Question “Give me an example of a good product and not so good product. Why is one better than the other?” What is this question about? This product management (PM) interview question tests whether you understand product design principles. Is your evaluation of products guided by principles of good design? Are you able to articulate […]
Category: Consulting
Associate Product Manager (APM) positions are well known in Silicon Valley as rotational, mentorship-focused programs designed to accelerate the careers of young aspiring product managers. Typically, they feature perks like rotations on various teams, face-time with leadership at the company, and strong alumni communities with robust networks. But how do you filter and come down […]
As addressed in my article from last week, non-MBA graduate students face a comparatively more challenging journey in their quest to enter the management consulting industry. That being said, I know plenty of non-MBAs who have received offers from prestigious consulting firms, and so I thought it would be helpful to share some strategies that […]
An MBA degree has long been known as a robust pathway towards accessing management consulting career options. Yet, what about other graduate degrees in comparison to an MBA? Having been a student ambassador for a program at my university’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, I have had plenty of conversations with prospective students asking […]
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4 Types of Consulting Firms
If you’re trying to get into consulting, it can be more than a little confusing trying to understand the various types of firms and their practices. In this post, you will learn about the 4 major types of consulting and the firms that are typically associated with them. 1. Strategy Consulting This is the type […]
Amid the intensity of recruiting for consulting, few stop to think what it will really be like once they’ve achieved their mission to get into a top-tier consulting firm. With their eyes on the prize, and a single-minded focus, many gloss over the details of what day 1 and 300 will look like. I’m included […]
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Introduction to Case Interviews
If you’re applying to a consulting firm, be ready to get acquainted with case interviews. Almost all consulting firms include the case interview as part of their recruitment process. In fact, it can play a huge role in deciding if you get the job. Even non-consulting firms are utilizing case interviews as part of their […]
Management consulting is a professional service offered to organisations which aims to help internal management improve operating performance. Consultancies are brought in to tackle individual problems (falling revenue, rising costs, geographical expansion, product launch, M&A) or to evaluate the company through a deep dive analysis. The management consulting value chain encompasses strategy (idea origination, analysis […]
During the recruitment process for consulting internships and full-time positions, I went to countless presentations given by consulting firm representatives who explained the consulting industry and made sales pitches about their firms. They brought up important points, such as diversity of work opportunity, mentorship structure, and even frank conversations about work life balance. Yet, what […]
Let’s face it. A major portion of the consulting case interview tests your quantitative skills. Why? Consultants work with a lot of data and can spend a significant amount of time crunching numbers. So your interviewers want to know that you’re comfortable with math and have strong analytic reasoning skills. Here is a play-by-play of how you […]
Having a great mentor is critical for personal skill development, especially early in your career, and so I wanted to share the guidelines that my mentor provided me to follow in 2019 to become a better consultant / strategist. As a brief introduction, my mentor spent two summers at Bain & Co. as an Associate […]
When two companies are going through a merger or an acquisition (M&A), the branding strategy is often the last thing that senior management thinks about, wrongly assuming that it’s more a creative decision than a business call. This is a huge mistake. There’s no clearer signal to the market regarding the intentions behind the M&A […]
Is a job in consulting really what you expect it will be when you are a student, knee-deep in case prep and coffee chats? In this series, we hear from new consultants who were recently in those shoes, and what their experience has actually been like during the transition from the dream to the day-to-day […]
In an ideal world, your business would be judged on the quality of your service. However, humans are visual creatures. A nicely designed business proposal suggests 3 things: You are a true professional You pay great attention to detail You take pride in your work The three things above increase the likelihood of winning work. […]
For those of you who signed a consulting offer, congrats! The hard part is over. Now there are just two more important decisions that you need to make. What start date should be requested and what should be done with the soon to be very scarce free time prior to starting? Post-graduation start-dates generally range […]
In my last blog post I wrote about how new grads can navigate interview season when they finally receive a consulting interview they’re excited about. You can find the full article here. After this post was published, students reached out to me asking for examples of ‘fit’ questions. Interview questions are commonly split up into […]
