I have a PhD in pure science and just passed CV screening for an IT consulting role at BCG Platinion. No background in ERP, CRM, IT architecture — none of it. I'm honestly not sure why they found my profile interesting, and I'm trying to figure out how to approach both the behavioral interviews and the case prep.
A few specific questions:
1. Did your interviewers actually expect you to know IT concepts going in, or is the focus really on structured thinking? How much did your technical background from a non-IT field actually come up?
2. For behavioral questions — how did you translate academic/research experience into consulting language? Were interviewers receptive to PhD stories, or did they want more "business" examples?
3. For cases with a tech/IT angle — how do you handle it when you don't know the domain? Is "I'd approach this from first principles" actually a valid answer, or does it come across as a cop-out?
Any advice from people who made a similar jump (science/academia → IT consulting) would be especially valuable. Thanks in advance.
