Tom SpencerCase interviews can be a hurdle or stepping stone at the beginning of your consulting career. The difference lies in your preparation and ambition for a consulting career. The interview tests your problem solving ability, communication skills, composure and interpersonal skills. Many resources exist to prepare for the case interview, which can make it overwhelming, […]
During COVID-19, working from home has become the new norm. This is a new experience for many of us, and poses new challenges and distractions that can make it difficult to stay focused and productive. I’ve been getting asked a lot lately about productivity, and so I thought I should dedicate an article to it. […]
Managers come in all shapes and sizes. They naturally have different styles and the junior consultants who are best at adjusting to them often have the most success. Of course, when you get to the very top of a consultancy or any other organisation, managers tend to be good. Partners are partners because they are […]
Consulting is a career where you hit the ground running. Having a clear direction and strategy for your career early on can grant you amazing advantages, but so can keeping your options open and exploring the opportunities offered by consulting. This article identifies what lies ahead for graduates considering a future in consulting, and highlights […]
EY has purchased Port Jackson Partners, a Sydney based boutique management consulting firm. Founded in 1991 by ex-McKinsey Directors Terrey Arcus and Fred Hilmer, PJP works with CEOs, boards and executives in Australia and overseas to set corporate direction, define business strategies and develop organisations. EY-Parthenon already has around 15% market share in Australia, but MBB […]
Consulting is a complicated job that requires a deep understanding of the problem at hand, processing large volumes of data, producing a solution and communicating clear action-oriented recommendations to the people in charge. When you have to work from a distance, conducting these steps can be an issue. Due to the latest situation created by […]
During the recruiting process, it was interesting to hear consultants talk about how much of their job is about conducting learning activities. By learning activities, I am not speaking about on-the-job-training. I am specifically talking about structured formal learning events such as classroom learning (including online), instructor led workshops, and interactive lectures. For prospective consultants […]
First of all, I am not going to presume that I can see the future, but I’m going to base my thoughts upon two broadly appreciated assumptions about COVID-19’s impact on the future. Any recessions brought on by COVID-19 will have effects that persist at least through 2020. Aspects of social behavior initiated as part […]
During both consulting recruiting and the initial months working in consulting, experienced by myself and my friends, the top priority for a consulting career which has been consistently emphasized has been delivering excellent client work. Arguably, the second priority has been persistent learning. Both of these are pretty self-evident to understand and appreciate. However, there […]
Companies sell products to a broad variety of industries and customer segments, and it’s often hard to know where to focus the sales, marketing and product development efforts. Who should you listen to and who should you be chasing? Within your target market, there will be customers that are “ideal” you. They buy quickly, […]
The past couple weeks have been a crazy time – millions are getting sick, cities are on the verge of shutdown, and firms are having all non-essential personnel work remotely. COVID-19 has certainly changed the way many are living and working all over the world. As my firm and project team have adjusted to working […]
It is said that to really understand somebody you have to walk a mile in their shoes. Analysing a customer journey, from prospect to buyer, allows the business to step into the customer’s shoes and experience the whole process from their perspective. Professor Bernd Schmitt of Columbia Business School is credited with creating the concept […]
You might have been given an opportunity to have a coffee chat with a firm representative or with a Partner at your dream consulting firm. However, one observation that I have made as both a potential hire looking for a job and as a consultant guiding others is that oftentimes, we are not prepared for […]
Applications can be a stress inducing process when pursuing a consulting career or opportunities from consulting firms as a student. Especially when you are competing against your peers who offer a diverse pool of skills, experiences, and backgrounds for consulting firms to cherry pick from. Selection criteria for candidates may differ from firm to firm […]
Networking can be a frightening process but a necessary one since it gives you a chance to meet new people who are the biggest asset you can have in life. Through successful networking one gains a multitude of benefits such as strengthened business connections, introduction to fresh ideas, access to jobs opportunities, more confidence and […]
A vast portion of a management consultant’s career is spent analyzing data, summarizing information, extracting insights, and helping to convert knowledge to action. So, a few minutes into your case interview, the recruiter slides a chart across the table and asks what you can tell from that particular exhibit. The objective of the chart is […]
What is Consulting? Many of us have heard the term consulting before, whether it comes up in a chat with friends about making money or just throwing around the term loosely when trying to come up with an entrepreneurial idea. What does consulting actually mean and is consulting right for you? The term consulting is […]
