Launching a management consulting career is a daunting task due to the competitive nature of the profession. Applying for a job entails completing online questionnaires, writing cover letters, and undergoing psychometric assessments before you are even invited for an interview. There is also a large pool of applicants for managing consulting jobs in the developing […]
Tag: consulting
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What is consulting?
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 […]
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 […]
The clients won’t be household names. Compensation for your volunteer consulting work is at an exciting zero. Worst of all, it will be just another project that competes with school work, networking, and sleep for a piece of your time. Yet for graduate students seriously considering a consulting career without prior professional consulting experience, I […]
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Creativity
I was going to post a single quote for creativity but, in keeping with the nature of the word itself, there appear to be multiple different views on what creativity actually is. Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, has described creativity as the freedom to fail and try again. “Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which […]
Ever since I started my professional program in Energy and Environmental Management, from time to time, I can’t help but ask myself: how on earth can I master so many different topics? Although I am still as confused as ever when trying to understand such a fast changing world and those fabulously complicated consulting problems […]
Before starting your application journey, the very first thing is to understand the recruitment process and selection criteria of those management consulting firms. I assume that you have carefully considered those four critical factors outlined in my first article and really committed to the management consulting position that you are targeting, since the consulting application […]
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Case Interview Basics
What is a Case? Cases are a tool used by interviewers based on a business scenario; they go beyond behavioural and background questions to assess the actual abilities of a candidate by replicating the steps of a consulting project. They are a means of evaluating potential candidates when facing a real-life business challenge to determine whether […]
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 […]
Whether I was talking to graduates, MBAs or experienced professionals, as a consulting club president at business school, I was frequently asked the same question, “What is the most efficient and quickest way to transform into a consultant?” Honestly, this could be one of the toughest questions one can ever answer. First let me be […]
As an aspiring consultant, it is easy to see what you stand to gain from this career choice: high salary, high status, strong networking opportunities, and attractive exit options. But a more productive question might be, what do you plan to contribute? With the arrival of the internet, we entered an age of hyper competition […]
Having a successful career in consulting requires sustained motivation. When your skills are a good match for the requirements of the industry, your superior performance will be an ongoing source of encouragement. A sensible first step towards a consulting-career would be to understand whether you have what it takes to excel in consulting. Here is […]
Interviews were fast approaching and I knew I wasn’t on track. Nothing was working until I finally had three key insights. These insights led to a 100% hit rate at my consulting and tech interviews, which included MBB, Strategy&, AT Kearney, Amazon, Cognizant, and several boutique consultancies. What I discovered is that the interview outcome, […]
Why do organisations hire consultants? If you are a junior consultant, knowing why your work is valuable is likely to make your job more meaningful. If you are a partner, knowing why your work is valuable is likely to help you sell consulting projects and make money for yourself and for the firm. Below we […]
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Consulting Exit Options
One of the benefits of starting your career in the management consulting industry is that it provides many favorable exit opportunities. Some of the possible exit opportunities that a consultant may consider are outlined below. 1. Another Consulting Firm Just because you leave a consulting firm doesn’t mean that you have to leave the consulting industry. […]
If you are going to university, it is likely that you will attend a corporate networking event at some point. Whether you want to form connections with your dream employer, find out about a specific company or industry, or simply go because that’s what all of your friends seem to be doing, these events can […]
So you’re interested in being a management consultant? Great! But what is it that they actually do? If you’re still not sure of the answer then read on, as I bust the myths and reveal the realities of what it truly means to be a “management consultant”. 1. Consulting only pertains to the business sector- […]
Every year, recruiters get hit with waves of resumes from newly graduated college students looking for internships or starting positions at top firms. In order to make an impact with your potential employer, your resume has to stand out. To help you do this, we made a helpful guide on applying to and landing jobs […]
In today’s world, the lives of fresh grads are meant to revolve around their careers and professional advancement, and so it is obviously no surprise that so many of us struggle to commit to a specific field, out of fear that it’s not THE perfect job for us. Much like dating, job-hunting is a game […]
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The Consulting Myth
The first piece of advice I was given when I started my Master’s in Management at London Business School was to beware of the mirage of consulting. On the first day of orientation, we were told that we should start applying yesterday, especially if we wanted to get into consulting – but not to put […]
Few internship schemes are as competitive as those offered by top management consulting firms – for many good reasons. Instead of making coffee, you will work on challenging projects as part of a team. Your salary will be more than decent. And even if you find out that consulting is not for you, the knowledge […]
One thing they don’t teach you at university, but which every young professional needs to learn, is how to write an effective email. Here are five (5) steps to help you successfully structure your professional emails. Step 1: Start with a greeting You should start your email with a greeting. It is important to do […]
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Why Consulting?
