How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Prepare for a Consulting Career

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How To Land a Job

in MANAGEMENT CONSULTING
1

An Introduction Guide

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting - An Introduction Guide 2nd edition

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contents
Introduction

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

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Recruiting Process

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Preparation to interview rounds

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Case example

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Introduction

Introduction
Getting into management consulting is extremely competitive. You need to have excellent qualifications. But this is far from enough. These great credentials need to be presented in a professional cover letter and resume in order for you to make it to the interview rounds. The interview rounds include as much as six separate interviews, where it is expected that you can provide recommendations and solutions to real life business situations with only limited information. No wonder that most applicants find the application process intimidating. Preparation is essential to make it through the eye of this needle. The purpose of this guide is to provide newcomers to management consulting with a simple overview of the application process and guidelines to practicing case interviews. The paper is far from exhaustive on the subConsultingfact.com aspires to be the number one online resource for management consulting application and interview preparation. We develop tools and products that will help you land your dream job in management consulting. Consultingfact.com was founded in Copenhagen, Denmark by a former management consultant from McKinsey ject but it is a great place to start your preparation efforts. The goal of management consulting is to offer advisory services to corporations, private equity houses, government agencies and NGOs. These organizations often face

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Introduction

questions that they are unable to answer due to lack of resources, lack of competence, or simply because they need an external perspective. The top tier management consulting firms like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company typically work within several practice areas including:

What Do Management Consulting Firms Look For?

Knowing what management consulting firms look for is a prerequisite for writing a great application and acing the interviews. A great place to start is always at the consulting firms website. For example, McKinsey looks for skills in problem solving, achievement, personal impact and leadership whereas Bain judge their candidates on criteria such as the ability to add value along with client skills and team skills. We believe that there are key skills and personal characteristics that all management consulting firms look for regardless of how they communicate their requirements.

Practice Areas:
Change management Corporate renewal Corporate strategy Cost & supply chain management Customer strategy and marketing Growth strategy Information technology Mergers and acquisitions Organization Performance improvement Private equity

As a new consultant, you can expect to work within all of these practice areas and across numerous industries. Your learning curve will be steep. Not everybody will make it to the partner level, but a few years with a consulting firm is an excellent investment regardless of where you end up. We can definitely recommend it.

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

The Six Success Factors in Management Consulting

Structured thinking The ability to think in a clear and organized way. This is useful for problem solving and analysis. Math skills also fall in this category and are often used to exemplify structured thinking skills. Business judgment Have a good judgment of business and strategic issues. This is important for case solving a key management consulting discipline. A good way of practicing this is by reading business media and trying to understand the underlying issues behind different news stories and their respective strategic choices. Communication: Both written and oral communication skills are important in management consulting. In this pre-interview phase you should focus on your written communication skills. Be clear and to the point in your written and oral messages. Personal impact: Personal impact is hard to define, but think about it sometimes you are around people who are good at influencing others. As management consulting firms look for future leaders, they will look for that leadership talent in you. Team skills: Cooperation with other people is essential as a management consultant, you work in project teams and are surrounded by both clients and coworkers. These must be demonstrated while you are presenting during an interview, whether they are explained or shown through actions. Drive and motivation: Know what you like and go for it. People should have a feel that you are motivated for a career filled with challenging assignments and long hours, and that you can maintain drive even when the things get tough.

Recruiting Process

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Recruiting Process
The application process at each of the major management consulting firms is very similar. There are three main components: the application itself, possibly a written test, and case interviews. A candidate needs to master all three components to receive the offer. Pre-interview Cover letter Resume

Pre-Interview
Less than 5% of applicants make it through to the interview rounds. Some applicants are simply discarded based on their qualifications, while others are sorted out due to sub standard cover letters and resumes. The key purpose of the cover letter and resume is to present your value proposition in a professional manner. A few things to keep in mind when writing your resume and cover letter are:

Written test Combined verbal and written test

Case interviews Market estimations Business cases Brain teasers

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Cover Letter and Resume Tips

Customize your cover letter to the specific firm. Each firm is different from the others. Research the firm you are applying to via the internet or by attending one of their company presentations. The management consulting industry is very conservative, hence keep your cover letter and resume design simple and professional. Colors and fancy fonts etc. are no goes! Proofread and proofread once more. Make sure your grammar and spelling are correct and please check that you have not committed the common mistake of writing a wrong firm name. Reading an application to McKinsey with a Bain name in it will immediately get you discarded no matter of qualifications Send your files in the PDF format to ensure that your format is received exactly as you intended. A PDF printer can be found free on the internet.
The top consulting firms receive more than 200,000 applications every year. Typically, the first screening of an application does not take more than 45 seconds to complete. It is therefore important that your application is focused and structured, so that the recruiter immediately gets a positive impression and quickly finds the required information. devices (e.g. calculators or computers) when performing calculations.

Case interviews
The case interview is a classic in management consulting. The purpose is to test the candidates ability to perform problem-solving and effectively communicate and present findings. Problem solving skills include business judgment, quantitative skills, creativity, logical reasoning, and the ability to structure an analysis. These are all skills that are highly useful as a management consultant. In real life consulting, the client often puts you on the spot by asking a question that requires problem-solving skills. The case interview form is a great way to test how a person per-

Written Test
Most management consulting firms also test their applicants via a written test. The written test usually consists of various numerical and verbal multiple-choice questions. These are often very similar to what you would see in a GMAT. Be aware that most firms do not allow you to use any electronic

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

forms under pressure, i.e. if he/she easily gets frustrated when challenged. Management consulting firms are very diligent in their recruiting, so expect two to three interview rounds equivalent to five or six separate interviews.

Business case Real life business problem

Estimation case Market sizing Volume and weight estimation

Types of cases
During a case interview, the interviewer may use any or all three of the available case interview types. The business case is by far the most common of the three, since the case is as close as you can get to real life management consulting. In a business case interview, you will be presented to a business situation on either industry level or at firm level. A business case can cover all practice areas within a management consulting firm.

Brain-teaser Various puzzles

Business Case Examples

Company A produces refrigerators. The company is a private equity owned company and wants to double its revenue within 3 years. What do you recommend the company to do? Company B produces wind turbines. The company is the global market leader, but has recently experienced declining market shares. What do you recommend Company Bs management to do? Company C produces pumps. Due to increasing global competition the company needs to expand its manufacturing capacity. The company is in doubt how to do this should they expand their existing facilities or should they build a new plant. What do you recommend?

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

A business case is sometimes combined with an estimation case. An estimation case sometimes also known as market sizing case allows an interviewer to test your logical and quantitative skills. The aim of an estimation case is to estimate a quantity of some sort. This could be a market size measured in USD or a volume unit. Other examples could be to estimate the numbers of hairdressers in the US or the number of dogs in the UK. Common for all of estimation questions is

that the interviewee needs structure to get to a reasonable answer. A third case interview type is the brainteaser. Brainteasers are very seldom the sole case type in an interview. A management consulting brainteaser is hard to define, since the category includes a wide range of different questions. Examples of brainteaser could be:

Brainteaser Examples
Why are manholes round? Imagine a 6x6x6 rubiks cube. How many cubes can be touched?

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Still haven't applied to a consulting firm?

The competition is tough. Top Tier Consulting Firms receive more than 200,000 applications every year.

Take a look at our guide to Management Consulting Cover Letters and Resumes. We will show you exactly what to include in your cover letter and resume, how to structure it, how to write it, and how to format it. Proper structure makes it more likely that the recruiter will easily find the information required. The design is also very important. This is challenging for a conservative industry, so you really need to hit the balance here. We will show you examples of good-looking applications that demonstrate your knowledge of proper consulting presentation.

Management Consulting Cover Letters and Resumes 6 Steps to a Successful Application: www.consultingfact.com/guides/cover_letter

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Preparation to interview rounds

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Preparation to interview rounds

The consultancy interview rounds can be rather demanding. It is likely that you will need to work on several different development areas to reach your potential for the interviews. Depending on your current level, we recommend 2-6 weeks of daily practice to learn to apply all necessary concepts in real interview situations. It is crucial that you prepare these four areas for your interview rounds: We will go through these different areas in the following sections. The best way to practice these is to ally yourself with a friend or a management consultant who can practice case interview tests with you.

Case frameworks
Frameworks are helpful for the case interview solving process, as they allow you to quickly have an idea of how to approach a case problem. Be aware that you will often not be able to find a framework that fits the case problem exactly, so always try to use your common sense in combination with one or more frameworks. If you have studied business or economics, then you are probably already familiar with some of the necessary frameworks.

Case frameworks Mental math Case cracking practice Communication skills

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Below are some of the key analysis areas where you need a framework: Company analysis Market analysis Strategic options Venture Mergers and Acquisitions Pricing Revenue growth Cost reduction

During the interview process, you need to be aware that you should not communicate that you are using a framework. The interviewer would like you to use your own problem solving skills, so it wont help you to say something like I will use Porters Five Forces to analyze this market Once you have found information about a specific framework required, you should draw it and try to remember the visual details. Visuals are usually far easier to remember than trying to remember specific word contents of a framework. Below is an example for the pricing framework.

Price determination framework

Cost-based pricing
Added profit margin

Competitor pricing
Competitors prices vs. features

Value-based pricing
Willingness to pay

Current costs

Price of substitutes

Perceived value

The framework above is really simple and this is important! For the price determination, we could have made a framework taking up a few pages. However, you have limited time in a case interview both to solve the case, and to communicate the answer. Therefore, it is important that you ask yourself: what are the key questions that I need to answer using this framework? And for pricing, the different points above are the most important ones to mention.

Once you have found and illustrated the key frameworks, you will need to memorize these. A good way to do this is to draw them all once every few days. By doing this, you are forced to think about the specific content of the framework. This method will quickly give you results, and you should feel more confident in the case solving situation when you can see the framework in your mind and can focus on filling in the different answers.

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Mental math
During the case interview, you will need to do a good amount of mental math for market size estimation, case calculations, brain teasers or outright math calculation questions. For this, you will need to practice the following areas:

450 / 25 without using paper. In addition to this, practice your paper math skills for more complex math questions. Percentages and fractions are important, and you will almost certainly need these during the interview. There might be questions requiring you to estimate a growth in percentage or to divide some numbers. In the latter case, knowing the decimal result of most common fractions is important. You should memorize the results of the fractions from 1/5 to 1/20. It is very likely that you will be presented to some charts during the interview either as part of a case solving, or as a very specific question about what you can read in a chart. On the next page you can see the examples of some of the different types of chart that you should quickly be able to read.

Addition, subtraction, multiplication and division on paper and mentally Percentage arithmetic Fraction arithmetic Currency conversion Chart reading Of course, the interviewer will not expect that you can solve complex math problems mentally, but you should be able to do more simple calculations like 17x22, 229 + 128 and

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Bar / Line Chart

Pie Chart

Stacked Bar Chart

Cascade/waterfall chart

100% Stacked Bar Chart

Marimekko Chart

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

There are many situations in your everyday life where you can practice math skills. The key is to get into a mindset, where it feels more natural for you to work with numbers mentally. Below are some examples of real life situations where you can practice:

Case cracking practice

It is actually quite easy to structure the case solving process. During our career, we have met many bright candidates with a good business sense and excellent mental math skills but who did not make it through the interview process due to a lack of basic structure. Follow the following the below 10 steps when solving the case: 1. Take notes while the interviewer preents the case 2. Repeat the key case question to the interviewer to ensure that you understood the objective 3. Ask any clarifying questions 4. Ask the interviewer for a little time to structure your thoughts 5. Draw the case framework and think about what information you need to make a recommendation 6. Present the framework 7. Discuss the topics and ask for further clarifying questions for any relevant parts of the framework 8. Present the solution and answer the case question based on the discussion 9. Ask for the interviewers solution 10. Ask for feedback