Leadership. We are all told it is important. There are libraries worth of books written about it. Yet, more often than not, people have a hard time defining it and understanding its relevance because of its all-encompassing nature. For prospective consultants, this blog post will provide some clarity on what leadership means in a consulting […]
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Tackling the Case Interview
“Case study interviews put you in the driver’s seat: you’re given a real business problem to work through and solve. The logical reasoning you use to work through the case is just as important as the conclusions you reach” (The University of Sydney, 2019) Every year, consulting firms get hundreds of applications and the human […]
Hypothetically, the fastest way to secure a consulting role after higher education is to do a consulting internship and then get a full time offer, or transition into another consulting offer with the ability to demonstrate you know what consulting is about. Yet, just because you didn’t do a consulting internship this past summer doesn’t […]
Back in 1985 when Back to the Future II was first released, we all thought hoverboards and flying cars would be our future. Flash forward over 30 years, much of the tech that the film predicted has come true. But one thing it didn’t get right was the flying cars; instead, the closest thing we […]
Despite their expertise, many consultants struggle to close deals. Writing a consulting proposal that closes a sale can be challenging, and as a result it may be difficult to figure out why your proposals are getting rejected. In this article, we will look at seven tips that will improve your success rate so that you can […]
‘I think it’s very important to have a feedback loop, where you’re constantly thinking about what you’ve done and how you could be doing it better. I think that’s the single best piece of advice: constantly think about how you could be doing things better and questioning yourself.’ — Elon Musk, founder of PayPal, Tesla, […]
So maybe you’ve gotten to the second round, maybe you’re still waiting to hear back, or maybe you’re hoping to interview again in the next recruitment cycle. Regardless of whichever bucket you fall into, it always helps to see things from the interviewers’ perspective. Here are the top three things they’re looking for: 1. Intellectual […]
As a business major in college, I became familiar with the world of consulting early on. But for those who come from non-business majors (science, engineering, arts, law, etc.), the path to consulting may seem daunting. Here are 4 tips that I’ve picked up over the years which will help you pursue the consulting track. […]
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Interview Season for New Grads
It is easy to put a lot of pressure on yourself during interview season, especially when your classmates are receiving interviews for firms you’re interested in. Have patience though, your time will come and the wait will be worth it. This blog post is mostly about what to do when you receive an interview at […]
We have updated our lists of consulting firms in key markets: North America, UK, India, and Australia/New Zealand. If you are an aspiring consultant, these lists can help you narrow your focus and target a few consulting firms that are right for you. Below are links to the relevant documents. Happy job hunting! Consulting Firms […]
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The Smart Intern – Seeking feedback
In the previous article on ‘The Smart Intern’, we broadly talked about seeking feedback and working on it fast as the time available during your internship is limited. We also discussed the fine balance that one needs to strike between improving fast and not nagging for feedback. In this article, we will explore how to […]
When you’re interested in working at a consulting firm, there are clear things you can do to prepare: meet associates, prepare for case interviews, and do your homework on what sets the firm apart from its peers. These steps are relatively straightforward, but what happens when you finally get your foot in the door? The […]
The fundamentals of doing well in a case interview are pretty well known and accessible. It is essentially everything that is in the case interview bibles of Case In Point or Hacking the Case Interview. As an aside, as someone who did not have prior consulting experience, I personally found the lesser known, Crack the […]
Box Car Social on the Harbour front in Toronto, Canada I recently sat down with my friend, Jesse, over a cup of coffee to learn more about his experience as a Deloitte consultant over the past 5 years. Jesse completed his HBA at the Richard Ivey School of Business and upon graduating accepted a job […]
Graduates flock to the consulting industry for the opportunity to work on interesting cases, get experience across a variety of industries, and build a valuable professional skill-set. But there’s an emerging threat to this value proposition, and it’s coming from within. If you happen to know a young consultant at a top tier firm, you’ve […]
“There was a doctor from Boston and a lawyer from Chicago, a philosopher from Australia and an engineer from France. There were people who had Ph.D.’s in mathematics, sociology and astronautics. In fact, in the tiered classroom filled with 50 clean-cut, casually dressed people in their 20’s and 30’s, there seemed to be just about […]
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Picking Among Consulting Offers
When fortunate enough to have more than one consulting offer, a common sentiment is to go for the firm that is more prestigious or pays the most (oftentimes those go hand and hand). However, I always recommend that anyone who gets more than one consulting offer should think beyond prestige and pay. It is wise […]