First and foremost I want to address the myth that all high achieving students have about consulting, “You need talent to be a consultant!”. I completely dismiss this notion and would like to replace it with another idea, “You need no special talent, you only need to be passionately curious!”. Curiosity drives intuition and that’s […]
So you’ve decided you want to be a management consultant? Congrats, you’re now one of thousands competing for the same job! And there’s your first problem: how do you stand out? The first step is always the hardest and sadly the most important, so here’s my guide on how to tackle your first consultancy job […]
Every now and then, I meet students in their final year at university who are worried about applying for graduate jobs in consulting. “It seems like a great job – but I just don’t think my CV is good enough” is something I have heard many times. True, graduate schemes at top firms are very […]
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Travel, Training and Mentorship
Three significant aspects in the life of a management consultant: travel, training and mentorship. Travel When it comes to travel, different consulting firms have different policies. McKinsey consultants often spend Monday to Thursday at the client site with Fridays in the office. Bain and BCG often spend a lot of time with the client at the beginning […]
Merry Christmas! Joyeux Noël! Sheng Dan Kuai Le! (圣诞快乐!) Wishing you an enjoyable day, and a happy holiday season spent with good people, surplus amounts of food and drinks, and a large number of gifts! One idea that is firmly associated with Christmas is gift giving. This is a central part of the Christian tradition, […]
This is a guest post from Riya Sander. Creating a happy workplace can make it easier to retain your workers, allowing you to avoid the costs related to employee turnover. It can also increase the morale of those who stay, which may lead to higher productivity and a greater likelihood that your people take ownership […]
This is a guest post from Caryn Walsh. Being a good leader has never been easy. Not everybody can learn how to carry the expectations, demands, and ambitions of a company on a single pair of shoulders. You need to know when to be tough and have a willingness to make the difficult decisions, but […]
I am a bit of a late bloomer in some ways – certainly academically. At the age of 48, I decided, after a life spent in business of all kinds, to go back to school, obtain my EMBA, and focus on an entrepreneurial career. It’s not really that delaying my master’s was a choice. When […]
It is not like I knew Peter well – as a real live person. In fact, I only met him once – in Claremont – as a very old man. That said, I always found it rather funny and more than touching that for a man who helped chart the academic progression of American management […]
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Knowledge, Networks, and Branding
It’s what you know. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. It’s not who you know, it’s who knows you. Knowledge, networks, and branding. You have to start somewhere, and the logical starting point is to acquire knowledge. Society understands the importance of this, which is why primary and high school education can […]
Management consulting is a service industry that earns its keep by serving large organisations – corporate, non-profit and government. During economic downturns these prospective clients typically have less money, or more uncertain cash flows, and so are less likely to spend money on consulting services. As a result, consultants are vulnerable to layoffs during economic […]
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How Empowered Are You?
What does it mean to say that someone is “empowered”? The Oxford dictionary defines the term as “stronger and more confident in controlling ones life”. Key to this definition is the idea of control; that is, the ability to influence the course of events. Roles in the community that we might think of as empowered include priests, professors, […]
It is very common these days for businesses of all shapes and sizes to use serviced offices. For smaller companies and startups, however, they are particularly valuable. If a young business wants to get off the ground fast, they can do so by paying a fixed rate fee to rent a fully equipped workspace. It […]
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Cheap money, what is it good for?
