So you want to become a
management consultant?
A traits based perspective on the consulting
recruitment process.
Written by Hashaam Javed
Incoming MBB Consultant
Edited & Designed by Urooj Tariq
via Create_Space
The views reflected in this document are mine
and mine only and not reflective of my
employer. Furthermore, while this content is my
own original creation, it is heavily influenced by
the materials I used for my preparation and thus
represents a combination of snippets of ideas
borrowed from an assortment of different
sources.
I wish you luck with your recruitment and hope
this guide serves as an aide to your preparation.
Best wishes,
Hashaam Javed
What does this guide cover?
Section 1: Introduction to Management Consulting ..............................
1
So, what's this about? .................................................................................
2
Who is this guide for? .................................................................................
2
Who is the person behind this? ..................................................................
3
An introduction to the consulting industry .................................................
A. What is management consulting? .......................................................
B. What does a management consultant do? .........................................
3
3
4
Interesting, so how do I get there? .............................................................
6
Why are management consultants even needed? ...................................
A. Something is wrong, doctor .................................................................
B. I want to get healthier ...........................................................................
C. What does it tell us? .............................................................................
D. Why would a consulting firm be hired? ...............................................
I. Companies lack the internal expertise
II. Organizations sometimes need external credibility
E. What have we learned so far? .............................................................
7
7
8
9
10
10
12
13
Section 2: The Consulting Archetype .......................................................
14
A dedicated personality ............................................................................
A. Results driven .......................................................................................
B. Grit .........................................................................................................
C. Ability to deal with and adapt to variety ..............................................
16
16
17
17
Solving Tough Problems .............................................................................
A. Intellectually curious ............................................................................
B. Ability to work fast and work with unfamiliar problems .....................
C. Ability to analyse and structure ...........................................................
I. Top-down thinking .............................................................................
II. MECE ..................................................................................................
III. Apply these tools ..............................................................................
19
19
19
20
21
24
26
Section 2:
|1
Solving tough problems [continued]
D. Having a knack for numbers and quantitative knowledge .................
E. Ability to generate and test creative ideas .........................................
26
29
Dealing with people ....................................................................................
A. The ability to work in a team ................................................................
B. The ability to influence others .............................................................
C. Professionalism ....................................................................................
D. Structured and top-down communication ..........................................
E. A culture of feedback ...........................................................................
29
29
31
32
33
37
Becoming the consulting archetype ..........................................................
38
Section 3: The Recruitment Process .......................................................
45
Curriculum Vitae ..........................................................................................
A. Tips for CV ............................................................................................
I. Formatting ...........................................................................................
II. Content ...............................................................................................
B. My own CV ............................................................................................
C. Key takeaways from my CV .................................................................
47
47
47
48
49
51
Cover Letter .................................................................................................
A. My cover letter and key takeaways ...................................................
52
55
The Case Interview .....................................................................................
A. Case interview tips ...............................................................................
B. Behavoral interview tips .......................................................................
I. Key takeaways from my answer .......................................................
56
58
67
68
Preparation scheduling tips ........................................................................
A. For seniors ...........................................................................................
I. Phase 1 ...............................................................................................
II. Phase 2 ..............................................................................................
(a) Part 1: The theory behind consulting .............................................
(b) Part 2: Proper Routinised Case Preparation ................................
B. For juniors and below ...........................................................................
69
69
69
70
70
71
72
Author's top picked resources ...................................................................
72
Section 2:
|1
Section 1
An Introduction to
Management
Consulting
Now that you're here, why not acquaint yourself with what being a management
consultant really means? Does it only (*cough*) entail offering strategic advice to
C-suite executives across the globe, or more? This section will take you through
the profession and acquaint you with the kind of industrial landscapes you may
be expected to work on as a consultant.
|1
So, what's this about?
I have been recently helping a lot of students navigate the consulting
recruitment process and see most people repeating the same mistakes and
asking the same questions. Given the plethora of content available online, many
people dive deep into their preparation without fully comprehending the nature
of the career that they are about to invest so much mental and emotional energy
into. I was lucky enough to have great mentors guide me through my journey of
breaking into consulting and believe that compiling a streamlined guide is the
best way to pay that forward.
What’s unique about this document is that, firstly, it is absolutely free. Secondly,
it comes directly from my own experience and thus it reflects recent trends
within the consulting recruitment process. Thirdly, this guide combines and
refers to a lot of key resources that I found useful within my preparation. There is
a lot of consulting recruitment content available online, and one can become
overwhelmed with the overload of information. Although it might seem counterintuitive to publish another guide to contribute to the chunk of material on this
subject, I have vetted and consolidated the most useful sources within this
document to save you the dreadful act of wasting time sifting through sources.
Lastly, this guide deviates from ‘case interview’ maestros who uphold the notion
that case interviews can be ‘cracked’ and instead brings to light the idea of
breeding and cultivating a ‘consulting personality’ – that if exhibited, would align
one's presence within the recruitment process to reflect the type of candidate
that the firms are looking for.
We will first briefly discuss the consulting industry and the day to day role of
consultants to highlight particular nuances of the job. Building upon this, there
will be a detailed introduction to the idea of a ‘consulting archetype’ and what
traits firms are most typically vetting for. There will then be an exploration of all
tools used within the recruitment process and how these can be best prepared
for (keeping in mind the consulting archetype) with a final proposition of possible
preparation plans that students in different stages of their university careers can
follow.
Who is this guide for?
This guide is suitable for anyone contemplating/actively seeking a role in a
management consulting firm. However, many issues and concerns have been
addressed from the perspective of undergraduate students, so this audience is
|2
likely to benefit the most from it. This is a relatively short read so even if you are
currently unsure on whether you want to proceed with a career in consulting,
you should hopefully have more clarity towards the end of this guide.
Who is the person behind this?
My name is Hashaam Javed and I recently successfully navigated the consulting
recruitment process. I was offered roles at two MBB consulting firms and am set
to join one of them in their Dubai Office in January 2021. I graduated from the
Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) in 2020 with a Bachelor’s in
Accounting and Finance and had the absolute pleasure to lead the LUMS
Consultancy Group as its fifth president. However, my journey with consulting
predates back to when I participated in my first case competition in high school,
placing third in the National Management Consulting Club finals in New Zealand. I
subsequently participated in the Harvard International Case Competition, held in
Boston, as part of the first Pakistani delegation at the event. A career in
consulting is something I have aspired to since and want to see more people
gaining access to!
An introduction to the consulting industry
Before we learn more about the consulting recruitment process, an introduction
to the consulting industry and the nature of a consultant’s job should provide
foresight into a better understanding of the recruitment process.
A. What is management consulting?
To consult is to offer advice, and this is quite a broad category. A doctor
meeting up and advising her patients can be a consultant; similarly, a freelancer
handing out business advice on Fiverr can also be a consultant. Naturally, you
have consulting firms for nearly everything. However, within such a broad
domain, there are distinct industrial and functional cadres. There are consulting
firms that are focused on specific industries, and there are consulting firms that
cater to a specific hierarchy of the organizational chart. Management consulting
firms are those that do not necessarily have deep-rooted expertise in any
particular industry. Instead, they are positioned as generalists that offer strategic
advice to the management of top private and public sector organizations.
Thus, top management consulting firms help CEOs and other top executives
make business decisions.
|3
This includes the following strategy consulting firms:
MBB:
Mckinsey & Company;
Bain & Company;
Boston Consulting Group;
Also includes:
Kearney;
Strategy&;
Oliver Wyman;
L.E.K. Consulting;
Roland Berger;
Deloitte.
The information contained within this guide is most suitable for the recruitment
processes of the aforementioned firms. Further resources on this:
1. Article on top consulting firms
2. Article on top 25 consulting firms
B. What does a management consultant do?
The role of a consultant at these firms is to work as part of engagement/case
teams that come together to work on the problem defined by their client. Let’s
paint a scenario for better understanding. Let’s suppose that the governor of a
particular state is confused as to how they can fix their lagging healthcare
system. They might lack the expertise to dissect the problems hindering the
development of their healthcare system. The state might bring in a team of
McKinsey consultants to study the healthcare system to:
Figure out the problems with it;
Compare it to other healthcare systems for benchmarking;
Figure out how the problems can be resolved, and present recommendations
around this.
It might be difficult to comprehend the sheer scale of this kind of work, but
consultants work on the most pressing problems facing an organization. A good
way to rationalize this is to understand that a company will only really be willing
to pay a hefty price tag and hire an external party rather than rely on its own
employees is when the anticipated outcome of the project is of significance to
that organization. As a consultant, you are likely to work in teams of 4-5 people
to address a specific part of the problem.
|4
Another example might help explain this further. Let’s say a huge private equity
fund has decided to invest in an upcoming company in the e-commerce sector.
They have hired lawyers to handle the legal aspect and investment bankers to
handle the financial aspect. However, this particular fund is not sure whether the
acquisition would be a good fit for them in the long-term and help them generate
positive economic returns.
In this scenario, the fund might decide to hire a team of 3 Bain consultants who
would spend 3-4 weeks to:
Study the e-commerce landscape to see how competitive it is;
Understand what is driving demand in the industry;
See how the target company compares to it;
Sanity check the company’s financials to see if positive returns are a
possibility or not.
Again, this might be a bit vague but this example paints a picture of the kind of
projects you can be required to work on in consulting. Although the industry,
functions, and topics that consultants work on vary tremendously (depending on
the firm and location in-consideration), the basic idea is the same: Consultants
bring in an innate ability to analyze problems through an external lens to help
business leaders make crucial decisions.
You might be wondering what type of work this results in on a day to day basis.
Although we will discuss this in further detail later, the following examples should
help you understand the type of work you might be doing:
Building a market estimation model to quantify the potential annual sales for a
fertilizer company that is launching an eco-friendly fertilizer.
Conducting interviews with public school teachers to gather information that
will help you dissect the problems with the national educational system. In
this case, the client would be the Federal Government.
Building a financial valuation model in order to evaluate the viability for a
family-owned conglomerate business wanting to launch a new clothing brand.
Making calls to experts in the furniture industry to understand manufacturing
best practices that might help your client generate efficient manufacturing
models.
Interviewing the HR director of your client organization to better understand
the organizational structure to find reasons for the underutilization of staff
within the company.
Maintaining liaison with the financial controller of your client organization to
|5
get access to crucial financial information.
Hopefully, these examples painted a picture of the working environment in the
consulting landscape. Straight away, we can build a picture of the traits that
might be necessary to succeed in such an environment. A heads up: we will
discuss these ‘traits’ and the ‘consulting archetype’ in detail later, especially
since most people fail to reflect on the traits that will set them up for success in
this particular profession.
For now, the following are some of the attributes to keep in mind to be
successful in consulting:
Having an analytical and structured approach to solving problems;
Possessing the ability to think outside the box;
Having an intuition for numbers and data;
Quickly adapting to new settings;
Learning quickly;
Being able to work in teams;
Being able to influence others;
Communicating in a compelling and structured manner;
Further resources on this:
1. A Day in the life of a Mckinsey Consultant
2. Management Consulting –What is it?
3. What the heck does a consultant do
4. What does the career path of a management consultant look like?
(On that note, Rocket blocks is an absolute favorite resource of mine. It is run by
a guy called Kenton Kivestu, and he uploads great content on both the website
and the YouTube channel).
Interesting, so how do I get there?
Well, I’m glad you’ve asked. There are several ways to answer this question, but
one thing to keep in mind is that there is no one approach that will fit everyone.
Each successful candidate will pave their own pathway to success, but this does
not mean that we can’t learn from the experiences of other successful
candidates. With that out of the way, let’s figure this out. For better predictability
of what’s to come, we will cover the following topics:
|6
Understanding why there is a need for consultants and how it reflects the
traits desirable in consultants;.
Exploring the different traits required for succeeding as a consultant and how
one can start acquiring and applying these;
Navigating the rationale behind different consulting recruitment tools and the
best practices for them, covering:
o The CV;
o Cover Letter;
o The Interview;
A cursory timeline of the preparation process for students at different stages.
Why are management consultants even
needed?
Consultants work on the most pressing, complex and urgent problems facing an
organization, but why does the need to outsource this type of work arise in the
first place? That is precisely what we will try to uncover. In understanding so, I
hope that you can attain a greater appreciation for the role of a consultant and
thus, internalize it while you are preparing for the recruitment process. The first
way in which I will try elucidating the consulting role is by creating an analogy. We
can think of consultants as doctors for businesses, and there really are only two
instances when a doctor is needed:
1. Something is wrong and you want it to be diagnosed and remedied;
2. Everything is fine but you just want your health to get even better.
A. Something is wrong, doctor
Let’s talk about the first instance. In this case, you felt some pain in your throat
and decided to visit a doctor. They conduct physical examination, run some tests
and then diagnose that you have tonsillitis. The doctor might have had a gut
feeling (aka hypothesis) as to what the issue might be, however, they still go
through certain procedures to factually conclude that you have tonsillitis. Note
that they would have kept the medical examinations focused on your throat, not
your leg or hand. Once the diagnosis is made, the doctor prescribed you some
medicine in order to fix your current ailments. This analogy can be drawn upon to
understand the work of a management consultant. Let’s say the CEO of a large
automobile company is worried that their profits are going down, and they can’t
seem to fix it. Who is the doctor in this case? Who is the professional who will
figure out the root-cause and provide a remedy? Behold, enters the consulting
firm.
|7
The CEO talks to some of his friends, and much like getting a referral for a
doctor, he gets referred to a great consulting firm that has a good track record of
solving such issues. The CEO goes to the consulting firm, lays down his issues,
and they get to work. The consulting team working on the project may have
some hypothesis of their own to brainstorm why the profits might be down. So
they will use that to maintain some sort of focus and subsequently, conduct
research and test different ideas to ultimately figure out what the problem is.
Let’s say they start off by analyzing financial data and ultimately figure out that
costs have been rising while revenues have been stable. Straight away, one half
of the problem has been isolated.
They’ll continue to work and let’s say, eventually they figure out that costs have
been going up due to various issues stemming from the company’s supply chain
relationships where lower bulk discounts have now resulted in higher costs of
doing business. Great, the problem has been diagnosed! The consultants will
then work on this and provide a remedy to the situation, aka recommend a
strategy to bring the costs back to their normal level and return profits back to
the trajectory that the client wants. The consultants have done their job and the
CEO is happy. Just like a patient takes their medicine, the CEO too returns the
company back to its health, until, of course, he/she has an ache in their throat
again.
B. I want to get healthier
The second instance can be uncovered by comparing the consultant role with
that of a nutritionist or a fitness coach. Let’s say, you are perfectly fine, healthy,
comfortable and life is going well. One day you’re scrolling through Instagram
and you come across a post by a fitness magazine and you tell yourself, wow I
want to be that fit. Again, nothing is wrong, but you do want to improve your
current physique and eating habits because, well, that will just make you more
satisfied. As a consequence, you may try some things. You might start off by
conducting some research online, start a workout regimen and change up your
eating habits. You might even start tracking your calories and your
macronutrients, but alas, you realize this is all too tough and hiring a personal
trainer might easily avail you the much-needed assistance and guidance. So, one
day you hire one. The personal trainer starts working with you. They ask you
questions about your current diet, lifestyle and exercise habits. They give you a
questionnaire and measure your height and your weight. Upon much reflection,
they come up with an exercise and diet program for you.
|8
You follow it and boom- you’ve hit your goals and you’re exactly where you
envisioned yourself to be. We can use this example to further illustrate certain
types of projects where management consultants might be called upon.
