If you are looking to get into consulting, there are several ways to gain experience during your graduate studies. You can take classes, enroll in the graduate consulting club, or volunteer for pro-bono consulting projects. You can also participate in case competitions, which are in a league of their own.
Each case competition is different depending on the organization behind it. However, the commonality between all case competitions is that they give you a real taste of the consulting world. First of all, you will most likely need to travel to a new school or company to give your presentation. You will need to work in a team, and take on certain responsibilities and tasks. You will also need to present a viable solution, backed by data and be ready to answer specific questions about your recommendations.
Case competitions have a specific timeline, as do real consulting cases, hence you need a dedicated team to win them. If you see a case competition that you want to apply to, careful consideration needs to be taken when selecting team members. Usually, case competitions have 4 to 5 team members. To maximize your chances, you may want to select people with specific skills, each described below.
1. Market Researcher
Whatever prompt you are given, it will involve an industry, country, or business problem that at least one of your team members has not faced before. That is the beauty and challenge of consulting. You need someone with the ability to synthesize information in a way that helps your team members complete their respective duties. The market researcher should be the go-to-person when you need a specific number from a reliable source.
2. Data Analyzer
Most cases revolve around data. Hence, your team needs someone who is great with numbers. In some case competitions, you cannot ask further questions – meaning you work with the data you are given. The perfect data analyzer should be someone who knows how to look at a number and consider all of the potential variables involved. For example, if the problem states that marketing expenses are eating up 60% of the overall outlays, the data analyzer will not simply assume that they are spending too much on marketing. Instead, they would crunch the numbers further and work together with the market researcher to examine the average spending on marketing in that industry, check for unusual changes in the last few months, and analyze the correlation between marketing spending and revenues.
3. Visual Designer
Case competitions are evaluated by a committee. Members of the committee probably come from a range of different industries including university professors, board members, and C-level executives. Regardless of their background, they will be judging your proposed solution by listening to what you are saying and by looking at your PowerPoint slides. They will probably see a new presentation every 30 minutes, so you need to make a strong impact in order to stand out and be remembered. That is where the visual designer comes in. It is critical that you have a team member who understands the importance of color, shape, and placement in a PowerPoint. This can make or break your case. This is why case competitions nowadays even have awards for “Best PowerPoint Presentation”.
4. Team Coordinator/Public Speaker
One of your team members should be comfortable with public speaking and be able to answer any questions thrown their way. In a case competition, no matter how much you prepare, some questions may come completely out of left field. Saying “I don’t know” is not a good move. Your team’s speaker should be an outgoing extraverted kind of person who always manages to find a way out of tight situations. If it is a four member team then this person would ideally be the team coordinator who makes sure everyone completes their tasks on time.
The bottom line
It is important to participate in case competitions in order to gain experience of how consulting projects work in reality. It can also help you to build your CV and give you interesting material to draw on for interviews. In order to win a case competition (which would be ideal) you need to carefully select your team members. Make sure to pick a team of people who bring market research, data analysis, design, and public speaking skills. This will give you the greatest chance of success.
Tringa Krasniqi holds an MBA degree from The George Washington University. She is the founder and consultant at Ivy Journey, an educational consulting firm for gaining admission to universities and winning scholarships.
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