Ref: Applying to Tier 3 Strategy Consulting firms

Question

Hi,

I am a 1st year PhD dropout in Strategy from a Top 30 Business School in the US that graduated an MBB alumnus. I am also an alumnus of an executive program in economics from a consistent Top 10 FT ranked economics department. I was ranked no 1 both in a nation-wide engineering math test and a postgraduate analytics program from the best engineering school in the country.

I have close to 5 years of experience in operations research and 2 years of leadership experience as a tech founder. My work has been at the intersection of strategy, economics and agent-based modeling and simulation. I will apply as an experienced hire with industry exposure to tech and manufacturing. Here's my profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashant-deshpande1/

I am interested in applying to UK, Europe and ANZ offices in a couple of months. I have research connections in the UK; I have solo-authored a conference paper in strategy, a theoretical abstract in optimization and a leadership article in simulation. I will soon have 2 patents pending at the USPTO. I had a look at the list of firms here: https://www.preplounge.com/en/articles/london-consulting-firms.

Is there a way that I can have a decent shot at interviews at tier 2/3 strategy consulting firms? Thanks for your time.

Regards,

Prashant

Answer 1

Hi Prashant,

From what you shared your profile seems solid.

You will have to work on two main parts to land an offer in consulting.

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STEP 1: GET THE INVITATION

There are three main things you need to be invited for interviews:

A great CV
A great Cover (not always required)
A referral – the more senior the person the better

A) CV

The key elements they will look for and that you have to optimize are:

University brand
Major
GPA
Work experience
Experience abroad
Extracurriculars and volunteer experience

For experienced hires like you, the university part becomes less relevant while the work experience is key.

Red flags include:

Low GPA
Lack of any kind of work experience
Bad formatting / typos
3-4 pages length
Lack of clear action --> results structure for the bullets of the experiences
Long paragraphs (3-4 lines) for the bullets of the experiences with irrelevant details
Long time gaps without any explanation

B) COVER

You can structure a cover in 4 parts:

Introduction, mentioning the position you are interested in and a specific element you find attractive for that company
Why you are qualified for the job, where you can report 3 skills/stories from your CV, ideally related to leadership, impact, drive and teamwork
Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons
Final remarks, mentioning again your interest and contacts

In part 2 you can write about experiences that show skills useful in consulting such as drive, problem-solving, leadership, teamwork and convincing others.

It is important that in part 3 you make your cover specific to a particular firm – the rule of thumb is, can you send the exact same cover to another consulting company if you change the name? If that’s the case, your cover is too generic.

C) REFERRAL

To find a referral, you should follow three steps:

Identify the people that can help you
Write to them a customized email
Have a call and indirectly ask for a referral

You can find more information on the steps here:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

If you need help with getting an invitation please PM me, I do a session where we can optimize everything you need for an invitation (referrals included).

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STEP 2: GET THE OFFER

I usually recommend the following to prepare:

Define a calendar for your preparation. Identify how many hours you have before the interview and allocate a time slot for preparation in your calendar for each day, working on the points below. Many candidates need 100+ hours to be ready before the interview so you can keep that as a benchmark
Read Case In Point or Case Interview Secrets for a general understanding of what a consulting interview is. Don’t focus on the structures proposed in the books, as they are not good enough nowadays
Start reading good MBA Consulting Handbooks – you can find several for free online (Insead is a good one to start). Read the cases and try to apply your structure to solve them. Whenever you see there is something missing, upgrade your structure with the new insight. Try to read at least a new case per day – in this way you will absorb better the information with constant learning
After the first 5-10 cases in books/handbooks and basic theory, start to practice live. PrepLounge can be helpful to connect with other candidates for that. There is a relevant part of the interview score that is based on your communication, which you cannot practice at all if you read cases only. Keep track of your mistakes and see if you repeat them. If so, try to identify the source of the mistake (feedback from experienced partners would be particularly useful for this). Be sure to focus on both the fit and the case part. The case part should also cover market sizing, math and graph analysis
Before the interviews, be sure to prepare your questions for the interviewer – a great way to show you prepared in advance and to connect with the interviewer for a good final impression

If you want to spend few hours only instead of 100+ and cover everything mentioned above, I developed a program precisely for that. You can click on the link below to learn more:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/case-coach/profile/2433#coaching-package

After this program, you will know exactly what to expect in the interview, what to work on, and how to focus on the real differentiator to land a top consulting offer.

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Please feel free to PM me if you need more information.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi Prashant,

First of all, congratulations on this impressive career trajectory!

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

From my perspective, given your vast work experience, I would advise you to properly network with people of your target consulting companies to find out what entry-level position, area of expertise and what region would be the right for you.
Moreover, given your career trajectory, I would advise you to equally apply to Tier 1 consulting companies since there is always the need for experienced industry hires.

In case you want a more detailed discussion on what might be the most meaningful entry-level position for you, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Answer 3

Hi Prashant,

The short answer is that if you don't have working rights in these regions, this is going to be extremely hard to pull off, especially in the current covid/border environment (sorry). Tier 2 / 3 could make it a bit easier though.

That said, there's no harm in networking! Reach out to consultants and recruiters in those companies/offices and have calls with them. Ultimately, see what they say! (And get your resume in 10/10 shape to maximize your chances).

You may have to start in India and then aim to get transferred a few years into the role.

Best of luck to you!

Answer 4

Hello Prashant,

congratulations on your achievements, really impressive!

I am an experienced hired myself with MBA earned at business school ranked 30th at FT, hence let me share with you my experience and my view.

I think you have a chance even with the top-tier consulting considering you have already consulting background and leverage your core strengths in research, math, tech. While checking your profile, it looks to me like you could eventually fit into Gama: https://www.bcg.com/it-it/beyond-consulting/bcg-gamma/default. There is always a need for your type of profiles in top tier consulting.

Another option would be joining the Knowledge team, where a research background is highly desirable.

About application process: most of the offices required local language skills and having the work permit for the country you apply to, BUT if you would be an appealing candidate with very specific skills/expertise for a specific area/competence center, then the consulting would sponsor the visa and local language is not needed (my case for example).

I think there are plenty of options for you as an experienced hire, usually success depends knowing where and how to apply, as it is just not so straight forward as junior staff. if you would like to know more, please feel free to reach out directly, I would be happy to support you.

Lucie

Answer 5

You are a bit “old” which means its hard to fit you in the right rank given that you have a lot of experience, but not a lot of relevant strategy consulting related experience.

Additionally, if you need to get a VISA… that's going to be even harder. They will need to sponsor someone they need to train and who presents a decent chance of not being able to adapt to strategy consulting.

Having said this, I believe you have a chance to get an interview even with Tier 1, although it would be particularly important to get a recommendation in order to secure an interview.

Hope this helps,
Pedro