digital marketing consultants provide marketing advice and optimize the online presence of organizations so that they can be easily found by their target audience. Unless your business has the brand power of Amazon, Google, or Facebook, a failure to optimise digital marketing is likely to place an unnecessarily large barrier between potential customers and what […]
Journalists have a very specific writing style. Newspaper articles rarely have a storyline, or a narrative curve. Instead, they make their most significant statement right in the title, and the first sentence of the first paragraph. As we proceed reading, we are gradually unfolding the issue at hand, finding out more circumstantial details about the […]
At its core, innovation consulting involves bringing together technical, creative, and analytical skills to solve business problems, address societal issues, and transform ideas into reality. Innovation is an umbrella term for designing and developing new products, navigating unchartered business environments, and creating change in unexpected ways. Consultants here are forward thinkers. Some aspects overlap with […]
When asked about important skills to succeed in the consulting field, there are generally some pretty standard responses: communication, organisation, team work, problem solving, and analytical thinking. Whilst these are undeniably central to the role of a consultant, there is one skill that no one ever acknowledges. Consulting is a ‘people game’. Your role as […]
The incriminating title of this article was inspired by Charles Tilly’s book ‘War Making and State Making as Organized Crime’, which describes an instrumental, yet generally unrecognized trait of any organisation. We tend to consider our institutions as being means to a specific end, a social instrument for pursuing a distinct goal. The Ministry of […]
Economic meltdowns hold important lessons for business consultants. Since the philosophies, frameworks, and insights developed by top firms contribute to the business practices which play a role in making the economic system unsustainable, a crisis signals the need for reflection. For instance, in the lead up to the 2008 Great Recession, McKinsey actively promoted mortgage […]
With the tight professional services market in the US, everyone I know in consulting has talked about how they know people who jumped consulting firms (this does not count those who changed firms after attending graduate school). I have heard some stories of when firm jumping became a highly stressful endeavor, and occasions when it […]
In a locked-down world, global opportunities have been all but forgotten. That may be an exaggeration, but cross-cultural exchange has been drastically lessened. This is a shame since international experience is greatly beneficial for young professionals. To succeed in a global business environment, it is important for the next generation of young leaders to be […]
MBA consulting recruiting season starts every fall. For a few falls now, in my capacity as a volunteer career advisor, I have had to uncomfortably tell incredibly intelligent MBA students from highly respected schools that they are utterly ill-informed about entering the consulting profession. It isn’t that they did anything wrong per-se or that they […]
Let’s say you get into a great MBA program. You go in with a clear post-MBA goal. Going through the motions of the program you get talking with your peers. Everyone has different goals and different reasons for pursuing them. Most of them are aiming to get into consulting, some want to launch enterprises, others […]
When career entrants and university graduates discuss the Big Four accountancy firms, EY, PwC, KPMG and Deloitte, they are most often portrayed as some of the most highly regarded employment opportunities. The recognition is definitely not baseless. PwC held the No. 1 position in The Times Magazine’s Top 100 Graduate Employers list for 15 consecutive […]
Flying leg break during a black belt test in 2016 I stood facing a wall of black plastic boards, faintly hearing “U-S-A, U-S-A” chanting from the rest of our team in the stands. I measured the distance from the board with my leg, took a deep breath, and then performed a kick that I had […]
‘Technological innovation’ has recently become an ossified catch-all term not only in venture capital circles, but in management consultancy as well. Under the deceiving influence of this catchy buzz-word, we tend to underestimate the complications which technological trailblazing entails. Such issues gain increasing relevance in a consulting career, if one decides to take projects with […]
If someone is willing to give you 20 minutes of their time, what is the most value you can extract from that conversation? I networked my way to an interview. I cold messaged over 200 people on LinkedIn and had 50+ conversations with current consultants. The conversations not only helped me get referrals but also […]
Expertise in case studies is considered a given not just among the veterans of business life, but even for newly aspiring consultants, who wish to break into the consultancy industry. Market-sizing, competitor-analysis, pricing-strategy and legal risk-assessment are all components to a standard case study which we tend to give primacy to, yet in many cases, […]
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Tips for Case Prepping Alone
As fall recruiting season is on the horizon, it’s inevitably a busy time for many students looking to recruit into consulting. On top of regular life commitments, you also must spend time on preparing applications, practicing for interviews, and partaking in the interviews themselves. With such a busy schedule, it can be tough to find […]
Numbers are at the foundation of understanding both science and business. Both fields rely on translating real world events into data points which are then used to answer questions and generate insights. Coming from a health and science background I am familiar with looking at health data and being able to gain insights to make […]