One of the most vivid memories I have from my early consulting career was the time a Chief Operations Officer (COO) nearly torpedoed my first engagement. It was a corporate reorganisation that involved taking 8 major divisions and around a dozen support units and rebuilding them into a simpler organisational structure. By the time the […]
The clients won’t be household names. Compensation for your volunteer consulting work is at an exciting zero. Worst of all, it will be just another project that competes with school work, networking, and sleep for a piece of your time. Yet for graduate students seriously considering a consulting career without prior professional consulting experience, I […]
As an undergrad embarking on my first management consulting internship, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. On campus, I was involved in a consulting organisation where we did project work for clients, but I questioned if the skills I gained would be transferrable and applicable. It didn’t feel “real” enough. Upperclassmen who had done […]
In the previous article on ‘The Smart Intern’, we explored the reasons for networking during the internship including to pursue the goals of understanding the full-time hiring process, achieving visibility, and creating advocacy within the organisation for your full-time hire. In this article, we will take a deep-dive into this goal-based networking process, explore other […]
This article focuses on how to conclude well in your case interview. It is part 2 of a 3 part series. If you haven’t read part 1 yet, what I would do is pause reading and look at the following link, which covers four great tips on how to improve your conclusion. What I’m going […]
This article looks at concluding your case interview well. It is the last part of the three part series. I truly hope these articles help you succeed in case interviews and win the job you truly hope for. Before you read this article, you might want to read Part 1 and Part 2. Compare and […]
In the last instalment, I wrote about a fundamental resource within high performing companies, people, and the ways in which internal and external motivation can direct the knowledge sharing process. You can read the full article here. I also claimed that managers have the power to motivate people working within an organisation to increase their […]
Today I’m going to talk about a very important aspect of the case interview, which is your conclusion to the case problem. The conclusion is often the aspect that doesn’t get the attention it really deserves, just like the introduction. There’s a Nobel prize-winning economist named Daniel Kahneman who has done a ton of research […]
If you think that you can relax after getting that fabulous MBA internship offer from your dream company, then you are partly right. While it’s important to relax after your internship hunt marathon, the smartness doesn’t lie in dealing with things as they come. It lies in planning in advance and dealing with deviations from […]
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So you want to be a consultant …
It’s now January, and as the MBA internship recruitment season shifts into full gear, here are some tips from someone who went through the consulting recruitment process last year. (Note: These tips are geared towards MBA1s, but are applicable to anyone interviewing with consulting firms.) Rule #1: Have a solid pitch By now, you already […]
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7 Networking Mistakes to Avoid
When it comes to recruiting the three big criteria are: networking, application package (cover letter, resume, and transcript), and interview. Even after you get a job, networking is still one of the most essential life skills to have. Either we shy away from it and allow ourselves to be outshined by others, or we grab […]
All organisations engage in marketing activities: you have to show your customers you have something they want, after all. For top-tier consulting firms, there are two primary marketing efforts – the first, marketing to attract entry-level recruits, is quite visible. Firms regularly visit target school campuses, and buy online advertising on LinkedIn and Facebook to […]
As I start my consulting career, some of the questions that I keep coming back to are: How can I stand out amongst all of these high achieving and well educated individuals, especially in the beginning? What skills do I need to develop? What are the keys to longevity at my firm and the greater […]
Most consulting firms are wrapping up their recruitment process for this year and offers have been sent out. The hard skills help you do the analysis, but once you’ve got an answer, you need client buy in. To get client buy in, you almost always need exceptional soft skills. As a result, the consulting firms […]
This post is a continuation of my look at what you need to know to succeed in the consulting application process. From asking several of my friends for advice, who have all had internships and job offers from the Big Three and Big Four consulting firms, it’s clear that there is a common denominator to […]
As Alexander Graham Bell once uttered: before anything else, preparation is the key to success. The saying may sound clichéd, but there is still much truth in it almost a century later. In a competitive field like consulting, it’s important to stay ahead of the game if you want to have an advantage over the […]
Mark Twain, the fiction writer, first popularised the phrase “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics”. Twain erroneously attributed the line to a British Prime Minister, who in fact, was never recorded saying any such thing. It’s fitting, given what I’m about to describe, that one of the best-known claims about […]