Let’s say there is a bank that is performing relatively well. The economy is
booming, the bank is making profits and the CEO, although meeting their
targets, is not entirely content. They want to take the company to the next
level and further expand. They are eyeing a merger with another regional bank
to expand their market share. Times are good. However, the Bank hasn’t done
a merger before, the CEO is excited but has no idea how to pull it off and
they’re particularly confused about the best way to combine the operations of
the two companies once the deal goes through. The CEO calls upon their
favorite consulting partner and tell them they want this merger to be executed
as best as possible. The consulting firm pulls together a team. The team
studies the operations of both companies in depth.
They study the two Bank’s customers, workforce, systems etc. They even
study their current retail locations along with a host of other data and
ultimately, they figure out the best way to integrate the two companies
together. They make a strategy around it; the CEO now has a blueprint of what
to do over the next few months and is better informed on how to deal with
tumultuous undertaking. Just like the personal trainer, the consultants figured
out the best way to make the most of the particular situation and thus set up
their client towards achieving their goal.
C. What does this tell us?
These are rudimentary examples and do not shed light on the complexity of
the work involved, but they do illuminate the type of relationship that exists
between consultants and their client organizations, where one is the
practitioner and the other is a patient. The practitioner is a seasoned
professional who has years of expertise and a knack for diagnosing and
solving problems to optimize the health of their patients, while the patient just
wants things to get better.
Through this, it is evident that solving problems for other people is at the
heart of management consulting and this warrants a variety of traits that we
shall discuss in the next section. For now, though, let’s further discuss the
need for the management consulting industry and what this may teach us
about the job.
|9
D. Why would a consulting firm be hired?
The previous section has taught us that consultants can be brought upon to
pretty much solve any pressing problem a company might be facing. They can
diagnose issues and remedy them. At the same time, they can be brought
upon at critical junctures such as a merger or launching a new product and
create a strategy to execute it perfectly. Thus, we know that there is a
countless list of situations that consultants might be called to work on.
However, what is it that warrants the persistence of this doctor-patient or
fitness trainer-exercise junkie relationship in the first place i.e. why can’t
organizations figure these things out themselves?
Let’s try to generalize the reasons behind this and see what that might teach
us about traits associated with consultants:
1. Companies lack the internal expertise to deal with particular issues. Their
current staff:
a. May be too busy with day to day operational work;
b. Lacks the intellectual capacity to deal with the scope & nature of
certain problems they may be facing.
2. Organizations sometimes need credible support to make certain decisions.
I. Companies lack internal expertise
What type of people work at Google? Mostly software engineers, I presume.
Maybe also a bunch of sales development and product development staff
along with some user experience designers. Of course, this is very restricted,
and I have no idea how gigantic Google’s workforce actually is, but the idea is
that most organizations typically have a very specialized type of workforce that
is occupied in operational work – they are running the organization itself. The
time of this workforce is obviously really valuable, and it may not make sense
to divert their attention towards solving problems that they may not even have
expertise in. A software engineering expert at Google may not be the most
efficient solution at figuring out the reason for falling ad revenues at the
company. But do you have any idea as to who might be a good solution for
this? I guess we know the answer by now.
So, what we learn from this discussion is that companies frequently have staff
that specializes in operational work and not strategic thinking. Consultants can
then be thought of as an external workforce that comes in to work temporarily,
| 10
because pressing problems are hopefully only temporary. One might think
about why companies don't just hire an internal team that will work on their
most pressing issues. There are various reasons behind this. Firstly, this type
of work is temporal in nature. A company does not go through a merger or
launch a new business line every day. These are momentous milestones and
thus it will not make sense to have a full-time team working on such matters.
Secondly, a staff capable of working on such problems is also going to be
expensive (explains why consultants are relatively highly compensated) and
thus it does not make economic and financial sense to have such a team
present internally at all times.
These are factors inherent within organizations that require them to look for
consultants. We can now turn our attention towards consulting firms
themselves because they do have a value to add to these situations, or so
we’d hope, right? Consulting firms bring with them years of experience and
expertise, where they have worked on a variety of problems all over the world.
Think of a fertilizer company in Pakistan that wants to launch a new ecofriendly fertilizer but is not sure about the best way to brand it and convince
farmers to switch to it. Now let’s say a consulting firm has partners that are
literally experts in the fertilizer industry, and they’ve worked on hundreds of
fertilizer projects before and actually helped launch a similar product in India a
couple of years ago.
Thus, we can think of consulting firms as bringing in years of expertise on
particular matters and thus they can elaborate on their knowledge of previous
situations to better aid their clients. At the same time, consulting firms hire and
staff supposedly smart and bright individuals who have the ability to solve
complex problems and consistently churn out high rates of work. So, the
consulting firms do have a value to add.
On one end, we have a client organization that lacks the staff and expertise to
deal with certain situations and on the other hand we have a consulting firm
that brings in that expertise and the “temporal” workforce that can work on
such issues. Thus, we can think of consulting firms as being in the business of
renting out the brains and time of intellectually driven individuals who can grind
out hours of consistently high-quality work. This is a win-win situation for both
parties. The client organization, although paying a hefty amount for the
services of this firm and its individuals, gets a solution to its most crucial
| 11
problem at the time, while not having to hire this workforce for the whole year.
They can bring on this team on an ad-hoc basis. They get the expertise that
they don’t have, and I would argue, actually save money. Consulting firms on
the other hand, get to staff the people they have hired, keep them engaged
and build on their existing expertise and of course make money in the process.
II. Organizations sometimes need external credibility to
make certain decisions
This is a more salient issue, but one that we should discuss anyway, especially
since it further elaborates the nuances of a consulting job. Previously, we
discussed that consultants fill a certain expertise and skills gap within
organizations on an ad-hoc basis. This subsection explores how consulting
firms do not only fulfil an expertise gap, but also build up on the credibility of
decision-making processes, aka the impact of putting a McKinsey, Bain or BCG
stamp on an organizational decision.
Let’s create an example to explain this. Imagine there is a huge bicycle
manufacturing organization and the CEO of this company is convinced that
outsourcing certain parts of their production to China is a great decision. His
business development and supply chain team has done work on this and their
data suggests that this decision will help them enhance profits by 5%. Thus, of
course, on paper this is a great idea. However, the board of directors that has
oversight over decisions of this magnitude is not convinced.
What does the CEO do? Do they just drop this lucrative proposition? Of course
not! The CEO negotiates with the board and they decide that they will hire a
team of BCG consultants and if the consultants recommend this course of
action then they will go ahead with it. The board approves and so the
consultants come in and get to work. The BCG team does a whole study and
collects data, makes a prudent financial model and even checks for the worstcase scenario. They test all the assumptions and assertions made by the
company and ultimately decide that yes, outsourcing some parts of production
to China is indeed a lucrative decision. Now that there is a BCG stamp and
backing on this decision, the board is finally convinced. The company goes
ahead, the CEO improves the profits, everyone is chirpy and happy.
What this example demonstrates is that consulting firms bring an aura of
credibility and this credibility is laden under the trust that consultants are
objective. They are not biased; they only work with empirical and factual data.
| 12
It is often said that the easiest way for a consultant to get fired is to present a
hypothesis as a fact and that rings entirely true. What this then shows us is
that consultants are objective, and this objectivity lends them credibility.
Further resources on this:
Harvard Business Review Article
E. What have we learnt so far?
So far, we have discussed the type of relationship consultants and their clients
have and the situations within which consulting firms can be called upon,
Before we proceed to create the consulting archetype, we can summarize the
key things we’ve discussed in this section because, of course, it’s a good
practice to step back and reflect on what we’ve learned so far.
1. Consultants bring an innate ability to solve complex problems;
2. Consultants have to be objective;
3. Consultants work on behalf of their firm and they work within other
organizations;
4. Consultants have to deal with a lot of variety in the kind of problems and
people they interact with.
In the next section now, we will build on these traits.
| 13
Section 2
The Consulting
Archetype
Let’s create a character and let’s call her Miss Consultant. Miss Consultant is a
super star at her job and she particularly impressed the firm partners during the
recruitment process. No one at the firm can quite put their finger on what
makes Miss Consultant so sought after. What makes her the right fit for the
firm? Let's find out.
| 14
A little birdie tells us the following about Miss Consultant:
She works really hard. Her work ethic is immaculate, and she is good at just
putting her head down and meeting deadlines.
She is resilient. Even if she gets something wrong or things don’t go her
way. She figures it out.
She is very ambitious and always wants to constantly improve.
She has a lot of creative ideas and has the tenacity to test them out.
She has strong learning capabilities and can learn new topics very quickly;
almost becoming an expert in something overnight.
She works well in teams. She empathizes with her teammates, is there to
cover for them and knows that multiple people working together can
deliver the toughest tasks.
She is a great communicator. Her words are easy to follow, and they
almost always warrant action.
She is confident, composed and professional in her interactions. Even if
she’s talking to someone twice her age, she brings herself to the required
conversational level.
She can influence other people without being pushy. She can simply nudge
people in the right direction and get the desired outcome.
She is intellectually curious and has an innate ability and desire to uncover
the root causes behind problems.
She is very structured in the way she thinks and breaks down problems.
She is conceptual and that is the way she thinks and communicates.
She works well with numbers and data. She knows that her job is based on
empirical information and facts and that she only makes an assertion if she
has something to back it up.
Now that is quite a list of traits that Miss. Consultant possesses. The idea then
is for you to introspect, reflect and manifest these traits in your day to day life.
If you can convey these traits during the recruitment process and convince the
consulting partners that you possess them, there is no reason for you to not
get the job, period.
We need to break away from this mold of cracking cases and thinking of the
consulting recruitment as an exam that you can prepare for. Consulting is a
very specific personality type that almost requires you to be a master of all
trades. I want to emphasize the cultivation of these personality traits rather
than simply focusing on checking off experiences to add on one’s CV and
doing mock case interviews endlessly and aimlessly. Your first step now
| 15
should be to understand where you fall on these traits and how you can start
applying them in your day to day life.
However, there is a slight problem: this list seems rather tardy and I would
argue, not consulting worthy. Consultants are conceptual thinkers and we need
to make this list a bit conceptual (it’s easier to think from concepts). So, let’s
make some dimensions of traits you need to possess and let’s add some
layers to it and then discuss them so you can gain an appreciation for what
they are and how you can perhaps acquire them. Behold, we have our 3Ps
framework
1. What is your personality like?
2. How do you solve problems?
3. How do you deal with people?
These 3 categories, once elaborated upon, should uncover the main points I
am trying to discuss. But one thing we can notice is that these are combination
of both IQ and EQ elements. Consultants deal with problems almost and
interact with people on a regular basis and this informs the basis of the type of
personality they typically carry.
Further resources on this:
1. Consulting Culture - Video
A dedicated personality
The following is a discussion of some key personality traits carried by
management consultants.
A. Results driven
The consulting role warrants people who are very results driven by nature.
Being results driven means being constantly obsessed with the outcome of
what you are working on. By default, the projects that consulting firms
undertake are very significant and for these projects, the results matter a lot.
The people working on delivering those results are consultants. So, you can
bet then that a consultant has to care a lot about achievement and attainment.
They have to be razor focused on achieving the goals that they set out to for
their clients. Within the recruitment process, this is something you must
display. This also means that the process does not matter. How you get to a
result does not matter.
| 16
Being results oriented is also integral because it demonstrates interest in
optimising processes. An individual with the best results would most likely be
someone who has mastered the procedural steps in whatever they have set
their heart to. This implies the following traits by virtue of having solid
demonstrable results: that you are passionate about your undertaken work, you
have an eye for details, and you have the communicative synergy to drive the
best results. It is perhaps for this reason that consultants are said to be results
driven; this trait embodies the magnitude of responsibility and the keenness in
obtaining targets. I said before and I will say it again: how you get to a result
does not matter- your result will speak for itself.
Further resources on this:
1. What does Bain and company’s results-oriented approach mean? – Quora
Section
B. Grit
Aside from being focused on achieving results, consultants should have grit.
To have grit is to have the ability to persevere. Many a times in the process of
attaining top tier results, you may forget about how hard it is to get there.
Consultants simply get work done, without delving anxiously into what it might
take to get there. The nature of consulting projects is that since you are
working for a client who is paying high dollars, there can be expectations and
deadlines that are ruthless in nature. These expectations and deadlines have
to be met, period. There is no way around it. There is a saying within the
industry that the work a client staff is supposed to do in a month, a consultant
is supposed to do in a week. When companies spend millions of dollars to
bring in outside advisers, they expect the pace and quality of work to be at the
highest standards. If these standards are not met, then:
1. It is pretty easy for the firm to be fired/replaced;
2. It ruins the reputation of the firm.
Much like how a doctor builds their practice around their credentials and their
reputation, so do consulting firms. Reputation matters a lot and many a times;
this reputation is held up by the grit of those doing the work – hopefully you in
the future.
C. Ability to deal and adapt to variety
No one project within consulting is the same. A project may vary in its length,
anywhere from a couple of weeks to a good part of a year.
| 17
A project may vary in its location, one project you’re staffed in your home
country, for the other one you might fly away to a new country. A project may
also vary in terms of the industry you work in, upon completing a study in the
cement industry you might find yourself advising a bottling plant. A project can
vary in the function that you are working on, from optimizing a client’s profits
you might now be focusing on improving the supply chain. Last but not the
least, you may also find variety in the people you work for. And not just in the
clients but the people on your team. Every project you might see new faces,
new consultants from your firm that you may not have interacted before. Since
so many factors can change on average every 3 or so months, you can bet
that the only thing constant within consulting is its variety. I will repeat myself
and say again that no two projects are the same.
While we’ve mentioned that there is variety between each project, we should
also note that no two days within a project are the same either. Consultants,
although guided by managers and partner level consultants, have to direct
much of their work. And no one day might be the same. One day you might be
analyzing financial data only to realize that you do not have enough information
and thus may be interviewing the financial controller of your client organization
the next day to get more data. One day you might be building a market sizing
model in excel only to realize that a market sizing model does not make sense
and you are much better collecting survey data from potential customers. One
day you might be making power point slides and might complete an entire
deck only to realize that a major portion of the study was to understand
competitors and you’re better off doing some field research the following
week. While consultants plan a lot and they do well at this, there can be
unpredictability in the work, and this warrants the type of person who is quickly
able to shift gears without losing their focus.
What this then means is that consultants also have to deal with a lot of
uncertainty. You will be solving problems that you have not seen before in
areas you haven’t worked before. But you will be expected to bring yourself up
to expertise in a very short timeframe. As a prospective candidate then you
need to ask yourself, is this level of variety something that you may be
comfortable with? Can you switch gears from adapting to working in the
Capital of Saudi Arabia, advising the national government on their educational
policy to going out to the Dubai and working with a real estate giant and
helping them figure out their sales strategy. Diversity in work is nice yes, but
not everyone would be open to such a soaring level of incongruity. But if you
| 18
are, then great, the next step then becomes to look for such experiences in
your daily life to set yourself up for success within the consulting industry.
Solving tough problems
While we now have a greater appreciation of the consulting personality, we
need to discuss in detail what it is constantly applied to – solving complex
problems.