Cheap money should help to stimulate the world economy, but is it working? Following the leave campaign winning the Brexit referendum, which will see the UK leave the EU two years after the Prime Minister notifies the European Council of its intention to do so, there was much fear about what this would mean for the strength of […]
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“Up or Out” Policy
It is common for top consulting firms to subject consultants to a rigorous “up or out” policy. What this means is that consultants are required to advance to the next level of responsibility within a certain period of time or leave the firm. Consultants normally receive regular performance feedback and so have frequent opportunities to […]
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Consulting Roles
A consultant who enjoys a successful career progression within the consulting industry will be promoted up through the ranks and hold various different roles along the way. Job titles will vary by firm. An entry level consultant may be called a business analyst or junior associate. New recruits who hold an advanced degree (e.g. MBA, […]
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Harnessing Creative Energy
China comes up for criticism in modern times for stealing software technology from the West. Software is a language (or a set of languages) which can be used to make computer hardware do marvelous things, and because software is easy to copy (or reverse engineer), it’s easy to steal. But if there is software stealing going on in China and elsewhere, […]
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Sanitised vs Sanitary
Are you trying to build a work environment that is more sanitised or more sanitary? There is a difference. A sanitised work environment is generally inoffensive, and is designed to satisfy the strict (and habitually self-serving) requirements of the HR checklist. A sanitary work environment, on the other hand, is one that’s designed to be favourable for the health and proper functioning of […]
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Generalist versus Specialist
The traditional consulting career model employed by top consulting firms like McKinsey was to develop generalist consultants who could apply general business principles and frameworks across different industries, sectors and functional areas. Clients increasingly value industry experience and specialized knowledge, and so firms are evolving the traditional consulting career model to accommodate these changing client demands. […]
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Destiny vs Destination
When things go badly, the optimist is likely to respond with a reference to forces outside her control, “our competitors got lucky this time!” When things go well, the pessimist is likely to respond in a similar way, “I got lucky this time!” In both situations the person is making a call to destiny. The optimist believes that things will go well […]
Executives often rely on the advice of management consultants. Was it always this way? Where did it all begin? The management consulting industry, as we know it, originated in America. The very first management consulting firm was Arthur D. Little, founded all the way back in 1886 by a professor at MIT whose name was […]
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Taking Profit
I am currently living in Beijing, lecturing strategy and finance courses to undergraduates. One observation I’ve made is that the people here are good at identifying opportunities for profit. And I use the word profit not in a financial sense, but with the broader meaning of the French verb profiter, which means “to make the most advantage of”. This […]
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Consulting Jargon
We have commented on consulting jargon before, but we will do it again. Organisations hire management consultants to provide advice on their most challenging business problems. Senior management are busy people, and so consultants need to communicate as clearly as possible. The need for clarity, however, has not prevented consultants from developing an industry jargon all […]
If you have recently been placed in a leadership or managerial position in your company, then you may need to change the way you approach work each day. The five most common mistakes discussed below are made by those in management in virtually every sector of the business world. Learning how to avoid them can […]
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Consulting or Banking
If you are a high achieving undergraduate or MBA student, then you are likely to be considering various highly paid and prestigious career options. This post provides you with a high level comparison of management consulting and investment banking. 1. Nature of the job Management consultants assist organisations by providing advice to address specific problems […]
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Is Consulting For You?
Management consulting is a nice perch, but it is not for everyone. Many people go into consulting with a plan to gain a few years of experience and then apply for B-school or pivot into industry or entrepreneurship. This is a legitimate strategy, but it can also be a cop out with many people leaving […]
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3 Ways to Distinguish Yourself
We live in an increasingly digital and technology enabled world, which is increasing the level of competition between organisations. Why is this the case? There are three key reasons. Firstly, technology is helping to lower barriers to entry. It has never been easier to create new goods and services, and get them noticed by your […]
The consulting industry provides many services and covers many industry sectors, and so the domain knowledge and expertise that a consultant needs will vary depending on the industry focus and services that the consultant actually provides. That being said, there are some generic skills that every consultant will need to have. As a starting point, […]