How to be prepared to start new role in one month?

Question

I will be joining a financial consulting firm in 1 month, and my role will be focusing on M&A related strategy (a new product line). All of my managers' background is from finance/accounting, and no one in the team has a management consulting background. Since this is a new product line and the firm is more biased towards the financial side, I am worried that I will not get enough formal training and guidance through the job. (This question is focusing on the "strategy" & "consulting" side of this role.)

I would like to seek advice on how to be prepared to start this new role? I have been taking excel and PowerPoint courses and doing cases practices. Would like to hear some advice on how to be better equipped with essential skills that consultants need in the first few months of their career. Any suggestions on how to systematically improve problem-solving skills, hypothesis thinking, and storyboarding? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Hi,

I think what you describe is more than enough. Take a good vacation and try to relax.

The most important thing you need to understand is that consulting is a client business and client is always first. Here is my subjective view of what's needed to succeed on different levels of hierarchy. Pls take into account that it's the ideal state and getting these skills is a journey.

Analyst / associate level

Having a good DGL / career counselor, etc. (Each company has different names). This is a person who guides your development in the company, collects the feedbacks on you, and presents your case to a promotion committee. Make sure to have a person who is organized enough to collect the feedbacks in time, who is a nice person in general and who has enough authority in the company (i.e. Senior partner - the more power he has - the better)
Choosing the project you work on smartly (i.e. collect the feedbacks on each and everyone prior to accepting the project)
Perfect technical skills (Excel, PPT, Problem Solving)
Good feedbacks on you from the client. Thus try to make friends with your clients (Both senior and non-senior role. Even a bad feedback from a blue collar can ruin your career)
Ability to manage your own standalone workstream with minimum supervision. TOP performers bring the end products that impress others
Being proactive - helping the team with daily routine, scheduling, etc. Participating in the office initiatives
Establishing relationships with your managers and partners. Ideally, you should have multiple senior partners to be excited about you and to support you)
Being lucky!

Manager level

A lot of the above, plus:

Having your client happy - this is the most important! If the client is happy - everything else will work
Managing multiple partners who have different opinions. Since partners have a busy schedule it becomes very tricky to synchronize them and to align the viewpoints
Good feedbacks from your team - having a happy team is important. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a trade-off between having your client and partner happy
Telling about your success on projects to others - I'm personally not a fan of this kind of selling, but I know many people who made a career using this skill

Best!

Answer 2

Hi there: Great attitude!

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Know that no-one can perfectly prepare for the job and that's the point: You will mess up, you will learn, you will be trained and supported. That's OK!

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First: Read the 25 tips in my consulting handbook here: https://www.spencertom.com/2018/01/14/consulting-survival-guide/

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Second: In terms of things you can learn/do to prepare beforehand:

1) Daily Reading

The Economist, The Financial Times, BCG/Mskinsey Insights

2) Industry deep-dives

Learn, in-depth, how the industries/companies your office advises, work. (PM me for an industry overview template)

3) Analytics tools

Alteryx, Tableau, etc.

4) Excel

5) Powerpoint

Best practices/standards
Different layouts
Quickly editing/updating slides
Thinking in PowerPoint

6) Presentation skills / sharp communication

There are some online/virtual classes for this

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Third: In terms of doing well in your role when you're there:

1) Understand the context/prompt (what role are you in, what company, who's watching, etc.)

2) Understand the objective (what, specifically, is expected from you...both day to day, and in your overall career progression)

3) Quickly process information, and focus on what's important - Take a lot of information and the unknown, find the most logical path, and focus on that.

4) Be comfortable with the unknown, and learn to brainstorm - think/speak like an expert without being one

In summary, there will always be a flood of information, expectations, competition etc. and not enough time. Find out which ones matter when. (i.e. be visibile and focus efforts on the things that people care about)

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Fourth: Here are some great prior Q&As for you!

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/what-makes-a-good-consultant-how-to-get-a-good-review-6790

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-hard-is-it-to-excel-in-top-consulting-firms-6762

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/how-to-become-an-engagement-manager-and-partner-quickly-6722

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/need-to-learn-skills-in-the-ample-free-time-before-starting-at-an-mbb-what-should-i-do-6774

Answer 3

Hello!

Congrats of that offer!

If I could have prepared somehow, it would have been deepening my Excel skills for sure

Excel skills are part of the core skill-set of consultants, and it´s great that you want to practice them. PFB a list of the most popular commands:

Basic operations: SUM, SUMPRODUCT
Text transformations: CONCATENATE, LEFT, RIGHT, & operator,
Connecting different datasets: VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX(MATCH(),MATCH())
Conditional-based operations: SUMIF, COUNTIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, COUNTA
Learn how to analyze data using Pivot Tables

There are plenty of online materials:

Microsoft Support: https://support.office.com/en-us/excel
Kubicle: https://kubicle.com/personal (go for the 7 days free trial - Excel for Business Analytics)

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 4

Hello, you have your offer and this is the most important at this stage. Congratulations for that.

If this consulting firm wants to recruit you, it is because they believe in you and your ability to ramp up properly. In your place, I would not put myself under pressure and I would wait for the onboarding / welcome training process. Indeed, consulting firms are excellent for regularly integrating new people.

That doesn't exactly answer your question, but I hope it's still useful.

David

Answer 5

Dear A,

First of all, my congratulations to your MBB offer, I wish you best of luck in your career.

For candidates like you, who have already secured the offer with a leading consulting firm, I have designed my program "Get ready for the first 100 days " as well as long-term career planning. This program touches all the important aspects: the mindset, the skills, knowledge, networking and ,managing yourself as well, your bosses and clients - everything that is important in your successful career.

In fact, I'm sharing my knowledge of 6 years career experience in consulting, where I was able to land on the fast track promotion and to be promoted from consultant to a project manager just within 3 years, which is extremely fast.

Happy to share these insights with you, feel free to reach out directly to me.

Good luck,

André

Answer 6

One great way to work on problem solving skills is through Case Dojo (https://casedojo.carrd.co), a free service that emails you original market sizing questions with solutions hand-crafted by MBB consultants.