A. Intellectually curious
Consultants are hired as generalists and generalists, although they might have
pertinent interests, are not experts in a particular field. The only thing
consultants are really experts in is solving problems (of all kinds). This type of
work then naturally warrants someone who is intellectually curious. Someone
who wants to know how things work and why they are the way they are. For
someone who has to work on such a variety of topics and tasks, they should
be able to maintain a high level of interest in a variety of topics or whatever is
presented to them for a particular project. I would argue that only people who
are intellectually curious i.e. those who tend to seek out an understanding of
how systems work, can thrive in such an environment.
B. Ability to learn fast & work with unfamiliar
problems
Building on from our previous discussion, the varied nature of a consultant’s job
lends them into situations that they have 0% familiarity with, and this is where
intellectual curiosity is typically applied. Let’s say Bain hires an English literature
major straight out of university and staffs them on a case where they have to
help a cement plant reduce their costs. This person has no experience with
business let alone understanding how a cement plant works. How do we
expect them to work on such a project and deliver recommendations that will
leave a long-lasting impact on the client? The idea is simple. Consultants are
not subject matter experts but rather bring an innate ability to learn quickly and
organize unfamiliar problems.
Elon Musk is a great proponent of this concept of first principles thinking,
originally coined by Aristotle. The basics behind first principle thinking is to boil
things down to their “most fundamental truth” in order to solve problems. Musk,
in his example of Lithium batteries, says that the surface level truth is that
Lithium batteries are really expensive. On the surface, people would believe
| 19
the hypothesis that lithium batteries will always remain expensive because
that’s just the way it is.. However, first principle thinking would break the
battery down into its most fundamental components and then think from the
ground up about how the cost of making that battery can be reduced, rather
than viewing the world from a normative point of view. A quote from Albert
Einstein – “we cannot solve problems using the same kind of thinking we used
when we created them”, further sheds light on this concept.
Consultants are naturally adept at this ability to think from first principles, and
this, in combination with their intellectual curiosity and grit to deliver results,
allows them to be quickly familiarized with and solve complex problems that
they have not seen before. And they can repeat this exercise over and over
again because consultants bring an expertise in thinking as a process, not the
particular subject. This is why you can expect that an English Literature major,
after working on her first project at Bain for a couple of months of working, will
be in a position to speak to senior level executives of the plant and discuss
why their costs are high and how they can be reduced. This adaptability is
pretty powerful and also goes to show why consultants are sought after.
Further resources on this:
1. Musk himself talking about first principles;
2. Importance of first principles in case interview.
C. Ability to analyze and structure
These terms may sound vague and are thrown around a lot in consulting
recruitment. You’ll often hear things like, “your answer isn’t structured enough”
or "your solution is good, but your framework wasn’t structured". What does this
even mean? In a way, this builds on to our previous discussion of first principles
because one can only depict such sort of thinking if they can analyze problems
in a structured manner. To analyze is to break something down into its
component parts, and to have structure is to have an organized arrangement of
different elements. Essentially, this is similar to an architectural map laid out to
solve a problem. Analysis is used to then both create a structure and to use it to
solve a problem. Structure can be thought of as the guiding force or a territorial
map that allows a consulting team to solve problems, and consultants must
remained structured in their approach or else:
1. They might solve the wrong problem, or;
2. They might take too long to solve a problem.
| 20
I understand these still sound like buzz words and it may be difficult to grasp
what they really mean but we will discuss these in more detail later when we
talk about the case interview.
But for now, we can discuss some instances where structure might be applied
in consulting kind of work.
1. Making a workplan/framework for the entire project. Dividing the team into
different work streams and further breaking down each work stream into
individual areas is something that requires structure. This type of structured
thinking helps teams plan and remain organized with regards to the
problem they are solving.
2. When analyzing data, structure helps one remain efficient and focused in
their tasks. For example, coming up with categories to ensure that
questions for a survey are targeted and do not overlap. Or developing
inputs for an excel based market sizing model to ensure that no mistakes
are made up front.
3. When communicating, structure helps one sound more organized and
makes it easier for the listening party to follow what is being said. However,
we will discuss this in more detail in the people section.
Hopefully this elucidates a bit better as to what I am hinting at. However, there
are two concepts that we can further dive into, that will help us come to grips
with this idea of being structured. This discussion might become a bit too
technical for now and deviate us from developing the ‘consulting archetype’.
However, I maintain that these principles are so latently ingrained within the
day-to-day thinking and problem-solving approach of consultants, that it is
really important to explain them now. By gaining a deeper appreciation of
these tools, the idea is for you to start applying them in your day to day life.
You shouldn’t merely think about the consulting way of thinking as something
that is applied in isolation during the case interview, but rather think of it as a
whole art form in itself, that if ingrained within you, can be comfortably applied
within the case interview environment.
I. Top-down thinking
First principles thinking is akin to thinking in a top-down fashion. To understand
what top-down thinking is, we need to first understand what it is not. Saul is a
friend of mine, nd quite unfortunately, does not think in a top-down fashion.
Let’s say, I ask Saul to come up with a list of Menu Items at his favorite local
fast-food restaurant.
| 21
Saul then starts thinking out loud and gives me the following list:
1. Beef Burger;
2. Onion Rings;
3. Ice Cream Sundae;
4. Coffee;
5. Chicken Burger;
6. Double Patty Beef Burger;
7. Diet Coke;
8. Fries.
And then he says, “yeah that pretty much covers it”. There are a few things
wrong with this type of thinking that may not settle well within the consulting
environment.
1. It is disorganized: Just because different items have been bulleted in a list
does not make it organized. This list seems to be all over the place and the
type of thinking behind is the kind where Saul has just remembered items
as they came to the top of his mind.
2. This list relies heavily on Saul’s own experiences: The menu items listed are
definitely not complete and a lot might be missing however they are still
fairly comprehensive. The only reason Saul was able to come up with a
lengthy enough list was because he had an experience buying such items
from his favorite fast food restaurant. What if Saul did not eat fast food?
What kind of list would he come up with then? Consultants i.e. top-down
and first principle thinkers have the ability to create comprehensive list of
such ideas even when they do not have much experience dealing with that
particular subject.
3. This list is also incomplete: Although these are majority of the items on the
menu, Saul has not covered the entirety of the menu. One might say that
this would be too exhaustive, and I agree. However, Saul could have
mentioned overarching categories that would imply that they hold multiple
items within themselves. For example, by mentioning that the restaurant
has a “variety of different chicken burgers”, Saul would have implicitly
mentioned all types of chicken burgers available. In doing so, if someone
then wanted to know more about the offerings within this category, they
could have done a little digging on the menu and found the different types
of chicken burgers that exist.
Now, let’s ask the same question to a consulting friend of ours, Sally. She
thinks in a top-down way and when she was asked the same question, her
| 22
response was: "Well, my favorite restaurant offers 4 different types of Menu
items:
1. Main Burgers;
2. Sides;
3. Desserts;
4. Beverages."
Sally’s answer isn’t as lengthy as Saul’s, yet, in a way it covers every single
item on the Menu. Rather than thinking bottom up and randomly listing all the
ideas that come to her mind, Sally has given overarching categories that
combine together to include everything on the menu. The best part is how each
category can be viewed in isolation and expanded upon. So, let’s say you then
ask Sally to tell you about what is included in each category. She says: "
1. Burgers can be further classified into three categories based on meat type:
beef, chicken, fish;
2. Sides include onion rings, fries and nuggets;
3. Desserts include ice creams and brownies;
4. Beverages include both warm beverages and cold beverages. Warm
beverages include an assortment of coffees and cold beverages include an
assortment of soft drinks. "
Bam and just like that, with 4 exclusive categories, Sally covered the whole
menu. This method of thinking is pretty powerful, and we will elaborate this in
the next section. But what this shows us is that by thinking in a top-down
fashion, one essentially creates categorical constraints and these in turn allow
you to generate a complete list of ideas. Sally’s approach to thinking could be
applied even if she didn’t have much experience buying from a fast-food
restaurant. She could intuitively think about overarching categories and then
classify different menu items within each category by creating further mini
structured categories. We can almost view Sally’s way of thinking as thinking in
a hierarchy tree, illustrated on the following page.
This is just a rudimentary example but if we imagine this type of thinking being
applied to even more complex problems (such as figuring out why the costs of
a shoe manufacturer are going up), we can come to appreciate why a
consultant who has no experience in the industry can come up with an
exhaustive list of hypothesis to find and test a solution to the problem.
Consultants think and communicate in the way of such hierarchal trees.
| 23
This is something you will become accustomed to in your case interview prep
process and be tested on consistently throughout the recruitment process.
Restaurant Menu
Burgers
Sides
Beverages
Desserts
Beef
Fries
Cold
Brownies
Chicken
Onion Rings
Hot
Icecreams
Fish
Nuggets
Further resources on this:
1. Crafting cases guide to issue trees (my absolute favorite resource –
you’ll see me link to a lot of their resources) ;
2. Crafting cases video on how to build issue trees;
3. IGotAnOffer article on issue trees;
4. Management Consulted article on issue trees;
5. Hacking the Case Interview article on issue trees;
6. MConsultingPrep guide to issue trees
II. MECE Principle
Mutually Exclusive and Collectively Exhausted aka MECE (pronounced “MeeSee”) is closely associated with the idea of thinking in a top-down manner. This
is the consulting language essentially. Similar to how a software engineer can
deduct bugs in code or how a composer can detect dissonance when listening
to music, so too can consultants detect when something is MECE vs when it is
not MECE. To think of it, MECE is simply how consultants think and talk; it is a
truth of their life. The principle essentially has two components:
1. Mutually exclusive;
2. Collectively Exhaustive.
| 24
This principle is applied whenever there is an aggregation or conceptualization
of ideas, hypotheses, or recommendations. The list or the outcome generated
must be MECE, i.e. check both boxes. In our previous example, Sally’s first
layer of dissecting the Menu into the following four categories: Burgers, Sides;
Desserts, and Beverages was MECE because:
1. None of the 4 categories overlapped; burgers are not sides and sides are
not desserts and so on.
2. All 4 categories collectively encompassed the whole Menu. If we
dissected each category, we would be sure to cover all items on the menu.
This is particularly important because it ensures three key things:
1. Problems are solved in an efficient manner. If there is no overlap, then that
means there is no repetition. Let’s say, the reason we wanted to dissect
the menu was because we wanted to analyze the profitability of each
product item on the menu to create a ranked list of products in order of
profitability. This would help the restaurant in creating an optimal product
mix strategy. By dividing the menu into the 4 categories that Sally created,
a team of four consultants can be split into 4 different areas and there can
be surety that there will no overlap. This will lead to an efficient approach
to solving the problem of mapping the product profitability.
2. Better insights are generated. Furthermore, since related items have been
aggregated into related categories, we can generate summative insights
on each category. For example, we can then even look at the average
profitability of all chicken burgers or the average profitability of all
beverages. This can be really powerful in recommending the optimal
product mix strategy as it can show which categories to focus on. For
example, let’s say the team finds that burgers have an average profit
margin of 12% but fish burgers have a margin of only 6%. This might lead to
a lowering of emphasis on fish burgers or a further study on how they can
be brought to the same level as burgers of other meats.
3. There is surety that the problem will be solved. If collective exhaustivity is
attained, then there is guarantee that the whole picture/map is being
looked at. If Sally’s framework missed the category of beverages, then an
important part of mapping the product profitability would have been
missed. Let’s say beverages were the most profitable product but they
weren’t being sold to their full potential. That would be a huge chunk
missed.
Thus, we have witnessed the power of the MECE principle, and we shall talk
more about it later on.
| 25
Further resources on this:
1. Crafting Cases – Why you need MECE to get an offer;
2. Crafting Cases – 5 ways to be MECE (this is a 5 part article series and I
encourage you to read all of it);
3. Crafting Cases – 5 ways to be MECE videos (this is a 5 part video series on
the same articles, pick your form of learning);
4. Caseinterview.com article on MECE;
5. Firm Learning video on MECE communication;
6. Management Consulted article on MECE;
7. MConsultingPrep article and video on MECE.
III. Apply these tools
I must elaborate that the idea behind this lengthy previous discussion wasn’t to
merely explain these tools but to instead encourage you to begin applying
them in your day to day life. Don’t just wait for case prep. Think about how you
can be top-down and how you can be MECE and how you can apply first
principles thinking in your day to day life. Even if it is a group project, or a report
at your internship, or even a basic business discussion with your friend, use
them as opportunities to apply these tools. Remember, the best candidate is
the one who has internalized these tools and concepts to the extent that it just
comes naturally to them. They don’t have to think about it, that’s just how they
operate. Similar to how a competent software engineer does not have to
constantly look at coding handbooks or an expert music composer does not
have to think about the sound of each note. Similarly, a star consulting
prospect does not have to think about being top-down or MECE, they simply
start to operate that way.
D. Having a knack for numbers and strong
quantitative ability
Now that we have had an elaborate discussion on how consultants think and
approach problems, let’s talk a bit about numbers. Consultants work with
numbers and use data a lot. This is why you will be asked to make calculations
and interpret charts and tables during your case interviews and tests such as
the McKinsey PST. Remember how I initially mentioned that consultants work
with facts? One of the ways in which facts are developed is that they are
supported by empirical quantitative data.
This does not mean that consultants need to be geniuses at math. I didn’t do
| 26
too well in my University Calculus course but here I am. Formal mathematics is
distinctively different to numeracy. Consultants need to excel at the latter.
This means that although having had exposure to complex mathematics can
be seen as a strength and a positive attribute, it is absolutely not a must. You
just need to be good with numbers, that’s it. What does this really mean
though?
It means you must be able to make sense of numbers and be able to derive
insights from them. Consultants don’t just calculate and talk about numbers;
they use them to create a story. You as a prospective candidate should have
the ability to use numbers to create facts and thus create a story using them.
For example, let’s say that you are working with a pen manufacturing
company’s profitability data over the last couple of years. Following are some
pieces of information you have.
Revenues
Pens Sold
Average Price
Cost of Goods Sold
Administrative Costs
Profits
2019
2020
$ 100,000,000
50,000,000
$ 120,000,000
68,571,429
$2
$ 1.75
$ 40,000,000
$ 12,000,000
$ 48,000,000
$ 58,285,714
$ 15,000,000
$ 46,714,286
What insights can we derive from this data? At the surface level, my
observations are that:
Revenues have gone up $20 million;
More pens have been sold;
Average prices went down;
Costs of goods sold up went up over more than $18 million;
Administrative costs went up by $3 million;
Finally, profits decline nearly $1.3 million.
These are what you can call level 1 insights, but these are too obvious. A
consultant would uncover the numbers and dig deeper. We can begin this
process be quantifying trends using percentages to bring items to relative
terms:
| 27
Revenues went up 20% and quantities sold went up 37% despite a price
reduction of 12.5%;
Costs of Goods Sold went up by 46% and this was at a rate higher than the
revenue, meaning our margins have declined;
Administrative costs went up by 25%;
Profits declined by 2.7%.
This is a bit more elaborate but let’s take it a step further:
Since price reduction led to an increase in quantities sold, the product
seems to exhibit high price elasticity of demand. It would be interesting to
see if a further discounting of the price would lead to significant increase in
quantities sold. We also need to look at past data and industry data to
confirm how much of this growth may have occurred organically without the
price reduction to see if this was even a good strategy.
Despite rising revenues, cost of goods sold went up at a higher rate and
this means that gross profits went up by only 2.9%. Overall, the contribution
margin per product reduced from $1.2 per unit to $0.9. We clearly have
rising input costs by an additional 5 cents per unit and we need to see how
to put an end to this.
The increase in admin costs seems significantly high and should be
benchmarked to previous years and industry peers to see how much the
costs could have been potentially curbed.