I vividly remember the last consulting interview during first-year MBA recruiting season. I was tense. My confidence was dwindling. I had managed to get interviews with three firms but only made it past the first round with this final company. The recruiting coordinator mentioned she’d get back to me by the end of the day. […]
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to sit down with another blog contributor to the SpencerTom community, Jason Oh, to share our experiences about the consulting recruiting process. More specifically, we were able to go over a few common questions about the differences in recruiting at a ‘target university’ and a ‘non-target university’ […]
When people think of consultants, they tend to visualize professionally suited employees, degrees from the best schools, high pay-checks and fancy travel stories. Some people also call consulting a ‘talk-job’ – you go to the clients, you talk about what the ideal world scenario would be for a particular project, product or market, and your […]
This past New Year’s Eve, I was surrounded by people sharing what they were thankful for in 2019. Since then, I have put much thought into thinking about how thankful I am to work for a consulting firm that empowers me to make time for my personal life’s priorities. Maybe I was overly pessimistic about […]
University is a difficult journey for anyone, regardless of major. Oftentimes, it takes a lot of navigating to truly understand what you want from your experience and where you want to end up. For me, I was fortunate to study at a Canadian business school and interacted with numerous small and large companies from a […]
Before reading this article, check out “Due Diligence by Management Consulting Firms”. What is due diligence? Due diligence is one of the most overused and understated terms in business. Due diligence is the process of being able to evaluate and understand a prospective investment, such as an acquisition, by gathering as much information as possible. […]
The question of how to join a management consulting firm as an experienced hire from another industry or another consulting firm is one that is often asked. The traditional route is to apply and go through the standard interview process as an MBA summer intern or post-MBA consultant. However, there aren’t a lot of sources […]
Consulting-style case interviews are highly effective, and the same format is being adopted more and more widely. The major consultancies have converged on a largely identical interview style, precisely because it excels in picking out the most genuinely capable candidates from the huge pools of applications received. However, consultancies are not the only oversubscribed employers […]
Many consulting, corporate strategy, and corporate development roles require the interviewee to go through an M&A case study. Depending on the firm and specific role this case could be very strategic and operational like doing a market entry/growth-type case or very technical (i.e. building financial models like DCF, accretion/dilution, LBO, etc.). But before we dive […]
M&A case framework Now that you have a high-level understanding of why companies buy each other in the first place (refer to M&A deals – benefits and drawbacks), let’s discuss the framework you should use to analyze the transaction. Firms typically look at four areas when working on M&A cases. Let’s step through them one […]
Pricing strategy is one of the easiest levers CEOs can pull to increase revenues in their company. For instance, retail banks can raise interest rates (the price they pay customers for depositing funds at the bank) to quickly attract new balances and acquire new customers. They can then lend out this money at even higher […]
Congratulations! You’ve passed your interviews and you’re now a consultant. However, while you may have momentarily rejoiced and thought “I’ve made it!”, you probably quickly came to the realization that this is just the beginning. Being a consultant is a constant challenge and struggle. It will never be “easy,” but if it were, you would […]
Throughout the consulting career recruiting process, I found it memorable that in both informal conversations and formal presentations, the issue of personal life management did occur as a poignant topic of conversation. The unifying message that was put forward was that the consulting lifestyle can easily strain any relationship if it wasn’t properly managed. I […]
These are a few tips and tricks that I’ve picked up from my own personal experience as well as anecdotes for consultants a few years out. There are a lot of things to note when first starting your career, but these are the most broadly applicable. 1. Be open-minded While not all consulting firms are […]
As with most other competitive professions, breaking into consulting roles has a lot to do with networking. Unfortunately, candidates get one chance to make a first impression. Meeting people early before you are polished will end up burning a lot of bridges. For example, after a very disorganized meeting the consultant will come back and […]
A roadmap streamlines business goals into strategic and executable paths. In the context of project management, a roadmap can span across multiple timelines for continuous product development. Why do you need a product roadmap? A roadmap is crucial for visualizing a product’s strategy that is aligned with your business goals, while incorporating customer insights for […]
