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bharath, Welcome to the Consulting Forum! Obtaining a role with a management consulting firm is difficult at the best of times. Your question is a good one, where are the entry points? How do you get your foot in the door? The specific types of roles offered by each firm will differ slightly, so you should check out individual firm websites. Consulting firms generally offer opportunities for experienced professionals (e.g. see the McKinsey website). There would seem to be three possible entry points: Consulting Role: Consulting firms generally offer opportunities for experienced professionals to work as generalist consultants on in a specific practice. For example, note that McKinsey has a functional practice that focuses on marketing and sales. Research roles: You could use your previous experience to apply for a research role. This would involve providing knowledge and research to support consultants who are working on client projects. Support roles: This is probably not what you are looking for. However, for completeness, note that consulting firms do also hire support staff (e.g. IT, HR, admin, professional development). Does that help?

In his new book Thinking, Fast and Slow, Kahneman takes us on a journey of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional, while System 2 is slower, more deliberate, and more logical. Kahneman looks at the impact of loss aversion and overconfidence on corporate strategies, the difficulty of predicting what will make us happy, the challenges of properly framing risks, and the effect of cognitive biases on our ability to make investment decisions. The flaws in our thinking can be understood by appreciating how the two systems of the mind work together to shape our decisions.

Here is some insanely helpful information about the McKinsey interview process, as well as preparation materials. This information was provided by a McKinsey Recruitment Coordinator. The round one interview consists of the McKinsey Problem Solving Test, followed by two interviews. 1. Preparing for the McKinsey Problem Solving Test The McKinsey Problem Solving Test is a 60-minute, 26-question multiple choice test designed to help McKinsey learn about your ability to think through the types of business problems McKinsey consultants face. You will be presented with three scenarios based on actual McKinsey client cases. The exercise should also provide you with a better idea of what consultants do. You do not need to bring anything with you for the test (calculators are not permitted). To help you prepare, please find attached an official McKinsey practice test, along with a coaching guide. 2. Preparing for your interviews Interviews at McKinsey are challenging. As with any challenging objective, good preparation is essential. McKinsey encourages applicants to spend as much time as possible preparing for interviews so that you can demonstrate your best qualities on the day. In particular, McKinsey strongly recommends that you follow these preparation guidelines: Visit the McKinsey website where you will find a comprehensive set of support materials. Watch the online video carefully, as many times as you need to. This represents the type of interview that you will have with McKinsey, and contains plenty of tips on how to approach the discussion with the McKinsey interviewers. Prepare for the experience interview: Think carefully about situations you have been in where you have needed to use the types of skills described in the video. These may or may not be the types of experiences you have outlined on your CV. Be prepared to discuss these experiences in great detail with your interviewer, and try to focus on your specific contribution and actions when describing them. McKinsey recommends that that you discuss situations where you felt challenged and stretched, as these are the ones that will demonstrate your true potential. Prepare for the case interview: The case studies McKinsey discusses with you reflect the type of work its consultants do. Practice some case study examples. Take time to think through your answers and challenge yourself to develop an organized and structured response to the questions. If you are not confident about your numerical ability, practice some basic numerical problems, as you are likely to be asked about numbers and data in the interview. 3. During the interviews You will most likely meet with two McKinsey consultants, each of whom will discuss your past experiences and a case study with you. There will also be time for you to ask the consultants questions regarding McKinsey or regarding your career choices more broadly.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bmodEjtvnQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRUvbrOtd-c

Clayton Christensen is the author of The Innovator's Dilemma.

Hi Michele, Thanks for joining the Consulting Forum! You are looking for the best resources for case interview practice. There are quite a few different resources available, here is a list of some of the best materials that I have identified: 1. Books The two best books that I've found are "Case in Point" and "How to Get Into the Top Consulting Firms". You can take a look at them on the Bookshelf: click here. 2. Paid Online Resources Victor Cheng's "Look Over My Shoulder" audio guide for Case Interview Prep is very helpful. Although it does come with a price tag of about $298. 3. Free Online Resources Victor Cheng's "Case Interview Secrets" is a very good 6 hour video guide for Case Interview Prep. Extremely helpful, and free. 4. Free Online Practice Questions Online case interview practice questions 5. Other Resouces? If anyone knows of other resources, please share.

Hi all, I recently spoke with someone who had dealt with NERA Economic Consulting in Sydney. The firm is strong internationally (link: click here), but based on what I learned they are very small in Sydney and struggling with internal morale and with building their business in Australia. This is of course only hearsay, but I would be interested to know whether anyone has information which would corroborate this view. Best regards, Tom

Trader, Welcome to the Consulting Forum! I have spoken with a few investment bankers about your question, and my understanding is that you should approach market making firms. Examples include: IMC, Optiver, Liquid Capital, SIG, All Options, Tibra, Chicago Trading Co., Wolverine, Peak 6, Ronin, Spot Trading, and DRW. Alternatively, try any of the prop trading groups at RBS, Morgan Stanley, etc I would be interested to hear thoughts from other people. Hope that helps. ~ Tom

Rory, Welcome to the Consulting Forum! ~ Tom

Take away lessons that can be applied to improve your marketing: 1. understand your customer It doesn't matter what you're selling, you just have to think about who is your customer, and what are the messages that are going to get them to change their behaviour.