Overall, we see that if variable costs had stayed constant, then our profits
would in fact have been 8.6% higher.
Thus, the main problems at hand are 1) higher variable costs per unit 2)
higher overall administrative spending.
This is just a preliminary sort of basic example that is just here to help us
illustrate what can be done with numbers. As a consultant, you will be doing
this exercise on a constant basis, even during meetings in front of clients.
Which is why it is not rare to have to do calculations on a pen and paper during
a case interview.
Further resources on this:
1. My Consulting Coach article on consulting math;
2. MConsultingPrep article and video on consulting math;
3. IGotAnOffer article on case interview math;
4. Prep Lounge Consulting Bootcamp Math Question.
| 28
E. Ability to generate and test creative ideas
Creativity is important in consulting. Consultants are often brought on-board
because they offer a differing outside-in perspective on client problems. This
outside-in perspective is only of value if those offering it have creativity present
in their ideas. To create is to do something new. This does not only require
ingenuity but also the tenacity to try out and test new ideas. A creative idea
can only go so far if the person having it also has the confidence to apply it and
test it. What I do want to clarify though is that being creative does not mean
you need to be a very specific kind of person, like an art major who has major
appreciation for paintings and poetry. That isn’t the kind of creativity we are
pointing at. To put it simply, creativity is just about coming up with original
ideas from the ground up and being able to test them out. If you think from first
principles and are structured, you will be creative. But if you only repeat what
you have learned, you will not be creative, simple.
Further resources on this:
1. Crafting Cases tips to be more creative in case interviews;
2. Creativity and holistic thinking in management consulting;
Dealing with people
This is the third and I would argue, the most overlooked element of the
consulting archetype. Consulting is a people’s business because consultants
working at a particular firm do not work in that firm. Rather, they work on behalf
of that firm. This process lends them to dealing with a lot of people, in the form
of clients, other subject matter experts, and most importantly, the consultant’s
own team. Dealing with people has various dimensions so let’s dissect them.
A. The ability to work in a team
Do you remember group projects in university? Now imagine that in a more
formalized and a structured and organized setting. That is pretty much the
consulting working environment. You will be working with a team of 3-5 people
who are equally as driven, engaged and motivated as you are, and they want
to deliver the project to the highest standard possible. Your relationship with
these people matters a lot, and within the recruitment process you should
provide evidence of having experienced such an environment before. This
does not mean that you should refrain from being the type of person who can’t
work independently.
| 29
Teamwork is not about that, rather, it is about being able to effectively align
your objectives with that of the team. It is to understand and contribute to what
your role is in the overall attainment of the team.
Within this, you also need to deliver evidence that you are mature enough to
manage expectations with your team members. For example, if you are the
type of person who likes to spend some time alone reflecting on your work
before presenting it and discussing it with your team members, can you bring
this point up in a constructive an mature manner? Furthermore, what you need
to ask yourself is whether you have developed the empathy required to be
able to work with people. Within the professional team environment,
competency alone does not dictate the outcome of work. People have a lot
going on in their lives and situations can change rapidly. You need to have
empathy to be able to put yourself in the shoes of your team members and
understand their point of view. Someone who judges too quickly, or is
stubborn, or cannot take a step back and think about why someone might be
acting the way they are, may not be at the maturity level required to operate
optimally within the team environment.
Empathy I would argue, is the cornerstone of working well in a team setting.
There could be instances for example where a colleague of yours is acting
unreliable and is not being responsive. Do you just assume they are slacking
off and should not be relied upon or do you try to place yourself in their
position and empathize to try and find out what might be leading to them acting
that way? Let’s say you approach them and find out that they are going through
a turbulent time in their family. Empathy is powerful. Now, rather than assuming
the motivation levels of your colleague, you are instead contributing more to
their work to help them deal with their current situation. Empathy is important,
and I cannot emphasize this enough.
Another key factor to be highlighted within teamwork is the idea of
meritocracy. Consulting is a meritocratic environment, but what does it have to
do with the idea of working in teams? What it means is that other people’s
performance is not going to restrict your growth or your prospects for upward
mobility within the firm. Of course, there will be relative comparisons made but
generally your growth is compared to an absolute benchmark and if you meet
that then you can progress to the next level. This is applied in the recruitment
process as well because you are not fighting against other candidates but
rather against a standard. Thus, simply put it, be helpful, be there for your
teammates and have their backs. Very often, I have seen people acting
| 30
insecure in the case interview prep process and refraining from sharing tips
with other candidates and helping them out simply out of fear that by enabling
someone else they might be hurting their chances. This type of “snaky”
behavior (as is classified at my university) does not belong in the consulting
environment. Consultants, due to the nature of their job, have to be
collaborative beings. Since this is true, then why not make the case interview
preparation process as collaborative as possible? By helping other people,
you are only solidifying your own concepts, but are actually reflecting core
consulting values, so do not refrain from it!
The last thing important within teamwork is the idea of trusting your
teammates. Within consulting, very rarely will you encounter the tendency of
micromanagement. If someone has given you a task, they will simply trust you
to get it done by the stipulated deadline and will only check on you when its
due. Of course, they will make themselves available for any help that you may
require and will trust that you will use if you really need it. Trust, in addition to
empathy is also very important because if you cannot confidently rely on your
teammates, then you will be too anxious about your work and this will show.
Corollary to this then is to be a trustful and reliable teammate yourself. Those
working with you should be able to trust you that you will get your work done,
no questions asked.
Further resources on this:
1. Why teamwork skills still matter for consultants.
B. The ability to influence others
Consultants are outside advisers coming into a company that is not their home
turf. Naturally, there is likely to be friction between the expert insiders and the
newbie outsiders. You should have the ability to gain their trust and also nudge
them in the direction you want them to without sounding too pushy. Imagine a
young 23-year-old consultant working at McKinsey who has to go to the senior
finance director of the retail store chain that they are working with and discuss
potential options to improve profitability.
These are tricky waters to navigate in because firstly the finance director has
been around in the company for 20 years and is twice your age and carries a
deep set of expertise and experiences. You, on the other hand, are only
working in this industry for the first time. How do you deal with this?
| 31
Firstly, you have to acknowledge the other person’s expertise and credibility,
but you also have to do it in a way without losing your own credibility. You need
to come off as a humble yet an intellectually engaged person who is at the
same conversational level as the senior director. In addition to this, you have
some ideas that are disruptive, but the finance director is not necessarily open
to new ideas. You need to figure out the best way to nudge them into
considering and providing input on your ideas without sounding too pushy or
persuasive and without making them feel apprehensive.
Sailing successfully out of this situation is not an impossibility but it has to be
carefully crafted by communicating effectively. As a consultant, a lot of your
time will be spent maintaining liaison with various staff members from the client
and you must carry yourself at their level, while staying humble and respecting
their authority but at the same time being able to nudge your ideas without
seeming too pushy or adamant. The best way to prepare for this is to put
yourself in similar experiences where you have to communicate and work with
a lot of senior people. These experiences become a part of you, and it shows
in your communication during the interview process.
C. Professionalism
The idea of professionalism is tied closely to our discussion in the previous two
sections. However, we have to knock loudly the importance of professionalism
in getting hired at a top tier consulting firm because without it you may as well
forget about it. In a nutshell, professionalism is about how you carry and
maintain yourself in your interactions with other people. Can you be relied upon
to be a good representative of the firm? This is a pretty big ask for a fresh
graduate from a university. Most students coming out of 16 years of education
are not directly molded into the concept of carrying themselves professionally,
it takes some years. But consultants are expected to have this internalized
from the very first day.
We can further expand the importance of this by comparing consulting roles to
traditional management trainee roles in FMCG organizations. Within the latter,
staff are typically hired as management trainees and put through rigorous
trainings and rotation processes for 1-2 years. I would argue that this staff is
highly protected and are allowed to make mistakes (not major ones, of course)
but they are given leeway to interact internally within the firm and figure things
out and learn along the way. Within consulting, things operate much more
differently.
| 32
You are not protected within the firm and are instead staffed on client
engagements with as little as 2 weeks of training. Majority of the learning that
you have is expected to be on the job. This means that stakes are high from
the very first day and you are a representative of the firm from the get-go. A
major part of the firm’s reputation and prestige rests on your shoulders from
the beginning. Not everyone is equipped for this and the recruitment process
isn’t tied to only test for potential, but rather the recruiters will be asking
themselves:
“Can I imagine this individual dealing with our clients if I staff them on a
project tomorrow?”
You have to be ready on the day of the interview and I cannot stress enough
how important this is.
D. Structured and top-down communication
The last aspect of dealing with people is to communicate in a structured and a
top down manner. This stems directly from thinking and solving problems in a
top-down and a structured way. In essence, the words that come out of your
mouth should reflect how you are thinking. To illustrate, let’s first see what topdown communication is not.
Let’s say you are working with a BCG consulting team that is tasked with
helping a textiles company to understand which potential product to launch.
Let’s say you are working on your daily tasks and all of a sudden, a senior
client member walks into the meeting room and asks you for an update on the
project. What do you tell them? Remember Saul from our previous example on
top-down thinking? Let’s see what he would say first. Saul says:
“Well, I collected some data from the marketing team on their sales from
previous years and understood that the cushions cover sector is highly
lucrative. I crunched some numbers and bought some marketing reports and
we also now know that there is less competition in the cushion covers and
curtains market. So, for now, we are working on the hypothesis that launching a
new line of cushion covers may be a good idea but there is still some work to
do.”
What’s wrong with this answer? Well, a lot.
1. It is just messy. It is all over the place and focuses more on the process of
| 33
what has been done so far and thus that makes it very difficult to follow.
2. It isn’t results driven. Remember being results-driven, yes that matters
here. The senior client cares about the result and the implications for their
firm, they do not care about how you got to your answer. Saul has
focused too much on the process and hasn’t paid heed to highlighting the
decision status of the project.
To see an improved and refined version of this, let’s turn to Sally, who like the
superstar she is, can give us the best course answer. Sally says:
“Given our task to recommend new products to launch, our current hypothesis
is that launching a new line of cushion covers is the best option. We believe
this for three reasons:
1. This market is more profitable than other products;
2. The demand is projected to grow;
3. The existing competition in this market is low.”
Sally’s answer is great for a variety of reasons:
1. It’s action oriented and starts with the recommendation. The main
takeaway for the senior client is to consider entering the cushion covers
market and they hear this in the first line. If they need more information after
this, they can just dig deep.
2. It is concise and structured. I can follow Sally’s logic and understand the
assertions behind which she is basing her answer. She gets to the point and
wastes no time explaining the process of how she got there. If the senior
client person wants to know more about the process, they can just
subsequently ask Sally. For example, they might ask how she figured out
that there is low competition in the industry and Sally can then elaborate on
the process, if required.
Similar to how top-down thinking can be viewed as a tree, so can top-down
communication. Sally’s answer can be shown as the following tree:
Enter the Cushion
Covers Market
They are more
profitable
Demand is
expected to grow
There is low
competition
| 34
We can illustrate another example of this top down method of communication.
Let’s assume you, as a consultant, are working with a chain of grocery stores
and are helping them expand into new cities. Let’s say you are considering
expanding in city X and have set up a call with a grocery stores expert in that
city to better understand the nature of operations over there. How do you think
about and then subsequently communicate the type of questions you want to
ask? First of all, this further elucidates that top-down thinking and
communication are interlinked. Although this is a basic exercise and something
that a consultant will indulge in on a regular basis, some level of considerable
thought will go into organizing this call. As a starter, the consultant wants to
make sure that they:
Extract all necessary information;
Do not waste time repeating unnecessary questions.
Essentially, the questions need to be organized in a MECE manner and then
communicated that way as well. So, let’s say the consultant brainstorms and
realizes that the following three areas/categories are most crucial to get
information on and if fully explored, will make the call worthy:
Understanding customer trends;
Understanding competitive trends;
Understanding potential operational/supply chain issues.
The areas have been created in a top-down fashion; the next step would be to
figure out key questions to ask within each area. For simplicity and just to keep
this example simple, we can illustrate this below:
Key information to
collect
Customers
Competitors
What are customer
demographics like?
Who are the key
competitors in this
area?
What products sell
the most?
Do the competitors
Burgers have different
specialisations?
What have sales
trends been like in the
past?
Operations/ Supply
Chain
What are the typical
lead times in the city?
Who are the main
Burgers logistics partners?
Burgers
How much profit are
they making?
| 35
So, let’s say the consultant has made their questions. They had a tree in their
mind while coming up with them and quickly jotted them down. When they get
on the call, it will be so much easier to communicate and be ensured that the
correct information is collected. Let’s say this is how the call starts:
“Hello expert, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to me today. I
really appreciate your help and I will try to not take too much of your time. I
want to strengthen my understanding of grocery store operations in the city
and will ask you questions on three key areas:
1. Consumers;
2. Competitors;
3. Operations/supply chain.”
This bulleted, top-down introduction is very powerful because it not only
provides clarity to your thoughts, but it also gives the other person at the
receiving end an indication of what is to come. They can already start assorting
and thinking about particular pieces of information that they may want to share
with you as they can already anticipate your questions. So, let’s say after this
introduction, you continue:
“Okay so talking about the customers first, I just want to establish a general
understanding of their behavior so firstly, can you tell me about customer
demographics in the area?”
The consultant has now gone a layer deeper into the tree and will target each
category at a time before moving onto the next. They will cover customers and
ask all of their questions before moving on to other categories.
Ok wow, so we’ve learned that consultants even communicate in trees. The
idea behind illustrating these examples is to again encourage you to adopt this
line of communication in your day-to-day life so that, by the time the case
interview rolls around, it becomes second nature to you. Apply this when you
are communicating in your team projects. Apply this when you ask a question.
You can even apply this while delivering a speech or interviewing someone. Be
structured in how you communicate and ask questions. This is the core
purpose behind this guide. Rather than viewing the case interview as
something to be cracked, I want to encourage all readers to adopt habits that
will align their personality traits and habits with that which the firms are actually
looking for.
| 36
Further resources on this:
1. Firm Learning video on top-down communication;
2. Strategy U article on top-down communication;
3. My Consulting Coach article on the Pyramid Principle (top down
communication);
4. The Pyramid Principle by Barbara Minto (This was a book written by a
McKinsey consultant in the 1970s and is considered the holy grail of
consulting communication content)
5. Article on the pyramid principle;
6. Columbia University ELC Club presentation on building consulting
presentations and using top-down communication in presentations.
E. A culture of feedback
Including this category was an afterthought and I wasn’t sure if I should add this
here or in the personality section. But I realized that feedback in consulting is a
big part of dealing with people. Consulting is a meritocratic environment where
continuous learning and progress is highly encouraged. This was one of the
questions I asked at almost all interviewers at the firms I recruited for: “what
does the feedback culture look like at your firm?”. The most frequent answer
was that apart from structured feedbacks surrounding each project and half
yearly reviews, I will be given feedback on a continuous basis on day to day
tasks.
Let’s say I make a financial model on excel and show a draft to my manager. I
will be told instantly what might be potentially wrong with it and how I can fix it.
Or let’s say I deliver a presentation to one of the client team members. As
soon as the presentation ends, the manager may take me to a corner and
explain to me what I did well and perhaps what I can improve within my
communication going forward. This might make it seem as if every move you
make is being monitored. But for a job where you are expected to learn as you
work and where other people are invested in your growth, this is the resulting
culture – one of continuous feedback and guidance. What this means from a
people point of view is that you will be given continuous feedback and you are
expected to intently listen to it, reflect on it and implement it rather than being
obnoxiously stubborn.