One of the more memorable parts of the consulting recruiting process was witnessing people attempting to network with consulting firms. What stood out was that people didn’t seem to have a commonsense understanding of networking best practices. Consequently, I witnessed some networking maneuvers that were simply bad form. I thought I had buried those amusing […]
Product management is at the heart of any modern business and today’s product managers need to have incredibly strong quantitative skills and intuition to build products or features that customers will find truly useful. They must focus on quality outcomes and not quantity of output. This brings us to the four goals of product management : […]
When I started graduate school three years ago, I had only a marginal interests in pursuing a management consulting career. Low and behold, I’ll be starting my first day in management consulting in New York City a month from now. I sometimes chuckle in reflecting on my unlikely path into this field. My story is […]
Being a product manager requires taking responsibility. You are the ambassador of the product. You’re responsible for it from its first fuzzy idea, to concrete concept, through production, launch, and all the way to maturity stage. In order to successfully get there, you need to have a good understanding of the market as well as […]
Properly preparing for strategy consulting interviews doesn’t just mean learning the process, memorizing frameworks, and casing all-out; in order to ensure success it’s also critically important that a mindset shift occurs. Good candidates get to the right answer. Excellent candidates do so in a very particular way – and this is the best way to […]
Like a consulting interview, a product manager (PM) interview consists of multiple parts, including a case study and a behavioral portion, which looks for communication, management, and prioritization skills. But what’s different is that it adds a twist by having product-related questions as well. Unsurprisingly, PMs should love products. They should be able to recognize […]
Question “Give me an example of a good product and not so good product. Why is one better than the other?” What is this question about? This product management (PM) interview question tests whether you understand product design principles. Is your evaluation of products guided by principles of good design? Are you able to articulate […]
Associate Product Manager (APM) positions are well known in Silicon Valley as rotational, mentorship-focused programs designed to accelerate the careers of young aspiring product managers. Typically, they feature perks like rotations on various teams, face-time with leadership at the company, and strong alumni communities with robust networks. But how do you filter and come down […]
As addressed in my article from last week, non-MBA graduate students face a comparatively more challenging journey in their quest to enter the management consulting industry. That being said, I know plenty of non-MBAs who have received offers from prestigious consulting firms, and so I thought it would be helpful to share some strategies that […]
An MBA degree has long been known as a robust pathway towards accessing management consulting career options. Yet, what about other graduate degrees in comparison to an MBA? Having been a student ambassador for a program at my university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, I have had plenty of conversations with prospective students asking […]
If you’re trying to get into consulting, it can be more than a little confusing trying to understand the various types of firms and their practices. In this post, you will learn about the 4 major types of consulting and the firms that are typically associated with them. 1. Strategy Consulting This is the type […]
Amid the intensity of recruiting for consulting, few stop to think what it will really be like once they’ve achieved their mission to get into a top-tier consulting firm. With their eyes on the prize, and a single-minded focus, many gloss over the details of what day 1 and 300 will look like. I’m included […]
If you’re applying to a consulting firm, be ready to get acquainted with case interviews. Almost all consulting firms include the case interview as part of their recruitment process. In fact, it can play a huge role in deciding if you get the job. Even non-consulting firms are utilizing case interviews as part of their […]
Management consulting is a professional service offered to organisations which aims to help internal management improve operating performance. Consultancies are brought in to tackle individual problems (falling revenue, rising costs, geographical expansion, product launch, M&A) or to evaluate the company through a deep dive analysis. The management consulting value chain encompasses strategy (idea origination, analysis […]
During the recruitment process for consulting internships and full-time positions, I went to countless presentations given by consulting firm representatives who explained the consulting industry and made sales pitches about their firms. They brought up important points, such as diversity of work opportunity, mentorship structure, and even frank conversations about work life balance. Yet, what […]
Let’s face it. A major portion of the consulting case interview tests your quantitative skills. Why? Consultants work with a lot of data and can spend a significant amount of time crunching numbers. So your interviewers want to know that you’re comfortable with math and have strong analytic reasoning skills. Here is a play-by-play of how you […]
Having a great mentor is critical for personal skill development, especially early in your career, and so I wanted to share the guidelines that my mentor provided me to follow in 2019 to become a better consultant / strategist. As a brief introduction, my mentor spent two summers at Bain & Co. as an Associate […]