Have you ever seen a font which you really liked, and wanted to use in your website, book, or advertisement? Here are two tools to help you work with fonts online: What the Font: If you see a font that you like online, you can upload a copy of the image or link to the image url, and this tool will help you determine which font is being used. Click Here. Alphabetical Font Index: Sample hundreds of fonts online. Type in the text you want, adjust the font size, colour, and language. Grab the image, and use it in your website, book, or advertisement. Click Here.

Free online tools for selecting, modifying and mixing colours. These are potentially very helpful for graphic design, web design, or corporate branding work. ColourExplorer: click here - ColourExplorer is a free online tool for working with colour palettes. This is a great resource for selecting individual colours, and extracting colour palettes from digital images. HTML Colour Mixer: click here - A very basic html colour mixing tool which allows you to mix any two colours (provided you know the hex colour codes). If you don't know the hex codes, you may need to use ColourExplorer (see point 1). Colour Scheme Designer: click here - This website does what it says, it helps you design colour schemes. You can invent new colour schemes by spinning the colour wheel. Spinning the colour wheel is pretty fun and, if you spin it fast enough, the hypnotic pattern of the changing colours may give you the just the inspiration you need to come up with some psychaldellic new designs ... Or maybe not.

tekk, Sorry, I really didn't answer your question, I just posted some links for you to look at. Based on the information in those links, here is my view: 1. Starting salaries: For top tier consulting firms, I expect that we're currently looking at starting salaries of $75K+. Can anyone verify this? 2. Salary by city: Salaries definitely vary by city. My estimate of $75K+ is for Sydney, other cities are likely to be lower. Hope that helps.

tekk, Thanks for your message! Here are my preliminary findings for consulting starting salaries in Australia. Let me know if you find any other more helpful information. Australia Firm Spy: 2010 Graduate Law Salaries in Australia. This is a helpful reference because graduate starting salaries for the top consulting firms in Australia are typically higher than for law firms. Whirlpool: Accenture Graduate Program 2012. Search "salary" and see the relevant discussion starting with the question posed by kingsurf about half way down the page. USA Management Consulted: 2011 Management Consulting Salaries. This is for the States, but is a helpful reference. I would be interested to hear from other people on this. Hope that helps. ~ Tom

Name: GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) Details: A free software graphics editor primarily used as an image retouching and editing tool. GIMP can accomplish image editing tasks such as resizing, editing, and cropping photos, photomontages combining multiple images, and converting between different image formats. Website: http://www.gimp.org/

tekk, If you say in your cover letter that you will follow up in 10 days, then you should definitely follow up. There is no science behind waiting exactly "10 days". Although it seems like a reasonable amount of time because it gives the company you've applied to time to respond to you first, and when you contact them again in 10 days it doesn't seem like you're harassing them because you're just following up like you said you would. ~ Tom

Patrick, My understanding is that you need a greencard in order to work in the States, and transferring with an employer could be a good way to get one. Travel.States.Gov sets out information that may help you understand the US system a bit better. I understand that there are various categories of nonimmigrant visas for people who wish to work temporarily in the US. Two visa types that may apply to you are: H-1B Persons in Specialty Occupation which requires the theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge requiring completion of a specific course of higher education; L Intracompany Transferees who, within the three preceding years, have been employed abroad continuously for one year, and who will be employed by a branch, parent, affiliate, or subsidiary of that same employer in the U.S. in a managerial, executive, or specialized knowledge capacity. For a more detailed explanation of Temporary Work Visas: click here. Hope that helps.

Hi Shanthi, Thanks for joining the Consulting Forum! I don't have the answer, but the best place for you to ask this question is on Whirlpool: http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/ It is an Australian internet and technology discussion forum with over 450,000 members. Hope this helps. Best wishes, Tom

1. Resume: If you have credits I would leave them off. You don't want to draw attention to credits. See this post: http://www.tomspencer.com.au/2009/12/13/creating-a-winning-resume/ 2. Part time study: If you are relying on your masters to make you "attractive" to the top firms, then presumably you couldn't get a job before you've finished your masters. That being said, the top firms are looking for talent. If they like you and hire you, then you can almost certainly build in flexible working arrangements to study a masters part time. In my experience, retention is important to the top firms.

Ayes, Good question! The best I can currently do is to point you to 4 links that will help with the "maths questions" you are likely to be asked in the case interviews: 1. http://www.consultingcase101.com/tag/math-problem/ 2. http://www.tomspencer.com.au/2010/05/16/the-guesstimate-question/ 3. http://www.tomspencer.com.au/2010/05/17/12-tips-for-nailing-the-guesstimate-question/ 4. http://www.tomspencer.com.au/2010/06/13/approaching-the-guesstimate-question/ If you have come across other resources, please let me know. Warmest, Tom