This is something that the firms test for in their interview process as well and it
| 37
is called “coachability”. It is not wrong to make a mistake, but it is wrong to not
take on hints and guidance and immediately correct that mistake and to stop it
from recurring. Therefore, you -as a future young consultant- should be the
kind of person who is always open to feedback, improvement and constructive
criticism from other people rather than getting defensive about it. Corollary to
this is that you should also then be a person who is open to providing
feedback, guidance and constructive criticism to other people while ensuring
your words are perceived in a positive and valuable light.
Becoming the consulting archetype
With our entire discussion centered around the various personality, problem
solving and people dealing traits of consultants, the motive has been to help
you visualize and come to terms with the type of persona that is required to
thrive in the consulting environment. As a next step, you should reflect on
when and how you have displayed these traits in your life. Subsequently,
detach yourself from merely displaying them in the case interview and think of
ways in which you can better practice and thus display these traits in your
working personality as well.
This isn’t to say that everyone has to have the same types of skills and traits.
People will have varying degrees of talents and tendencies across different
dimensions and for sure each individual brings their own uniqueness to the
table. The way you extend yourself on each trait and the balance with which
you stand on either of them is going to vary. But as a first step, one would
agree that it is beneficial to have a conceptual understanding of the career and
what it takes and this in turn should help you better position yourself as to how
you want to structure your preparation and interact with potential recruiters.
Building up on our entire discussion, it will be helpful to illustrate how the traits
discussed previously can be acquired by university students who are seeking a
career in consulting. I will share examples of different scenarios that highlight
how I built each of the traits and that might help you out as well. However, note
that I will only discuss the traits that are most unique to consulting and thus
most difficult to acquire as well. For example, I will not give examples of how
to be more helpful as a teammate, but I will give examples of how things such
as instilling top-down thinking in your daily life i.e. things that are more difficult.
Following is a table that reflects how each of the discussed traits was
reflected in my university experiences. The list is of course not exhaustive, but
| 38
it should give a good idea of how one can start thinking about aligning
themselves more with the consulting archetype.
Results
Orientation
y ti l a n o s r e P
Grit
Results orientation is displayed by an emphasis on the end
goal rather than the process of work. For everything I did in my
university life, I set goals. A great example of this was during
my junior year where I was in charge of executing an
international young entrepreneurs' conference. The traditional
route of executing the conference was to focus on
implementation of various rounds and events. Instead, I tied
the success of my event with the satisfaction level of the
delegates. What this meant was that we introduced an entirely
different approach to the event itself. Feedback was collected
from previous year's delegates. Subsequently, more emphasis
was placed on ensuring that different business rounds at the
event were made more competitive and substantive and
operational inefficiencies such as time delays were removed.
Previous conferences had focused too much on the social
events side of things but our new results-driven approach that
tied the results to delegate satisfaction led to a host of
changes that might not have been made otherwise.
Furthermore, we also ended up collecting feedback from
participants to set up a system for improvement for next year.
To have grit is to work hard and to simply do all that it takes to
deliver the results that you have promised. This again
emphasizes results rather than the process taken to get there.
In my freshman year, within the LUMS Consultancy Group, I
was given the responsibility to do some client development
work and help land a new project, the society's first paid
engagement in fact. So, the stakes were pretty high. I worked
among a team of 3 to create client proposals a week before
our final semester exams. Some additional effort was required
here as exam season was almost at a peak. The client
proposal was accepted, and we were invited to an in-person
meeting. I was chosen to lead this meeting along the society
president, but the issue was that this meeting was the morning
of an important exam. I had to make sure that I had adequately
prepared not only for my exam but also for the meeting.
Rather than considering this as a last-minute disruption, I
accepted my circumstances and worked on both the exam
and the meeting simultaneously and eventually both turned out
fairly well. Exam went great and we landed the client. The key
learning I took from this was that we can always consider
ourselves to be too busy but situations like this that actually
test our grit showcase the true potential of what we can do.
| 39
y ti l a n o s r e P
s m el b or P
Ability to
deal
with
variety
There are various ways to reflect variety as a student. A math
major that took various English classes can show case their
ability to deal with variety; similarly, a humanities major with
concentrations in computer science can showcase variety. I
also had variety in my academic work since I took courses
outside my direct Accounting & Finance domain by studying
various computer science, marketing, humanities, math, and
law courses. However, variety isn't only restricted to the
academic setting. I also showcased variety through my
internships. While one of my internships was within the domain
of audit and assurance, my other internship dealt with the
corporate affairs and greater macro-economic factors
impacting a multinational FMCG. Beyond this, my
extracurriculars reflected variety too as over the course of 4
years, I worked across several departments and handled
various projects in two student-run societies.
Intellectual
Curiosity
One proxy for intellectual curiosity can be your academic
performance. Someone who has above average grades and
achieves well academically can be said to be intellectually
curious. This is of course not entirely true. Other ways in which
I reflected intellectual curiosity throughout my time at
university was to conceptualize every problem that I dealt with
rather than working on it aimlessly. For example, reverting
back to the youth conference I led in my junior year. One of the
approaches I took to improve the project was to collect data
from previous year's participants. This 'curiosity' to understand
problems from the perspective of the participants allowed me
to make much needed changes that would otherwise have
been overlooked. For example, one of the changes we made
was to automate the scoring process to make round scores
available within a few hours rather than the next day. This was
apparently a very important problem according to participants
but was not usually considered. The point of bringing up this
example is to show that the muscle of intellectual curiosity
can be built outside the classroom as well. As long as you
carry the willingness to reason and do things logically, this
principle will be practiced.
| 40
Ability to
learn
fast
s m el b or P
Top-down
thinking
and MECE
This was perhaps reflected best in my junior year internship in
the corporate affairs function of PepsiCo Pakistan. The project
that I was asked to handle had the underlying objective of
quantifying the economic impact of the organization in
Pakistan. Being a student from a non-economics background, I
had to quickly bring myself to speed with key economic
concepts and models and be at the same working pace as my
co-intern and the rest of the team. This point was actually
brought up a few times during the recruitment process and
allowed me to showcase my ability to learn fast to my
interviewers. can be built outside the classroom as well. As
long as you carry the willingness to reason and do things
logically, this principle will be practiced.
I learned the concept of top-down thinking and the MECE
principle from this great resource called crafting cases. I have
talked about them before, but they have great articles and
video series on these topics, and they help a lot. The way I
applied these concepts in my daily life was to firstly be a bit
more conscious about it. Whenever I had a group project, I
would try to make a workplan based on MECE subdivisions of
the project and this would serve as a good practice tool.
Similarly, within my role as the president of the LUMS
Consultancy Group, I (along with the Executive Council) had to
make an annual improvements plan. The plan and the final
document conveying it were created by ensuring that the
society's operations were divided into MECE areas that could
then be focused on individually to figure out areas of
improvement. I also applied the MECE principle during my
senior year in hypothetical conversations I would have with
other friends considering applying to consulting firms. We
would propose random business problems to each other
and figure out a MECE framework to resolving that problem or
generating ideas/hypothesis. For example, one of the
questions I asked a friend was: What could be some ways in
which you could help Gloria Jeans improve its sales (while
sitting there and having coffee with him).
| 41
Quantitative
Ability
s m el b or P
Generate
and test
creative
ideas
Quantitative ability can be readily reflected by showcasing
academic work undertaking in quantitative subjects. However,
this is not always possible and is not the only way to do so.
We have already discussed how consultants use numbers and
established that this does not require a deep expertise in
mathematics. Other ways in which this quantitative ability can
be shown is by giving examples of projects or tasks where you
dealt with collecting/analyzing/interpreting/evaluating data.
For example, I wrote about a project that I did in sophomore
year whereby collecting and analyzing extensive caste
demography data, we were able to prove that social mobility is
a function of rural to urban migration rather than a person's
caste. This type of project resonates well with consulting
recruitment as consultants themselves routinely collect and
analyze data to derive key findings.
Whenever you take an initiative i.e. do something that has not
been done before, it is a good indication of showcasing an
ability to generate and test creative ideas. One example of this
within my profile is within my audit internship. During my
internship, I was assigned with the audit of the HR and payroll
areas of my client company initially. During my study of the
payroll documents, I found various documents related to
internal transfers of employees within the client group of
companies. I realized that the walkthrough for this process
was not currently covered by the audit process. I had the idea
to create a walkthrough for this from scratch and I
subsequently fell into the rabbit hole of figuring this out.
Ultimately, it took more work than I actually had to do but my
contributions ended up strengthening the audit process.
Although, this example may not sound directly creative from
the onset, what matters more is to follow through on initiatives
and ideas and to have the tenacity to implement them.
| 42
Ability to
influence
others
This skill is best displayed when you give evidence of
persuasiveness in a professional setting. My best personal
example of this was working within the corporate relations
department of the LUMS Entrepreneurial Society, where my
role as an Assistant Director was to raise sponsorship funds
for the society's events. Overseeing deals north of PKR 2
million and persuading large companies to sponsor our events
by making cold calls, proposals and holding various
meetings was a great experience to build up my ability to
influence and persuade other people.
Professionalism
A great way to demonstrate the concept of professionalism is
to showcase in-depth corporate experiences like internships
because if you ever able to carry yourself well during these
experiences, that provides good evidence for further success.
Within my PepsiCo internship, I had to collect a lot of data
internally and for this exercise I had to interview a lot of senior
director level staff members on a weekly basis. Setting up
meetings with, emailing and asking questions to these senior
managers from various functions of the company helped me
really become mindful of how I was carrying myself
professionally. This suited well for consulting preparation in
particular because young consultants have to maintain liaison
with senior client members for extracting information on a
frequent basis.
el p o e P
Teamwork
Teamwork is a fairly easy thing to showcase as a lot of us get
opportunities to cooperate with and work with other people. I
personally built on my teamwork abilities by using all of my
university group projects as collaborative opportunities.
Beyond this, I took part in several case competition where my
success was tied to the success of the overall team and this
helped me appreciate the type of team culture required in a
professional setting. On top of this, several other leadership
roles helped me understand that the improvement and
enablement of team members is an important aspect of
assessing a leader's abilities. For example, during my LUMS
Consultancy Group presidency, one of the core targets I had
set for myself was to build a cohesive culture within the
society that reflected a true consulting organization rather than
just another student run group. The fostering of such a culture
first required the embodiment of a common team spirit across
the entire group of students that were part of the society.
| 43
Top-down
communication
el p o e P
Culture of
feedback
Similar to how I applied top-down thinking and the MECE
principle. I learned the concept of top-down communication
through watching various case prep platforms as well and
understood that this was an important skill tested within the
recruitment process. Although top-down communication may
be used for one to one interpersonal communication, I applied
it to public speaking opportunities as well. I started applying
the concept whenever I had to give an address or a speech
during my presidency or if I was delivering a presentation for a
course project. I would, rather than preparing scripts, instead
prepare issue trees to communicate from. Structuring my
verbal communication, as well as any written/visual
communication such as ppt slides in a manner that would
follow the answer-first approach. Additionally, reverting to the
hypothetical conversations I earlier; during those
conversations, we would consciously try to make ourselves
sound top-down. For example, "Gloria Jean's could be losing
customers for three key reasons....".
This is a tendency that you have to build up by just becoming
someone who is open to receiving criticism and improving
upon it and subsequently also able to provide others with
insights as to how they can improve their current standing.
Within my presidency experience, one of the things I wanted
to introduce was the concept of consistent 360 degrees
communication, where within predefined intervals, all
members of the society would provide structured feedback on
not only their subordinates, but also their peers and superiors.
This meant that a person working with anyone, regardless of
their position in the hierarchy, could provide feedback on them
and could also be given feedback by them. The initiation and
implementation of this system within the society also gave me
greater appreciation for the importance of feedback and how it
can be used as a force to institute improvements within people
and even whole organizations.
The main insight I ultimately want readers to take away from this guide is that
consulting recruitment isn’t something that can just be cracked by practicing
case interviews. There is an entire persona behind the work of a consultant and
those who can settle well within their own versions of that persona are the ones
who are likely to shine the best in the case interview as well and subsequently
land offers.
| 44
Section 3
The Recruitment
Process
Now that we have had an elaborate discussion about the traits we want to
cultivate in order to become successful consultants, it is now time to turn
attention towards the recruitment process. This section will understand the
rationale behind why this process is shaped the way it is and how you can
better prepare for it.
| 45
The consulting process is fairly standardized across different firms and normally
constitutes the following rounds.
1. Pre – Interview Screening: This always involves the submission of a
CV/Resume and sometimes a cover letter as well depending on the firm.
2. Round 1 of Interviews: Those who successfully clear the screening stage are
invited to round 1 of interviews. This round typically involves two back-to-back
interviews with consultants who have around 3+ years of experience. The
interviews are conducted independently i.e. the second interview is not
contingent upon your performance in the first interview, although your
performance will be collectively evaluated by both interviewers. The main
purpose of these interviews is to assess which candidates are a worthy
investment to be presented in front of partners for the second round of
interviews.
3. Round 2 of Interviews: This round is the hiring round i.e. the basis of the
decision will be whether they want to give you a job offer or not. Similar to
round 1, you will appear for 2-3 back to back interviews. The main differences
however will be that you will appear in front of principal level consultants and
partners. These are direct leaders at the office that you are applying for and
are in a position to make a call as to whether you should be hired or not.
Based on their seniority, they will obviously be looking at you from a slightly
different perspective compared to first round interviewers.
We will discuss each of these in depth in further sections and see how you can
best position yourself and make the most of each part of the recruitment process.
However, this is not an extensive case interview preparation guide and instead I
will provide you links to key resources that can better guide you on these fronts.
Note: Some consulting firms also have a test before the first round of interviews,
for example McKinsey has the Problem-Solving Test as an additional screening
tool before first round interviews. However, we will not be discussing the test in
this guide.
Further resources on this:
1. Management Consulted article on the recruitment process;
2. Case Coach article on the recruitment process.
| 46
Curriculum Vitae
The CV is the first data point that consulting firms will get on you and this piece
of paper dictates whether you will be invited for an interview or not (in addition
to your cover letter in most cases). The CV is essentially your persona on a
piece of paper, and it should give the consulting firms evidence that you are a
worthy investment to make. Note that firms have time constraints and limited
resources and cannot possibly interview every candidate that applies to the
firm. Consultants who have to interview prospective candidates have a scarcity
of time and it is actually costly to the firm to divert their time from their
consulting duties to recruitment duties. If such an investment is being made by
the firm, then it needs to be a worthy investment. This is why, consulting firms
have very strict and lengthy CV deliberation processes in place to ensure that
the candidates they interview have a good shot at potentially performing well in
the interviews and prospectively at the firm too.
If I can share some stats, my university is a target school for 2 MBB firms. For
one of these firms, 25 students received an invite for first round of interviews.
This was from a batch of 1000 students, even if we assume that ~25% of the
batch applied for the firm, this alludes to a first-round invite ratio of 10%. This
should allude that landing an interview on its own is a pretty tough task and the
best way to make it through this round is to ensure that your CV is aligned to
what best resonates with the firm. While there are a few formatting nuances,
what firms care most for are evidence on the traits that we have discussed in
the previous chapters. The idea is that once you write your CV and
subsequently read it, you should be able to answer the question: “Are the
experiences and achievements listed by this person evidence enough that
they can perform well in the consulting environment?” What this means then
is that the more evidence you can provide that you are aligned well with
consulting, the higher your chances of success will be.
