Regarding prospect of employment in top consulting firm

Hi Srishti,

Q: What should I do now? I would love to hear your suggestions.

If the only option you have is India due to languages and visa and you cannot use campus recruitment, the best thing would be to find a strong referral and optimize your application material before you apply there.

If that doesn’t work as mentioned by Udayan, you can work in a strategy role or similar target job for a few years, do an MBA and then apply again.

If you want to be invited for interviews with MBB you should work on 3 things: a strong CV, a strong Cover and a referral.

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1) CV

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

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

The fact you don't have consulting experience is not a problem if you structure your CV correctly.

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

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2) COVER LETTER

You can structure a cover in 4 parts:

1. Introduction, mentioning the position you are interested in and a specific element you find attractive for that company
2. 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
3. Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons
4. 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.

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3) REFERRALS

To find a referral, you should follow three steps:

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

You can find more information on networking and referrals here:

▶ How to Get an MBB Invitation 

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BONUS: INTERVIEW PREPARATION

After you managed to get an invitation you need to find out how to pass the interview. You can find more on that at the link below.

▶ How to Prepare for an MBB Interview

Good luck!

Francesco

Hi there, 

Sorry to hear about the problematic context. 3 ideas here to consider: 

1. You could apply in other geographies

Don't only think of Russia and India. I've worked with several Russian candidates applying to the Middle East. You could do the same. Other international offices such as Singapore could be another option, though passing the screening is more difficult. Here are also two guides to make this process more successful:

How to get a job in consulting during an economic downturn

How to network and get referrals

2. You could pursue higher education

An MBA would be great because it opens a lot of doors to someone in your situation. The better rated the school is, the better your chances.

3. You could get into a smaller firm and then a later transfer

Lateral transfers between firms are easier than transferring from the industry straight into MBB. Consider joining a smaller firm for 1-2 years and then stepping into MBB.

Best,
Cristian

Hi Srishti,

First of all, I am sorry to hear about the situation you are in at the moment!

I think this is an interesting question that may be relevant for many people. I would be happy to share my thoughts on it:

• First of all, if you only have one option left which is applying regularly to MBB in India, I would highly advise you to do so, yet ensure that you submit the best possible application, including polished application files and a strong referral.
• If, however, you are not successful in your applications, I would advise you to continue working in business development or maybe even corporate strategy to further strengthen your profile for strategy consulting while gaining relevant work experience.
• Lastly, and contrary to what another coach has said, I would not generally advise you to join an MBA program since we do not have enough context about your situation, both from an educational, work-related, and financial perspective.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare your application files, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Hi Shrishti,

I'm so so sorry to hear about your situation. Truly - it sounds very tough.

I have to agree with the others here. It does sound like you do have to return to India and build up your career there.

Please remember that this isn't always a one-and-done thing. Success isn't binary. Moreover, with a 3.2 GPA your odds were not going to be amazing even without the war.

Accept that this might be a longer journey whereby you're going to have to gain more experience, get promoted, worked at a Tier 2. I'm not saying don't shoot to Tier 1. But, just reset expectations a bit.

And, as you do this, work hard, have the best resume possible, and network extensively.

Good luck to you!

Hi Srishti,

in addition to what has been said, I would advise you to also look at the Middle East Region (Dubai). A lot of business with Russia is funnelled through this Region right now. So your (I assume) language skills & cultural experience is something they value there.

Andreas

Hey srishti

its unfortunately what is happening in Russia and it’s impact on international workers. 
 

My opinion is that if you want to get into mbb your best bet is to work your way into a top 15 MBA program and leverage that to get in. This will take a few years but is the best path for success. 
 

Other alternative is to work in a job where you can become a global expert on a field and leverage that to get into Mbb. This is typically harder to do especially I imagine in Russia given current situations. 

You can apply anyway - and they'll look at your CV. But in your situation you really have to network to get a referral and put your foot on the door…