When shopping add the numbers in the shopping cart in your head, and see if you can match the correct result When filling gas look at your gas meter and calculate what the price would have been, if you had chosen another type of gas When travelling practice currency conversion

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

When the interviewer presents the case, listen carefully and take any necessary notes. The interviewer will expect that you remember any information or numbers that he gives you. Of course you can forget single pieces of information, but it is a very negative impression to give if you repeatedly ask for information that the interviewer has already provided. Try to involve the interviewer as much as possible in the solving of the case. Often, you will receive hints that will help you and you can present that you are able to receive input and being able to present clear recommendation based on the discussions. It is easy to get out of track if you insist on running the show entirely. Do not be afraid to ask for time to think through the solution. We have many times seen candidates who start with case solutions immediately after the interviewer is finished with stating the question. This is a clear no-go! It is hard for you to confidently present a framework and solution, unless you take some time to think it through. You should not be afraid to take two minutes time to do this. Once you have discussed the solution, remember to wrap up the discussion with a clear recommendation. The discussion might 19

make you change your recommendation, so this step is important so that the interviewer can see that you are able to process and summarize your analysis.

Communication skills
Communication skills are one of the most important success factors for a management consultant. It is crucial that you show the interviewer that you are a true communicator. Make sure that you remember to smile no matter how the interview goes and who the interviewer is. This sets the mood and it is usually contagious. Also, remember to display confidence by using slow gestures while you speak, sitting straight, and keeping a good eye contact. The confidence part is really important during the case interviews. Another thing is to dress correct for an interview. Recruiters say all the time that candidates should stand out based on their qualifications and not their wardrobe, but it is doubly important in the management consulting sector. As a management con sultant you will be dealing with executives from high-ranking companies, hence the interviewer will want to make sure that you can put forth the company image in how you act and dress. Forgetting this for the interview may mean you could forget it in a client meeting.

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

How to dress for an interview

Skirts, Dresses and Suits
Pastels, print patterns and other designs are great for the weekend when you are with friends. Keep them out of your wardrobe choices for your first management consulting interview. In fact, the standard black or charcoal suit from a mid to upper level designer for men may seem like an uninspired choice, but you want to create a canvas that the firm sees as able to meet their goals. Pair it with a sedate white or light blue shirt and a blue, yellow or red tie. Women will likely benefit from pant or dress suits that are conservative in cut and allow them to work without adjustment. Shoes should not look like they came from Sex and the City, either. More so than the clothes themselves is the attention to detail in preparing them. Have your clothes professionally cleaned and pressed prior to the interview. Make sure that all shoe wear is polished and free from dirt. Above all, make sure that there are no rips or stains on any items you plan on wearing

Hygiene and Haircuts

Nail biting, long haircuts and poor skin quality are not necessarily the signs of traits that management consultants aspire to hold. Make sure that your hair does not cover your ear if you are male and does not come close to touching your collar. For grooming, focus on the things that interviewers will notice first, nails that are free from excessive nail polish for women and not bitten down to nubs for men. Males who need to shave infrequently should time it so there is neither stubble nor razor burn.

Jewelry
Family heirlooms and gifts from friends and relatives may have a personal meaning to you. This is also the case for class rings and other signs of membership. If they seem gaudy or ostentatious, though, you set off warning signals. Keep the jewelry to watches for men and perhaps a ring, and simple earrings for women in addition. Large gemstones can also be a bit overpowering in setting a first impression. With all those aspects marked off your checklist, you can be sure that your responses to questions will be what the recruiter remembers most, not the striped shirt that belongs in a club or disco.