A. Tips for the CV
Following are some tips that should serve as a guide for writing the CV. I will
also subsequently show my own CV and display how these tips have been
reflected in my resume.
I. Formatting
1. Have well-structured and clearly sections. Different sections on your CV
| 47
should serve a distinct purpose i.e. to show a unique part of your profile
and your experience set. Having well-structured sections is also a good
way to show how structured you are in your thinking and organizing your
thoughts.
2. Make important things stand out. Believe it or not but basic word tools such
as underlining, bolding and italics can be really important in making your
CV. When your CV is screened, it is often initially only skimmed simply
because firms receive a huge volume of CVs. Amongst this volume, you
need to make sure your key achievements and experiences stand out. A
good way to make this happen is to use different word manipulation tools
to your advantage. For example, by bolding and underlining a key result of
a project, you can more openly communicate an important achievement.
Or for example, if your academic grades are really high, you can bold your
grades to make them instantly stand out.
II. Content
1. Results driven content. Rather than focusing on specifications and duties of
your job, focus instead on highlighted the results of your work. Consulting
firms are obsessed with results and they care about the ultimate impact of
your work. A lot of people focus on derailing what their job entailed but in 99%
of the cases this is already implied by the job title that you held. It is much
more important to highlight initiatives that you might have undertaken and what
their outcome was. A good way to communicate such content is to follow a
“results action” type of writing style. For example, “I attained a 32% increase
in sales by creating a marketing strategy based on data collected from
consumers.” The first half of the sentence highlights the result and the second
half derails how that result was attained. Since the firms care more about the
result, it is better to write it upfront. Just be mindful that you want to show
case your personal achievement rather than just mere participation in a bunch
of activities.
2. Use numbers and quantitative metrics. This is also really important and follows
from the results driven approach to writing. A great way to highlight results and
impact is to quantify them wherever possible. It is much more impactful and
measurable to say “120% increase in client satisfaction” vs “increase in client
satisfaction”. Numbers, as long as you can back them up, should be added to
your CV. Also keep in mind that consultants work with numbers all day, so
seeing them in a CV is natural for them and is something that they will be
seeking in your resume too.
| 48
Further resources on this:
1. My Consulting Coach guide on consulting resumes;
2. Firm Learning video on consulting CVs;
3. IGotAnOffer video on consulting CVs;
4. MConsultingPrep guide and video on consulting CVs.
B. My own CV
Following is the CV that I used during my recruitment process and this was
accepted at all 3 of the firms that I applied to. The purpose is to illustrate an
example of what an acceptable CV might look like and later I have also shared
some key insights that can be derived from my CV, and this should help you in
making your own CVs.
| 49
Hashaam Javed
D.O.B: 15th June 1997
Phone: +92 (123) 1234567
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/hashaamjaved
Email: jhashaam@gmail.com
EDUCATION
Lahore University of Management Sciences - BSc. Accounting and Finance
CGPA: 3.94 (top 1%)
2016-2020
Key Courses: Economics of Organizations and Management, Contemporary Social Policy Issues in Pakistan, Applied
Corporate Finance, Introduction to Programming, Linear Algebra, Business Data Management, Brand Management
Palmerston North Boys’ High School (New Zealand) - NCEA Level 3
Rank: Top 0.5% Students Nationally
2010-2015
Courses: Math with Statistics, English Literature, Economics, Accounting – (School Distinctions in all 4 Subjects)
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCES
PepsiCo Ltd – Corporate Affairs Intern
2019
Project: “Assessment of PepsiCo’s Economic Impact in Pakistan”
• Identified an additional 60% contribution towards national GDP, taxes and employment previously unreported by the
company, by evaluating the interdependencies of over 700,000 entities across the beverages supply chain.
• Developed a tax sensitivity model to prove the hypothesis that increasing indirect taxes on beverage industry will
decrease national tax revenue and decrease PepsiCo’s profits.
• Aided the company’s negotiations with the government by developing a report using key project findings to rationalize
the argument that taxes should not be increased.
LUMS – Teaching Assistant
2019
• Assisted 55 students for Intermediate Finance.
• Held weekly tutorials covering various finance concepts and excel based financial modeling.
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) – Audit and Assurance Intern
2018
Project: “Annual Audit of Nishat Power Limited (NPL)”
• Audited the payroll, long-term financing and investment accounts – collectively worth in excess of PKR 5.5 billion.
• Improved the auditing process by detecting and processing 2 new areas undocumented in previous audits.
• Conducted analytical procedures to sanity check audit findings and identify accounts with material misstatements.
LEADERSHIP & EXTRACURRICULARS
LUMS Consultancy Group (LCG) – President
2019–Present
• Achieved a 100% YoY increase in consulting revenues by focusing on SMEs and introducing student trainings.
• Improved society culture by developing a new promotion system, evaluation mechanisms and organizational values.
• Assisted over 200 individuals applying to consulting firms by initiating a LUMS wide consulting preparation platform and
creating a public database of CVs and case interview materials.
• Enhanced the society’s national and global footprint by establishing strategic linkages with 5 consulting clubs.
LUMS Entrepreneurial Society (LES) – Convener for Young Leaders’ and Entrepreneurs’ Summit
2018-2019
• Led a 135-member host team to execute an International Youth Business conference worth PKR 9 million.
• Attained a 75% increase in sponsorships by creating targeted proposals and partnering with a local startup incubator.
• Invited and hosted the first 30 international delegates in the event’s 13-year history by creating foreign linkages.
RESEARCH & PROJECTS
Caste Demography Analysis in LUMS & Agricultural University Faisalabad (AUF): Negated the role of caste demography in
social mobility by establishing it as a function of rural to urban family migration by surveying 400 students in LUMS and AUF.
Entrepreneurship & Management in the Restaurant & Hospitality Industry: Created the branding and operational strategy for
an Italian restaurant concept – ‘Nel Forno’ by analyzing consumer preferences across Lahore via 300 surveys and 50 interviews.
HONOURS & AWARDS
• Placed on the Dean’s Honor List for every academic year
• Best Presentation Award & National Runner Up– CFA Research Challenge
• 1st Place – Case League Pakistan
• 3rd Place – Indus Motors Graduate Case Competition
• Harvard International Case Competition, Member of the Pakistani delegation – Boston, Massachusetts
• 1st Place – Elevator Pitch Round at LUMS HR Confluence
SKILLS & INTERESTS
Skills: Financial Modelling & Valuation, Tableau, C++, SQL, Visual Basic
Interests: Strength Training, Men’s Fashion, Geography, Travelling, Cricket
2016-2020
2020
2018
2018
2017
2017
C. Key takeaways from my CV
This is in no way endorsing that my CV carries the ideal format or type, however,
I would like to elaborate on some key points we can learn from it:
You will notice that there 6 clearly distinguished sections and each of these
sections serves its own unique purpose. All 6 sections have been clearly
pointed through to the bolding of the heading title and the separation of
each section by an extended underline. Academics is there to provide
evidence of academic achievement. The Professional experiences section is
distinguished from leadership and extra curriculars section as the former
shows internship experiences in large organizations and the latter shows
leadership positions in student run organizations. Research & projects was
created as an additional section on top of academic to provide evidence of
project-based work that might resonate well with the consulting line of work.
I personally decided to add an Honors and Awards section to show case
achievements participating in various case competitions as I thought this
would resonate well with consulting firms. Lastly, I added a skill & interests
section as a final section to provide closing details. Skills was meant to
highlight unique technical skills that might distinguish me from other
candidates. Note that I haven’t added items such as MS Word or Excel and
the reason behind this is that these have become really common now. If as a
candidate, you have managed to write a CV, it is pretty evident that you can
use MS Word. So, within skills, focus on technical skills that might make you
stand out and skills that might be ultimately useful for the job. Lastly, the
point of having the interests section is to showcase parts of your personality.
It is the part that makes you more human and details what type of life you
carry outside of work. In a lot of interviews, topics from the interests
sections are actually used as points of conversation.
I have bolded key numbers wherever possible. Initially we discussed that
consulting firms care about results and a key method to show these results
is to quantify achievement. On my CV, I have used numbers to highlight both
achievements and the scale of my work and I have made sure to bold these
numbers to ensure that they instantly stand out. The idea is that even if a
person doesn’t fully read my CV and only spends 30 seconds skimming it,
they can still see the numbers and hence the main results mentioned on my
CV.
It is also very easy to distinguish key titles and positions. For example, on a
first skim, the names of the institutions I attended and the organizations I
worked for clearly stand out. Simultaneously, the positions I held at these
| 51
organizations are easy to separate visually and also stand out. This was
done intentionally because names matter a lot. I wanted it to be evident that
I interned at PepsiCo and PwC and that I was the president of my university’s
consulting group. Small nuances like this are important and again the main
point is that the key things about you should instantly pop out even if
someone briefly skims your CV.
There is a lot of white space. Despite having a lot of content, my CV still has
a lot of white space. This was purposeful. Rather than adding more words to
ensure that all lines were fully filled, I kept my writing concise and to the
point. Keeping your words economical isn’t only important because it helps
with keeping your CV to the point, but the added white space also adds
visual appeal to the CV. It is much more challenging to read something that
is cluttered and far more satisfying to read something that is clear and free
from unnecessary verbiage. The total word count on my CV is 566 words
and I would argue that within one page, this is more than sufficient for me to
communicate all the I want to. I have seen CVs that are 660 words or more
and at that point the excessive information detracts value rather than making
the CV more comprehensive.
There is bulleting of points rather than summary paragraphs. This is again an
intentional decision and the reasoning behind it is that bullets make it easy to
separate out relevant points and thus make it easier to read individual strings
of achievement in isolation rather than having to read an amalgamation of
ideas within a paragraph. This does not only make the CV more presentable
but also allows for better comprehension of the information that you are
trying to share.
Results driven language has been used throughout the CV. Each line on the
CV is used to either showcase the impact of an action I took, an initiative I
introduced or to provide key relevant contextual details that better explain
my achievements. Each bullet within each section serves its own purpose
and can be read as a standalone item. However, at the same time, the
bullets progress to build a story of sorts where needed. For example, in the
case of my Pepsi internship. The first bullet is the first bullet as it provides an
overarching view of my project and highlights the magnitude of my work.
Each subsequent point makes more sense with the information established
in the first point.
Cover letter
Given that the very few interview slots are given out, the CV on its own may not
| 52
be sufficient to assess how good of a fit a prospective candidate is. Although,
the CV show cases your overall profile and achievements that might reflect well
for a potential career in consulting, the main restriction within it is that the same
CV can be used for almost any consulting firm. I can use the same CV to apply
to each of the MBB firms and no one would know and nor would it matter. Thus,
the cover letter is added as an additional screening tool to ask for a piece of
document that asks you to write your motivation for applying to that particular
firm.
Hence, the purpose of the cover letter is to see that in addition to consulting,
why you have chosen to apply to that specific firm. A consulting firm would not
want to give an interview to a candidate just because their CV looks fit for
consulting. They would also want to know if that person aligns well with the
company and its culture overall- and the cover letter is used to assess this.
There are subtleties and nuances amongst each firm and this variation also
reflects their hiring choices. Even though all airlines fly passengers from one
place to another, they do vary in their operations, right? Some serve different
types of customers while others service different routes. Similarly, consulting
firms have their differences. These could be differences of location, industries
they focus on along with their culture among other things. It is then evident that
the cover letter should not be generic, and a unique cover letter should be
carefully crafted for each firm that you apply to. The main purpose of the
document should be to underlie your motivations to apply for your chosen office
and firm and to prove why you would make a good fit as a consultant at the firm.
Keeping this in mind, following are my key tips for the cover letter:
1. Make it personable. Showcase your personality traits and build a story
around your life. The cover letter is a good opportunity to give insights into
the person that may exist beyond the one-page CV. Giving details about
your childhood ambitions or your upbringing to explain how you internalized
your outlook on life and arrived to the process of applying to consulting firms
can be great insights to give and will better express your motivation for
applying.
2. Keep it structured and organized. Similar to your CV, you should try adding
structure to your cover letter. Although, you do want to weave in a story into
your cover letter, you still want to make sure that each paragraph serves a
specific purpose. For example, if you are mentioning your academic pursuits
in paragraph one, a repetition of the same ideas in paragraph 3 would look a
bit messy.
| 53
3. Don’t make it too long. The cover letter should also ideally be kept to a one
page as it is easy on the reader and provides you with ample opportunity to
communicate all that you want to.
4. Mention items specific to the firm you are applying for. This is really
important. For example, if you attended a session or workshop hosted by
the firm that you are applying for. Then mentioning it in the introduction
would be a good idea as it helps establish why you developed interest in
that firm in the first place. Similarly, if you had the opportunity to talk to
employees at the particular firm, then you may mention what you took away
from your conversations with them. This not only shows intent based on your
networking, but it can also help highlight your motivations for applying.
Additionally, you can also mention the firm’s specialties or particular
strengths that you find better aligned to you and explain why it may be
important to you. For example, different consulting firms have expertise in
different industries. Maybe you are interested in that particular industry and
sharing this rationale could be a justifiable reason. Overall, you should try to
mention items specific to the firm you are applying for to ensure that your
cover letter can be seen as a unique creation rather than an adaptation of a
generic cover letter. Putting effort to show that you have really researched
into the firm will show that you are keen to join and should count in your
favor when allotting interview slots when compared to a candidate that has
not put in the effort.
5. Mention items specific to the location that you have applied for. In addition
to mentioning nuances particular to the firm you are applying for; you can
also mention details relating to the particular office location you are applying
for. Highlighting things that make that office location unique and why this
resonates with you can be a good point to illustrate as this also shows that
you have done your research and know what you are getting into. Just as
there are differences across different consulting firms, there are also
subtleties across different offices, and firms encourage prospective
candidates to be aware of them. For example, I applied to the Dubai office
of two firms and I cited the workforce diversity of the region to be a
motivating force for me to apply to those offices.
Further resources on this:
1. Management Consulted video on cover letters;
2. IGotAnOffer guide to cover letters;
3. My Consulting Offer guide to cover letters;
4. Caseinterview.com guide to cover letters.
| 54
A. My cover letter and key takeaways
I have decided not to share my cover letter in its entirety out of concerns of
confidentiality. However, I have added excerpts where necessary to better
illustrate what I am trying to say.
Format the cover letter headers as if it is formal letter. This adds more
character to the document and spending time to amply format the cover
letter again shows your seriousness as an applicant. Following is an excerpt
of how I did this:
Firm XYZ
Address Line 1
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Topic: Application for XYZ Consultant- Middle East
2020
Date: 5th February
Dear Concerned,
Mention key research that you have done into the firm. I personally talked
about attending the company’s campus information session and how it
introduced me to the type of work they do. In addition to this, within my
introduction, I also talked about a conversation I had with one of the
consultants at the firm and how they introduced me to the culture at the firm
and how it resonated with me.
Make it personable and share your story to create a theme and cultivate the
rest of your cover letter around this theme. The following excerpt is my
second paragraph after my introduction (which covered my research into the
firm).
" I realized the importance of perseverance and determination 10 years ago when after an
accident, I was told I will lose movement in my left arm. Through sheer will power, I
worked through multiple surgeries and 6 Months of physiotherapy to return to my normal
state. This experience entirely changed my mindset by ingraining in me the importance of
hard work and motivating me to do my best in all aspects of life. I believe, this mindset
coupled with the experiences I have acquired to date, have prepared me well for the
challenges that come with a consulting role.”
| 55
This paragraph helped illustrate a theme of overcoming challenges around
my life. I subsequently built on this theme later to showcase how this would
be something that would help not only be successful in consulting but also
at that particular firm.