Discussion on management consultancy often reduces the clientele of strategy firms to multinational corporations. Although this might largely be the case, such a simplistic view ignores a major field of consulting: governmental and public sector advisory services. MBB strategy firms and the Big 4 professional services companies all have departments specifically designated for public policy […]
If you are a current student and are interested in consulting, chances are you are familiar with your school’s consulting club. Maybe you’ve attended a competition hosted by them, or perhaps you’ve utilized resources made available by them – no matter how you’ve interacted with the club, it’s a valuable resource for aspiring consultants to […]
If you have decided to pursue an MBA, then taking the GMAT is an unavoidable part of the process. The Graduate Management Admission Test is a very challenging exam divided into 4 sections: Integrated Reasoning, Analytical Writing Assessment, Quantitative Reasoning, and Verbal Reasoning. Your GMAT score will range from 200 – 800, calculated solely based […]
Being a business consultant is one of the most challenging and rewarding jobs you can have. Each and every day you are setting out to help other businesses succeed. The path to becoming a successful business consultant is not going to be the same for everyone. Some people know that they want to be a […]
Deciding to do an MBA is a big decision. Besides the financial cost of attending the program, you will incur the opportunity cost of lost income or other benefits that you would have obtained from doing something else for those two years, and you will have to invest time and energy which are the two […]
Dane Sequeira was an advanced professional degree consultant at the Boston Consulting Group. In 2019 he earned his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering, studying under Dr. Brian Mann. In the field of nonlinear dynamics, Dane studied ocean energy harvesting buoys. He worked at the Los Angeles office of BCG, performing due diligence with private equity clients […]
Billy Gerhard is a consultant in the Philadelphia office of the Boston Consulting Group, a Big 3 management consulting firm. In 2019, he received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering in the Gunsch Lab from Duke University. His research was on microbial response to water treatment and invasive bacterial species movement. Prior to attending […]
In recent years, the Big 4 accounting firms have placed an increasing emphasis on emerging technology. This can be seen from their graduate recruitment process. Recruitment screening assessments increasingly ask how candidates, as newly appointed auditors, would use emerging technologies. The audit process has been vastly altered by emerging technologies. The improvement in technology has […]
One aspect of consulting career development that I don’t think those new to the industry sufficiently appreciate is the importance of having a community of mentors. Yes, most firms have a system whereby each consultant is required to have a designated mentor to be an official guide (formally titled Coach, Counselor, etc.). Yet, beyond that, […]
Cracking a case can be a daunting task. For a career in consulting, you should strive to be ambitious, passionate and determined. The case study interview is a common way for consulting firms to screen candidates because it allows them to evaluate multiple inter-related consulting skills including data analysis, analytical skills, problem-solving abilities, active listening […]
A constantly reoccurring conversation I have heard discussed about the management consulting industry is if the preference for talent is in favor of “poets” (those that come from more of a humanities background) or “quants” (those that come from more of a technical or hard sciences background). Of course, the best position to be in […]
The working world can be an intimidating environment. Problems may arise with your boss, colleagues, the economy, your company’s strategy or business practices. You may have limited control over the source of the problem and little leverage to resolve it. This post aims to provide you with some guidance on how to approach difficulties in […]
There is a misconception in graduate school that participating in an internship is a waste of time and might prolong your schooling, but that could not be further from the truth. Now I am not talking about brief stays at national laboratories where you conduct your doctoral research, nor clinical rotations for course credit, nor […]
Receiving an offer from a top consulting firm is an exciting experience. It is a breakthrough for many and a fantastic journey to begin. The first step starts with training, the learning of technical skills, soft skills, and time management skills. In consulting, your training, adapting, and professional growth actually never stop. You will frequently […]
The biggest challenge of getting into a consultancy is the case interviews. Hardly any other job has such a challenging entry barrier. Fortunately, there are numerous resources to help you prepare for these case interviews. However, most of them are missing a crucial piece of information. One mistake that almost all applicants make during their interview […]
As a corporate strategy professional, I execute and coordinate all of the key activities of the firm that span multiple business units and functions. This involves orchestrating company-wide planning for the Board of Directors and executive leadership team on the firm’s long-term strategic direction, annual operating plan, budgets, capital investment strategy, as well as informing […]
There is a good chance that you have a formidable LinkedIn profile, unmatched experience, and a dream to become the best in the consulting industry – so what’s next? As a young and aspiring professional, you will be launching your consulting career in an uncertain environment. Already, there is immense competition for internships, graduate positions, […]
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The Slide Writing Bible
In management consulting and many other sectors, people spend a lot of time creating PowerPoint slides as it has become the basis for communicating, both internally and externally. However, slide writing is often very challenging. It forces you to structure your thinking and the slide deck needs to include the right content as well as […]