Consulting Jobs: A two step plan to land that coveted job offer
Consulting | Mohit | April 9, 2010 at 5:47 pm
So, you want to be a consultant? That’s the question i asked a friend (a MBA graduate from a tier -2 business school in India) when he told that he was contemplating a shift to consulting. He had his basics right, however, no matter how hard he tried he could not land that coveted consulting job offer.
Last week, i sat down with him to grill down the reasons behind his failure to secure a consulting job ( or as most consultants would put it “I decided to conduct a root cause analysis“). Following were some of the things we (me and my friend) discovered during our little talk.
My friend had done his research, his target firms were the top three consulting firms (Mckinsey, Bain and BCG). He had tried applying through their respective websites, approached a few recruiters and even tried to network through networking portals. On the onset his approach seemed to be sound. However, as we dove a little deeper, the flaws in his approach became more apparent.
Though my friend had figured out his target firms, he did not have a clear or even a realistic strategy. Chances of a tier-2 MBA landing a consulting interview at one of the top consulting firms in India are relatively slim. He needed a more realistic approach to break into the consulting firms of his choice. My advise to him was simple 2 step plan.
1. Research,Collate and Analyze Data: I asked my friend to find out exactly what services do his target consulting firms provide their clients and then to understand and dissect each service. This meant doing an extensive research on company’s websites, forums, blogs and other public domain sources.
Once he was done with his research he had to figure out his area of interest based on his strengths. For example he had to figure out if he is good at numbers? or good with technology? If he is creative?. Though each service provided by consulting firms require all round personalities, people with certain traits tend to do much better in certain fields than others. For example a person good at crunching numbers and analyzing financial data is more likely to be relatively better at providing Financial Consulting Services than at say, Strategy Consulting Services.
Further, once he was done with selecting one or two services of interest, he had to find out exactly how consultants provide these services to their clients. He had to understand how a typical consulting assignment is conducted, what are the various steps that consultants follow to successfully provide the services to their clients. How does a consultant spend his day at the assignment? Such information is usually not available in the public domain, so his task was to try and network through to the right people or find forums where he can seek advise or seek a mentor and get the information he needed.
2. Prepare a New List of Target Firms: It was clear that without any substantial relevant experience under his belt, chances of him landing a consulting interview with the top consulting firms was extremely low. Therefore, we decided to come up with a new list of Consulting Firms which were smaller (or even start ups) that provided similar services (as researched in the previous step) to what the top consulting firms provide their clients. The idea was simple, he had to get relevant work experience by getting a job at one of his new target firms and acquire the relevant skills.
At this point my friend had an interesting question, Why would the top tier consulting firms consider me the second time around? he asked. Though there is no certainty, however, by having the right experience in the right field, a potential candidate comes across as a focused candidate, one who knows exactly what he wants. Such candidates are more likely strike a chord with the recruiters than say, a MBA graduate with a keen interest in consulting.
To summarize the main point of my post, to land a coveted consulting job, one has to become a consultant first, the thought process is critical. Dissect problems, Find solutions, Deliver value.
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I would say a Step-3 which would be to network with the right people from these target consulting firms. Its very beneficial to do that if you feel you have a decent profile but may not be from an IIM. So, before you submit your application, some people would at least recognize your name. However, I personally believe that IIMs are over-hyped in India.
Mohit thanks for excellent tips – very pragmatic and realistic in my opinion