Keep it structured and reveal key insights around your personality that would
make you a good fit for the firm rather than just repeating your CV. My third
paragraph was centered around my academic achievements and built on the
idea of dealing with a variety of disciplines and how this resonates with the
varied topical nature of the work in consulting. The fourth paragraph focused
on my extracurricular activities with the emphasis being my participation in
case competitions and how this has deepened my inclination to apply to a
consulting firm. The fifth paragraph built on my extracurriculars to shed light
on my LUMS Consultancy Group presidency as I believed it was highly
relevant to my application. I talked about the key results I attained to make it
directly in line with the results driven mentality of consulting firms. The
following excerpt should help illustrate this:
"I competed in my first case competition in high school when I placed 3rd in New Zealand
for the national management consulting club finals. A career in consulting has been my
priority ever since, and this was amplified when I attended the Harvard University Case
Competition in Boston and spoke to consultants working across different firms. These
interactions have oriented my leadership style within LCG as I strive to position it as a
professional consulting organization. So far, this has been manifested through the
resetting of organizational values and development of an official client acquisition and
case delivery process. The effects of these have been two-fold as I witnessed a 100%
increase in the society’s consulting revenue and the formation of a team driven culture in
the society.”
The sixth paragraph focused on my PepsiCo internship. I made sure to
highlight how the type of work I did would resonate well with the tasks a
consultant would be called on to do and I elaborated how being a part of an
impactful project was important to me and why this is another motivating
force for me to be applying to the said firm.
The case interview
Now that we have assessed the pre interview screening tools, let’s turn our
attention towards the interview itself. The interview is typically split into two
parts, a behavioral portion and a case portion. The former typically takes 10-15
| 56
minutes and the latter takes around 30-40 minutes on average. These two portions
combined with your overall performance in the interview assess essentially you on
all of the traits that we have discussed so far.
Results Oriented
Personality
Grit
e p y t eh c r A g ni tl u s n o C e h T
Ability to deal with variety
Intellectual curiosity
Ability to learn fast
Problems
Top-down thinking and MECE
Quantitative ability
Generate and test creative ideas
Teamwork
Ability to influence others
People
Professionalism
Top-down communication
Culture of feedback
There are no hacks or tricks to the interview and across all portions, regardless of
behavioral or case interview, you have to collectively give strong evidence on as
many of the traits as possible. A person who can show case these traits strongly, is
a person who is ready to work on the job. I am assuming that you as the reader are
familiar with the case interview and have even done some practice or at least gone
through the prescribed resources and thus am basing the following tips on that.
Nonetheless, you can always come back to these tips during your preparation as
well when you are more aware of the interview.
| 57
Further resources on this:
1. Crafting cases article on “what really is a case interview”;
2. Rocket Blocks article on what the case interview is;
3. Management consulted video on the case interview;
4. MConsultingPrep video on the case interview.
A. Case interview tips
To showcase tips for the case interview, we will divide the case into different
portions and types of questions you can be asked.
1) Opening: This refers to the starting point of the case interview when you the
prompt has been read to you.
(i) Summarize the prompt – It is always a good idea to summarize the prompt as
it ensures you haven’t missed any key information and it also shows that you
were listening attentively. A great approach to summarizing the prompt is to
use the situation, conflict and resolution method i.e. you want to repeat the
prompt in that order by listing the existing client situation, what is the
complication in it and what you are supposed to do to resolve. For example,
“okay so our client is company x, which is a textiles company and recently
they have seen a decline in profitability and we have been brought into firstly
assess why this decline has occurred and secondly to provide remedies to
bring them back to profitability”.
(ii) Always ask clarification questions – Don’t ever not ask clarification questions.
Even if you think you don’t need any additional information, it is always good
idea to at least ask “is there anything else I should be aware of”. Good
consultants don’t rush into solving problems and thus you should always ask
questions.
o The first category of questions you can ask are related to the business
model of the client company or any jargon that has been thrown to you
in the prompt.
o The second category of questions that you can ask can be related to
scoping out the case i.e. just to get a better grip of the underlying client
objectives. Very often, a case can have multiple underlying objectives
that you have to dig a little deeper for to understand. For example, one
of the objectives might be to decide which product a company should
launch but this might come in conjunction with an implied objective of
maximizing profits. Within this category you can even ask for numerical
targets for certain benchmarks associated with your objective.
| 58
(iii) Take hints – Often the interviewer would want you to start the case in a
particular direction and they might throw a hint for this at the start of the case.
Taking these hints is important because it again shows your listening skills
and the ability to be coached, and sometimes without these the case might
be too long to solve as is.
(iv) Listen attentively and smile –You want your presence to be felt as a positive
force in the interview room. It is perfectly okay to be nervous, but you should
appear to be happy to be there from the beginning.
(v) Think about the why – i.e. why is the client doing what they are doing and why
they are in the particular situation in the first place. Within the opening, you
should have a clear sense of what is it that the client wants to achieve and
this should be your main area of focus going forward.
2) Framing: This is the typical part of the case where you make a framework
highlighting your approach to solving the problem. This question may not arise
in every case but happens in a majority of them.
(i) Think about – “How will I solve this problem” – You aren’t making the
framework just for the sake of it but instead are expected to use it to solve
the problem. So, in your head you should be thinking about what steps you
will take to solve the problem, and this will help make a good framework.
(ii) Think about – “What questions do I need to answer that will help me attain
the client objectives?” – A lot of the times, the answer to an overarching
problem can be broken down into smaller addressable questions and this can
serve as a good basis for a solid framework.
(iii) Think about the key stakeholders on the demand and supply side and what
connects these stakeholders along with key economic forces. Many a times,
a good framework can be made by considering the implications for different
stakeholders involved, and a good way to understand what these
stakeholders are is to understand the separation between the demand and
supply side of a business/industry.
(iv) Be MECE – I don’t think much needs to be said about this, but the different
categories made in your framework should be parallel with each other and
MECE, without this you are failing to showcase a core consulting skill.
(v) Be top down in your thinking while you are making the framework – Create all
level 1 buckets before going into level 2, which should precede level 3 i.e.
you don’t want to exhaust one layer completely and then switch your thinking
between different levels. MECE happens one layer at a time. For example, if
your level 2 buckets are consumers, competitors and costs, you want to be
| 59
making these three buckets first and diving deeper into each later rather than
let’s say completely exhausting your thinking on the competitor thinking and
then thinking about what other categories might be a part of level 2 of the
problem. You should be thinking one level at a time. If you don’t follow this
principle, then it is very difficult to remain structured and very easy to get
confused while make your framework.
(vi) Be top-down in your communication of the framework – Analogous to how
you are expected to think. The communication of your framework should be
top-down as well. A horizontal overarching view should be given before diving
deeper into each bucket (as we discussed in the top-down communication
section).
(vii) Be prioritized when thinking about and communicating your framework – This
means that you want to talk about the most important things first rather than
at the end.
(viii) Tailor whatever you do to the case at hand – Being generic is a sin and will
get you canned in the process. Try to make a custom framework for each
problem you encounter and make it as specific to the case at hand as
possible. For example, even nuances such as calling the customers of an
airline “passengers” rather than customers shows that you are being specific
to the problem.
3) Brainstorming: This refers to questions where you are asked to generate a
list of ideas/recommendations/hypothesis or a list of any kind.
(i) Do not just make any random list – Your list should be structured, and you
should have a structure to speak from. For example, rather than just listing
the ideas to improve profits from the top of your head, splitting them up in
revenue increase mechanisms and cost reduction mechanisms is a good way
to add structure to your list. This will not only make you sound better but also
allow you to think of more ideas as you think from constraints, independently
about each category. This is of course a rudimentary example and you could
make deeper and more complex structures.
(ii) There are some different sources from which structures for brainstorming can
be created depending on the context. These can be:
o Math formulas (e.g. revenues –cost);
o Processes (e.g. making the steps in a customer journey to give ideas on
how to retain more customers);
o Segmentations (e.g. dividing segments in age categories);
o Using opposite words (e.g. short-term and long-term).
| 60
o Conceptual (you tailor your own buckets to create your list, but you can
gain inspiration from existing conceptual frameworks such as 4Ps,
Porter’s 5 forces etc.)
o Be prepared for the what else questions – A good way for the
interviewer to pressure test you and to assess the limits of your
creativity is to ask you the question “what else?” when you list your
ideas. A good course of action is to always leave 2-3 ideas left unsaid
in order to have a readily available response to the “what else?”
question.
o Be prioritized in your communication – Mention the most important
buckets and the most important ideas first.
o Think out loud if you run out of ideas – If the interviewer decides to
stress test you, it is a good idea to revisit your structure and to think out
loud as it makes the process a bit more natural rather than you just
sitting silently and struggling to generate a response.
4) Math/Analysis: This refers to questions where you have to carry out
calculations.
(i) Always verbally lay down your final objective – Before diving into an analytical
question, mention what your calculation and process will achieve. Doing math
aimlessly is a good way to look stupid later.
(ii) Make sure you actually calculate what you are asked – A lot of times we just
calculate the number it makes sense to calculate but this isn’t what has been
asked. It is good practice to confirm what you have to calculate and to
ensure that is what you do.
(iii) Communicate the structure of your calculation and ideally try to do your
calculations out loud – For example, even if you are calculating the profit for
a company, before silently doing the calculation, it is a good idea to
communicate the structure of your calculation in a top-down way. For
example, in this case it would be something like. “I will calculate the profit by
firstly calculating the revenues and then removing the costs from it. I will
start off by calculating revenues by adding up the revenue from the different
customer segments”. You want to show the structure behind how you have
set up your math and you want to do this at each step of the calculation. At
the same time, ideally you want to do your math out loud. This is a good
practice to avoid any awkward moments of silence. Of course, only do it if
you are comfortable doing so but it is much better to engage the interviewer
while calculating $1.2 million times 32 than to do it silently while everyone just
waits. This habit of laying out the structure of your calculation and and
communicating it up front is also important because it shows you early on if
| 61
you are going to be missing any information and allows you a chance to ask
for it up front. Additionally, if for some reason you get the answer wrong, but
the interviewer knows that your process made sense when you
communicated it, they will be much more forgiving and likely to give you
another chance at recalculating your figures than they would be if you just
come up with a random answer without explaining what you actually did.
(vi) Make sure to keep track of units– A lot of casual mistakes of magnitude are
made when millions are confused for billions or when quarterly data is
confused for annual data. Make sure you track your units and don’t make the
mistake of giving your answer in the wrong units, as this is one of the most
common mistakes made.
(vii) Get in the habit of double checking your answer – It is always a good practice
to check your calculation process and to ensure no mistake has been made
before communicating your answer. This is good consulting practice as
consultants check the validity of their work before presenting it to clients.
(viii) Do more math on math to generate deeper insights – For example, you might
calculate a $200,000 increase in profits. But you will look better if you
compare that increase with existing data and also say something like “wow
this is a 50% increase from previous year” or “wow this is 25% better than the
other option”. This is what a good consultant does too, they dig deeper into
the numbers and generate more insights.
(ix) Synthesize when you get your number/answer – You want to take “look
back” breaks from time to time to provide interim conclusions. A lot of the
times, these breaks come when you have just conducted some quantitative
analysis. Once you are done with your calculation, take a step back and tell
the interviewer what your finding means in relation the client’s situation and
what the logical next step is.
(x) Segment your numbers – You can derive more insights by segmenting the
figures you get into different categories. For example, getting prices per
product rather than the overall average price might generate more insights.
Always ask for segmented information too if you can.
(xi) Organize your data and take clean notes – Sometimes in a case interview,
you might be met with what is called a data dump i.e. the interviewer just
throws a lot of information at you. You want to store this information neatly to
ensure completeness and to avoid awkward moments of having to ask for
data again (although it is completely fine if you have to). Try to take clean
notes when a data dump happens and a good way to slow down the process
is to repeat each number as it comes to you or just summarizing the entire
information back once you’ve heard it, to ensure nothing is missing.
| 62
For better organization of data, you can also try to make visuals such as
tables or graphs as they help store numbers in an easy to access form and
may also impress the interviewer.
5) Estimations/Market Sizing: You can be asked a market sizing or an estimate
question during a case interview and following are some tips for it.
(i) Treat the estimation as a whole case in itself – This means that you want to
treat the opening of the estimation like you would with a normal case and you
would want to treat how you set up your calculation as you would a normal
framework question.
(ii) For market sizing, scope out the market – You want to clarify the constraints
of the market that you are sizing, and you want to narrow it down. For
example, you might initially be told to estimate the size of the T-shirt market.
But after asking subsequent questions you might find out that they want you
to estimate the designer t-shirts market for women, a market that is only a
small portion of the entire t-shirt market. A lot of the times, the specific
market will not be given to you and you have to ask a few questions to ensure
that the scope of your calculation is completely defined.
(iii) Make a structure for your calculation – You should make a structure for your
calculation just like you would for case framework. You should make this
structure in a top-down manner and should also communicate it in a top-down
manner. Communicate this structure before you proceed with making
assumptions and calculations as getting the interviewer’s approval at this
stage will ensure that your process of working will be correct.
(iv) Make assumptions when data isn’t available – Ask for the different inputs as
they go into the structure but if information isn’t available, then you should be
comfortable making assumptions. However, these assumptions should not
be absurd and instead, be grounded in some sort of knowledge base or your
own prior experience. For example, let’s say you are calculating the coffee
market for a particular university and you have to estimate average
consumption per student per day and you might relate it to your own daily
experience being a university student and come up with a reasonable
estimate. You should also take care to carefully explain the rationale behind
your assumptions and not make it appear as if they have been pulled out of
(v) thin air.
Sanity check your answer –Every time you calculate an estimate or a market
size, check if your answer makes sense. This does not only mean checking
for mathematical accuracy of your numbers and calculations but also to see if
the numbers make sense. For example, you might calculate the size of the
designer women’s t-shirt market in the U.S.A to be $500 billion.
| 63
Given that the country has a GDP of almost $21 trillion, this figure seems
rather high as it is rather unlikely that 2.38% of a country’s GDP would be
made up of designer female t-shirts. If in this instance, your process of
calculations was right and so was your math, then there are obviously some
issues in the underlying assumptions that have been made and these should
be addressed.
6) Chart Interpretation: This refers to questions where you are given tables or
graphs to read and interpret.
(i) Whenever you are given a chart, the first thing you should do is to read the
title – The title often mentions the key take away of the chart or describes
what it is showing, and you should be aware of this.
(ii) Read the two axis – There are going to be units on the x axis and y axis, and
you should read these labels to get more context on what the chart is about.
(iii) Focus on “blips” and “stables” -i.e. what is changing in the chart and what is
staying the same. These two contrasting points can be good basis for
forming insights.
(iv) Communicate your insights in a structured manner and try to follow the
structure of the chart/graph itself –For example, if you have a time-series line
graph then your insights will come from either the x axis (based on time) or
the y axis (based on the metric being tracked and how it has changed over
time). Similarly, if you are given a table that has been categorized in different
rows and columns, you should be able to structure your insights based on
how the data has been separated between the different rows or columns. For
example, let’s say a table provides spending data for consumers and this
data is broken down into rows based on their age and in columns based on
their income group. You should be able to derive different insights on
consumer spending on both these criteria.