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Case example

How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

Case example
The case below focuses on pricing, and is a real life example. You should be able to see Our client is a global airline which has proven successful with their efficient operations, even during the recent financial crisis. They are now considering starting a flight service between Paris and London. There is a larger effort ongoing in making a business case for this flight service and you have been giving the assignment of pricing. How should the client price its tickets? Candidate: So, our client is a global airline considering launching a flight route between London and Paris, and they want to know how to price the tickets? Interviewer: Yes Candidate: Can you give me more information about the flight and service, and how deep pricing considerations you need? Flight tickets can have very different classes and prices, also depending on the time of purchase. Interviewer: Thats a very good point. This flight is a discount-only flight, so there is one discount class on the whole flight. We will operate with fixed prices when customers order the tickets at latest 1 week prior to departure. Then the price will increase but lets forget that and find a baseline price. Candidate: Alright. Can I have a minute to structure my thoughts? Interviewer: Sure Candidate: There are three ways to decide a price: value based price, cost-based pricing and competitor-based pricing. As these are discount tickets in a competitive market, it would not make much sense to use value the structure used here and get hints on how to structure your own case solution.

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

based price as the price levels would be given to us from the current market. So there are two ways in which we can price discount tickets. I assume that there is a significant competition already with other airlines, and there are also substituting products. So we need to look at the alternatives and use competitor pricing as input. Also we need to make sure that we cover our costs. Interviewer: Sounds like a good approach. Our costs would be EUR 45 per passenger. This will include all variable costs, as well as staff, flight lease and airport fees. Candidate: Alright, so we will need to look at the competitors offerings. There are three types of alternatives: Other airlines, the Eurostar train service or driving by car. Do you have any information about the prices? Interviewer: Yes, the other airlines charge between EUR 40 and 60 for discount airlines, and the traditional flag carriers charge EUR 50 70 for discount tickets. The Eurostar train service has varying prices between GBP 70 and 100. The price to get a car through the tunnel is EUR 50. How will you do the analysis? Candidate: First task is to compare the different competitors prices vs. features so that we are comparing the right things. I would not include the car product as this is simply a different product in terms of costs, time and convenience. I will assume that almost

all competition comes from other flights and the Eurostar train service. It is important to compare with the relevant alternatives when pricing. I would not include the car alternative, as the product. Interviewer: Ok, fair enough Candidate: First we need to calculate the price of the Eurostar in to EUR in order to make it comparable. I know the exchange rate for EUR/GBP is approximately 1.10. Does that seem reasonable? Interviewer: It is reasonable estimate, but I can give you the actual exchange rate. Currently it is 1.13 Candidate: So we say 1.13 times GBP 70. That equals EUR 79.10. GBP 100 times 1.13 equals 113.00 Interviewer: Right on Candidate: Now we need to adjust the price of the alternatives with the product content. I am assuming that the alternative flights use the same airports, hence the product is directly comparable in regards to convenience and time. The Eurostar train travels slower than the planes, but since the train departs and arrives at the city centers of London and Paris, it is actually faster and more convenient. This means that all other things being equal, the consumer should be willing to pay a premium for the train ticket. This means that train price of EUR 79-113 serves as an upper

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bound in this pricing exercise. Interviewer: Ok Candidate: Next we need to look at complementary products that can be sold with the tickets Interviewer: Why are you interested in that? Candidate: Well, I noticed that our competitors can sell tickets below our cost base and that made me think that there might be some additional revenue per customers. For example revenue from baggage handling, car rent, hotels and similar Interviewer: True Candidate: I would estimate this additional revenue to be EUR 5 per passenger on average Interviewer: That is a rough estimate, but okay Candidate: This means that from a cost perspective, the lower bound is not EUR 45 but EUR 40. Based on the analysis we can now

make a comparison: Alternative discount flights: EUR 40 -60 Traditional flag carriers: EUR 50-70 Eurostar train: EUR 79.10 - 113.00 Based on my analysis, I would recommend the client to price its ticket between EUR 40-60 i.e. similar pricing as the direct competition. Interviewer: I came to a similar conclusion, but I still have one question: Why do think the price is given as a range and not as single data point Candidate: Well, there can be multiple explanations for that. The price range can represent differences in service levels, timing of the flight, brand equity and the carriers choice of distribution channel. Interviewer: Okay, I think we covered most elements of the case, so let us stop here. Thank you very much for time. We will get back to you with some feedback.

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How To Land a Job in Management Consulting

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