Consulting 101 — Part 2
A series of articles on landing a consulting job after an undergraduate degree
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this article which gives an introduction to consulting, drop by there first! In this article, I will briefly talk about the rounds of selection to land a consulting job at any of the top 3 consulting firms (MBB). I will also talk about the standard timeline for preparation.
Contents
- Rounds of selection
- CV shortlisting
- Buddy rounds and interviews
- Timeline
Rounds of selection
To get a consulting job through the standard process, consulting firms mainly follow a 3 step process: CV shortlisting, buddy rounds (may or may not be evaluative), and interviews (2–4 rounds). Each of these steps are eliminative and the final interviews are taken for around a 5:1 shortlist: final hires ratio.
CV shortlisting
The CV is arguably the most important part of the process since it is the stage at which the maximum number of applicants get eliminated. CVs are shortlisted by partners in the firm who have experience with activities and extracurriculars of that particular college/campus and use a certain set of acceptance criteria to select CVs. While an excellent CV does not guarantee an offer, it gets you in the door, serves as a conversation point during interviews, and might even be used as a tiebreaker while making the final decision. On an average, around 1 in 15 resumes are shortlisted for the further rounds. Shortlisted students usually get a hamper of goodies(!) from the firm. I received a hamper embossed with my name on each of the items from BCG.
Buddy rounds and interviews
Buddy rounds — Buddy rounds are a number of sessions (2–3) that are held between each shortlisted candidate and a consultant at the firm wherein students are given details about the hiring process, introduced to case solving, and also able to learn about the culture and opportunities at the target firm. Buddy rounds may or may not be eliminative (depends on time constraints and company policy). Ideally, this is the best time to clear any and all doubts you may have about the firm and its working, identify your priorities in terms of consulting firms, learn how to solve cases and what your target firm in particular is looking for, and learn about new and exciting things happening at that firm that you can potentially discuss about in your interviews.
Interviews — Depending on the firm and your performance, 2 to 4 rounds of interviews are taken on D-day, starting with a principal, followed by a partner and/or director, increasing in hierarchy. Based on their joint feedback (with weightage increasing with hierarchy), offers are made to students. These rounds are also eliminative, with each round around 25–30 minutes long, with the following breakdown —
- First 5 mins — Intro and context setting
- 20 mins — Case
- Last 5 mins — HR + end of interview questions
Timeline
The rough timeline that I followed was as follows (depends on each person’s ability, preferences and quality of feedback received during cases but this will give a rough idea) —
CV making — Week 7 — Week 6 before the final interviews (I already had preliminary content ready from my prior CVs which I could refurbish to make my consult CV without having to start from scratch)
CV reviewing — Week 6 — Week 5 before the day of
Case prep — Week 4 — Week 1 before the day of
HR prep, case revision — Week 0
This should be enough for a brief overview of the entire process. In the next part (3), I will go into detail for the first step of the process, i.e., the resume. Read on here!