7) Recommendation: This typically occurs at the end of the case where you
may be asked to summarize your findings and to communicate them to the
client.
(i) Begin the recommendation by linking it back to your objective - i.e. what you
were trying to achieve.
(ii) Start by giving a final answer – For example “yes we should launch this
product” or “no the merger should not be followed”. This comes from the
basics of the top-down communication principle.
(iii) Subsequently, provide the reasons underpinning your recommendation – The
reasons are the facts that you have developed throughout the case and
| 64
these should support your conclusion. Typically, all the points in a case
where you did a synthesis are the points that form your recommendation,
circle these items as you go during the case, so they stand out in your notes
during your recommendation. For example, if your case is to improve profits
and one of the analysis you did concluded that launching a new product will
increase profits by 25%. Then this would formulate part of your
recommendation, i.e. launch a new product with one of the reasons being
that it will result in a 25% increase in profits.
(ix) Mention next steps – Once you have laid your recommendation, you should
mention what the logical next step is for the client to work on or for the case
team to work on. The best next step is also something that might lead to a
follow up project upon completion of the current project. Having this ability
also showcases that you may have potential to sell projects as well later on.
For example, you could say “Therefore, my final recommendation is that the
client should leave the oil business, but perhaps as a next step they can
assess the feasibility of the coal market as a potential investment prospect”.
8) A note on communication: While I have mentioned throughout this section,
how important communication is, for the purposes of highlighting it further,
following are some pointers to keep in mind with regards to communication.
(i) You should have top-down communication in everything you do or say,
period. This applies to:
o Framework;
o Brainstorming;
o Math;
o Recommendation;
o Even your answer to a chart interpretation.
(ii) Do not ramble – Get straight to the point and do not waste time circling
around in words.
(iii) Smile and be positive!
(iv) Mirror the interviewer’s body language – If you are not sure how you should
be carrying yourself, a good rule is to simply copy the body language of the
interviewer. But of course, if you are already comfortable in the interview
room, you shouldn’t have to think too much about this.
(v) Engage the interviewer in your thought process as much as you can – Your
brain is a black box and the case interview isn’t assessed only based on your
answer to different questions, but also on the thinking and rationale that led
you to those answers. It is a good practice to communicate your thought
process as frequently as possible throughout the case.
| 65
Now that we are aware of the 8 areas to focus on, following is a summary that
describes the overall mindset you should carry within the case interview.
Overall Mindset: This is an overarching summary describing the type of
mindset you should adopt within the case interview. The overall mindset that
you should carry within the case should be a mindset of driving the problemsolving session. You should put yourself in the shoes of a consultant and try to
showcase your thinking as if you are working as part of a consulting team in
conjunction with the interviewer or presenting to them in certain situations as if
they are the client. You need to be methodical throughout the interview and
always show thinking and orientation towards solving the client’s problems and
meeting the objectives of the case.
The framework that you develop to solve the problem should be used as a
step by step map and a reference document that you can keep going back
to in order to assess where you stand with regards to solving the problem.
Don’t just make the framework for the sake of it, a lot of the times your next
step in solving the problem actually comes from the framework you build.
Keep taking “look back breaks”. These are called synthesis and are interim
conclusion points where you assess what you have uncovered so far and
what you should be doing next. These are important as they align your
thinking and also at the same time show the interviewer how you are
thinking, which is really important. These look back points of synthesis will
also act as support points for your conclusion at the end. Also, typically,
these points arise when you conduct an analysis or uncover a major insight.
Whenever you provide a next step of what should be done in the case, you
should be leading with a rationale i.e. hypothesis in your mind. For example,
if you suggest that you would like to look into costs, you should be able to
justify that perhaps you think profits are low because costs are too high.
You should be able to explain the rationale behind why a certain analysis
that you might want to conduct will help prove or disprove something.
Be someone who is coachable and someone who can quickly learn from
their mistakes and incorporate feedback. For example, if after a certain
assertion, you are asked if you are sure about your answer. You should
have the tendency to re check your answer.
Engage and involve the interviewer in the conversation to make it a
collaborative process. You don’t want to be solving the case in isolation
and letting the interviewer sit idle and bored.
Your final overall mindset should be to be as methodical as possible and to
use the case to develop facts to base your final answer off of.
| 66
B. Behavioral interview tips
There is a lot of content available online that will help you prepare for the
behavioral portion (also known as the fit interview) of the interview but
nonetheless I have tried to amalgamate some tips for it.
You should prepare a repository of stories in advance for the behavioral
portion. Although no one can determine what type of questions they will be
asked, the themes are usually very similar and may follow the following
categories:
o Problem Solving;
o Attaining Results and Achievement;
o Leadership and conflict resolution.
In addition to crafting stories on the previously mentioned categories, you
should also be readily able to talk about anything that is mentioned on your
CV. A good tip here is to print your CV and think through every item that is
listed. You should be able to give a structured summary of every item listed
on your CV and be able to talk about your key learnings from that
experience. This holds true for major things such as internships and even
smaller things such as a university course you may have mentioned or an
interest you may have mentioned.
Have a very structured approach to answering behavioral questions. List
and bullet your ideas wherever possible and provide an impactful story
format to your personal experience questions. A good format to follow is
the STAR format – i.e. the situation, task, action and result format.
o Situation: Start your story by providing key contextual details that
may be necessary for better comprehension of your story later on.
o Task: This can be the conflict that persists or the main thing that
you were tasked with.
o Action: Mention the action that you undertook to resolve the
particular conflict or to complete the task that was assigned to
you. Focus should be on the actions you undertook.
o Result: Finally, before concluding, highlight the key outcome of
your actions to showcase how you resolved the conflict or
completed the assigned task. You should conclude this section by
mentioning the learnings you took from the experience.
We can apply the above-mentioned tips in an example question and see my
response to it. In one of my interviews, I was asked the following question:
"“Tell me about a time where you had to meet a challenging goal and you were
| 67
met with a time crunch”.
Following is my response and I have split it up into the different categories of
the STAR approach to highlight the different parts of the structure:
Situation: “I have a great story from my internship at PepsiCo, where I had
to deliver the work of two people within the same time period. The project
assigned to me was to quantify Pepsi’s overall economic impact in Pakistan
and I had 13 weeks to work on this project in conjunction with a co-intern
and we reported directly to the country director of communications.”
Task: “We are working fairly fine on the project. However, midway through
it, my co-intern had to leave the team and it was too late for a new intern to
be placed on the team. I was left alone to complete the work of two
people.”
Action: “To tackle this situation, I did two things. Firstly, I communicated the
need for additional support with my boss. Secondly, I recreated my entire
approach to the project. In terms of communicating with my boss, I told him
that I will require additional support from him in scheduling meetings and
getting data and whether he can allot me his personal secretary to set up
meetings etc. Given the situation, he was more than happy to give me this
option. Secondly, I revisited my entire approach to the project. For the
remaining 6 weeks, I divided the project into different workstreams and
made a schedule for each week. I realized that initially a lot of time was
wasted waiting for data to come from different sources. With my new
approach, rather than having to wait, I could work on a different part of the
problem each day and ensure higher productivity.
Result: “Ultimately, I was able to complete the work and deliver the project
on time. Although, I had to put in some extra hours and work a few
weekends, it was entirely worth it as I saw my limits being tests. I learned
through this process that a lot of the times we do not know our full
capabilities until we are put into demanding situations”.
I. Key takeaways from my answer
My answer as a whole is structured well following the star format. You
would also note that within my response too, there is an organization to
how the ideas are laid out. For example, within the actions I took, I divided
my actions into two categories and explained these in a top-down way.
Note that the traits the firms are looking for are tested throughout the
interview and you should take the opportunity to be structured in your
responses.
| 68
My answer is concise and to the point. I have not wasted any time telling
unnecessary details, yet the answer is comprehensive enough to give a
detailed story regarding the question asked.
The example shared is relevant. I carefully provided an example that would
carry some impact. I could have made a story around having to meet a
university project deadline, but this would not carry the same weight.
Sharing a story from a professional context, one that is very likely in real life
and in the consulting environment where I might have to cover for a sick
colleague while a deadline is pending, is a powerful example to share.
Further resources on this:
1. Rocket blocks article and video on consulting fit interviews;
2. Case Coach live fit interview example;
3. Management consulted fit interview prep plan;
4. My Consulting offer guide to consulting fit interview;
5. The Muse sample behavioral interview questions;
6. Crafting cases – “Why consulting – anatomy of the perfect answer”;
7. The Muse article on the star method.
Preparation scheduling tips
Now that we have an appreciation for what is tested in the consulting
recruitment process, how it is applied and what different resources are available
for preparation, following is a sample preparation timeline that students can
employ to calibrate their way through the recruitment process.
A. For seniors
Seniors ideally want to split their preparation into two key phases.
Phase 1 – Creating Familiarity with the consulting process and culture along
with some preliminary case interview-oriented preparation;
Phase 2 – Proper routinised case interview preparation.
I. Phase 1
Phase I is typically the summer before your senior year begins. I would
encourage prospective students to use this time to do as much research as
possible into the firm and to familiarize themselves with consulting terminology
along with the quirks of the job. I would recommend the following:
| 69
Watch every single video available on the YouTube Channel:
mconsultingprep.
Read through company websites and various articles put out by MBB firms
to assess if the kind of work they do is the type of work you will be
interested in.
Read some presentations by the blog: a consultant’s mind.
Read the articles and watch the videos on issue trees and MECE principle
by crafting cases (these were linked initially in the top-down thinking
section). The idea should be to apply these principles in your daily life.
Take some time to reflect on the traits mentioned in this book and start
applying them during your internship and other work.
I. Phase 2
Phase 2 is when you shift your focus from just researching the field to turning to
actively prepare for it. Within this as well, there are two sub phases, the first is
to build a theoretical understanding and the third is to apply that understanding
in fully structured practice.
(a) Part 1: The theory behind consulting
You should enter this phase once you enter the fall semester of university and
this should begin if you have decided that you want to actively and seriously
pursue a career in consulting. The following are some action steps I would
recommend:
Complete the free 7-day course on consulting by crafting cases. This is
possibly the best thing I used during the case interview preparation process
and it introduces you to the basics of answering case interview questions,
almost approaching the topic as a consulting101 university course.
Watch the videos on the channel firm learning .
Watch some live case interview walk throughs. I have listed some examples
below but there are several live interview cases on YouTube and these
videos are recorded case discussions between interviewers and
interviewees. The idea is not to just passively watch the video but to rather
actively participate in it. I would encourage all viewers to solve the case as it
progresses in the video and to pause it from time to time whenever a
question is asked. Before looking at the interviewee’s answer, say your own
answer out loud and compare it to theirs. The idea behind doing this
exercise is to get familiarized with the mechanics of how a case interview is
run before you actual do it.
| 70
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fuys5fWCxJM;
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlozAlvJTls;
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iPg7-NO97FU;
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aYB0PpIIftE;
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvy7Za4sAcE;
o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhNjFaGMpJk.
Start preparing for the PST if you are considering applying to McKinsey.
Also start making drafts of your CVs and cover letters. Your “first” final
draft should ideally be ready 10 days in advance of your deadline as it gives
you ample time for reflection and to institute changes.
(a) Part 2: Proper routinized case preparation
This phase should begin once your CV has been shortlisted and you are invited
for an interview or that you are almost guaranteed to land the interview (if you
are that confident). The crux of this phase is to prepare cases not for the sake
of adding volume of practice but to rather practice for the purpose of targeting
and improving specific skills. Within this, the following are my main tips:
Cultivate a close group of practice candidates. Find like minded people who
are just as serious as you are. It is okay to interview with a lot of different
people but eventually you want to have a core group of people who can add
a lot of value to you through feedback and to whom you can add the same
value.
If you can’t find people on campus, then look for people across other
universities or through online forums such as Facebook groups (like
management consulting network) or prep lounge.
Practice as many different industries and functions as you can and practice
from higher difficulty level cases.
Track your progress. I personally kept an excel based log of the cases I had
done to track my performance and to have a readily available list of cases I
had done. I also kept a diary to track my progress to write detailed
feedbacks.
Track your feedback. Without ample feedback, there really is no point at
practicing cases. You should know what mistakes you are making so that
you do not repeat them the next time. A lot of mistakes made in case
interviews are habitual and must be broken early on, otherwise they become
internalized and habitual too quickly. For example, a lot of people simply
| 71
take a lot of time to build the habit of asking clarification questions because
it does not come naturally to them. I would advise you to carry a diary and
to write detailed case debriefs and to revisit and reflect on your feedback
from time to time.
Don’t just solve cases, also practice being the interviewer. You can learn a
lot by also giving cases and detailed feedbacks to other people. By
observing other people’s performance, you can learn a lot from how they
solve their cases. Maybe you can observe things you want to incorporate in
your own cases or perhaps see things that you might want to steer clear
from. Furthermore, being the interviewer’s position also helps you
understand what mindset the interviewer will be judging you from.
Try to practice with successful candidates or actual consultants. When you
think you are ready, reach out to a person who has been successful in the
recruitment process in the past or who is currently working as a consultant.
This will be the ultimate test and will give you a good indication of where
you stand in your prep.
B. For juniors and below
Follow the above-mentioned advice but at the timeline described. There is no
reason for phase 2 of the process to occur earlier. Take the analogy of studying
for the SATs. You inherently study for the SAT throughout high school but do not
sit to actually study for the test a few months before the actual test, right? So, I
would recommend that you leave case prep to senior year. However, you can
get a head start on inherently studying and understanding the field of consulting.
The first step is just to read this book and to transcend onto the traits that I have
talked about and apply them as completely in your daily life as you possibly can.
Secondly, you can take a longer approach to phase 1 and simply spend more
time researching the field and internalizing key consulting concepts and tools
before you start applying them to the case interview. By the time the case
interview rolls around, you will be more than comfortable with the process and
begin your preparation with a strong foundation.
Author's top picked resources
Although I have linked to a lot of external sources throughout this guide,
following are my favorite websites and YouTube Channel when it comes to
consulting preparation material. If you are confused about where to get more
information, the following resources would be a good use of your time:
| 72
Crafting Cases -Website and YouTube channel that provides a lot of
theoretical and practical consulting preparation material; probably the best
and most quintessential free resource available.
Firm Learning– YouTube channel that focuses on practical content to be
successful in landing in a consulting role and being successful in first few
years of career.
Rocket Blocks – Website and YouTube channel that provides a lot of
insights into the consulting recruitment process through to the point videos
and a lot of guest appearances from ex MBB consultants.
Case Coach – Website and YouTube Channel that is run by former MBB
consultants. Provides a lot of live case interview performance material for
walk through practice.
Management Consulted –Website and YouTube Channel run by ex-Bain
consultant and has a comprehensive repository of articles and websites
covering all facets of consulting recruitment.
MConsultingPrep – Website and YouTube Channel run by ex-McKinsey
consultant. Has really well-structured content not only covering the
consulting recruitment process but also key consulting tools such as MECE
principle and its application etc.
Neel and Rohit– YouTube Channel that is upcoming and run by two current
Bain consultants. There are a lot of practical tips and live case interview
examples on their channel.
Prep Lounge –Online Forum and Case Interview Scheduling Platform that
has a plethora of QnA based resources along with a free consulting “boot
camp” that introduces students to key concepts required for case
interview preparation. You can also use prep lounge to schedule interviews
with people from all over the world for free.
| 73