Within the first part of your answer, try to give an overview of your three reasons and shortly mention your points. After that, you can jump into your reasons why you would like to enter management consulting in a more detailed way.
2. Content
Arguments that you should include and that you can discuss during your interview have been already mentioned above. However, it is important to support the reasons you give with either your passion for consulting or how you can add value to the firm. Maybe you can even add both to your reasons. However, we know that not each candidate can demonstrate a lot of work experience that shows off skills and achievements from prior jobs.
Demonstrating Your Passion for The Job
Your three reasons to “why consulting” should be supported by arguments that underline your passion for management consulting and show how you are personally convinced by the job. To prove that you did not just pick those reasons randomly, it is important to give a thoughtful justification. This explanation can come from your own argumentation and experience you have made before or from what you have heard in conversations with consultants from the firm you networked with. Here is an example of how the reasons could be articulated:
“I want to pursue a career in management consulting because of the people I will be working with. After some networking events with company XY and the conversations I had with a few consultants, I realized what a great impression those people left on me. I feel like the personal growth I would experience through being exposed to colleagues that well-articulated and professional is something one can only experience in this industry.”
“Further, I enjoy a continuous learning process and strive to conquer new and challenging tasks on a regular basis. From my last coffee chat with Person XY, I have learned a lot about the different projects company XY has been involved in. I noticed that those projects actually cover a lot of different industries which I am very curious to learn more about. Therefore I would like to work in consulting as I am convinced that this would allow me to work in an environment where ongoing change and new challenges are provided every day.”
As you can see from the examples above, the reasons to enter management consulting that you can mention in the interview can either come from yourself as the result of your own decision making by thinking through your experience and how this affected what you want to pursue in your future career. Or, on the other hand, the reasons can be a result of conversations you had with consultants from the specific firm.
Presenting Your Skills That Bring Value to The Firm
The next part of your answer should involve your skills and how these will bring value to the firm. Ideally, you also mention three different skills within your answer. Do not forget to prove your skills by mentioning examples and achievements. Skills that can be mentioned here are for example your problem-solving skills, your entrepreneurial spirit, or your leadership skills. You may want to use your consulting resume to get some inspiration for this part of the answer. Here is how you could phrase this part of the answer to “why consulting”:
“I believe that I am the right person for this job as I have demonstrated my ability to come up with ideas to solve complex problems. For example, when I was working as a data analyst in my last job, I created Excel models to forecast inventory with an 80% accuracy rate that decreased costs by 20%. On top of that, I have demonstrated entrepreneurial spirit and leadership skills when I developed and launched a gamified fitness-journey app with more than two million downloads in 2020 and leading a team of nine people.”
“On top of that, I love having a positive impact on the company I work for which I think I will have when pursuing a career in management consulting. In my last position at company XY, I found myself being highly motivated and stimulated by the fact that my ideas actually led to the better performance of the company. With my contribution sales grew by +9% in the Mexican market through a tailored marketing strategy and campaign roll-out.”
Here are some valuable tips by our case coaches: