Hi there,

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: I have a consulting survival guide handbook with 25 key tips for surviving the consulting world. Feel free to message me for it!

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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

Congratulations on your offer at BCG!

Great to see that you want to improve your skills to ensure a smooth transition to BCG.

Just some quick input on your points:

1. Enhance the speed of reading decks: If PowerPoint slides are written well they should have an action title. This title should explain to you the key takeaway from the slide. 

2. Organized Excel sheet: This depends strongly on the sheets. But if you need to create excel sheets then I recommend you first to create a framework. What is the objective? How can the excel sheets help answer this? Once this is clear it can support both you and the reader of the excel sheets to understand the relationships. 

3. More concise slides: As mentioned in point 1, good slides have valuable action titles that tell the story. The content of the slides should be supportive. What I usually do at the end when creating a ppt deck is to copy all headlines to a word document and read through it. Then I ask myself if it is understandable and if the story makes sense. If so, move on to the individual slides and review if they are indeed supportive of the headline. 

Good luck preparing and enjoy working at BCG!

Hi there,

Congratulations on the offer! Below are my suggestions:

1) I was slow in reading through the decks/materials and summarise key takeaways

It is difficult to answer without additional information, but in general always start with the end in mind. Clearly define upfront what exactly you are looking for in the slides – this allows you to skip irrelevant parts.

2) Unorganised generation of excel sheet

I would recommend the following:

• Define your plan of action in advance: what do you want to obtain as output? This should help you to structure the Excel before you add any data
• Review Excel templates to help you to have a quick start

3) When making slides, don’t know how to be as concise as possible. 

The easiest way to improve on this is to

• Create a reference deck with good slides that you can use for inspiration
• Use the structure of the sample slides whenever you get stuck

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Below you can also find some general tips for your first weeks:

1. Take notes when your manager tells you something – this will help you to remember details and will show you care about them to the team.
2. Always double-check. The first impression is very important in consulting (and in any industry in general): if you show you are reliable from the beginning, you create a reputation of a reliable person. Double checks should be done on expectations for your job, your Excel analysis, your slides – basically everything.
3. Define priorities before starting any set of tasks. The majority of the results usually come from a subset of activities – this is true also for your tasks in consulting. You have to identify which they are and prioritize them – the application of the so-called 80-20 rule or Pareto Principle. Alignment on priorities and expectations is particularly important with your manager at the beginning of the project.
4. Socialize with your colleagues and start to build a network. Consulting (most likely also your new industry) is a people business and you should build a good network both within and outside the company. A good start is key to develop good relationships long-term. More difficult to do during COVID – but there may still be opportunities for virtual gatherings. Try to take advantage of as many as possible to build connections.
5. Organize your private life activities. You want to organize your calendar to leave some space for personal activities (sport/ friends/ family). This is not easy but can be managed if you organize well, and long-term will be critical to keep a balance between work and private life. Also, it is better to align with your manager/teammates from the beginning on your core needs, so that there are no surprises later­ on.
6. Ask for feedback every two-three weeks – this will show you are proactive and willing to learn.
7. Ask for help when you don't know what to do – better to let know you are in trouble with meeting a deadline than missing the deadline.
8. Be social and respectful with the support staff – these people are great and influential as well in the company.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hello!

Congrats of that offer!

If there is one thing I wish I had done before joining McKinsey, that would have been Excel. It can really be a game changer, so I would really focus on that (more than pptx, industry knowledge, etc., that are nice-to-have, but not deal breakers).

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 -unfortunately now we cannot post the adress but you can find them easily-

Microsoft Support: support.office.com/en-us/excel

Kubicle: kubicle.com/personal (go for the 7 days free trial - Excel for Business Analytics)

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Dear candidate,

it seems you know yourself well already. 

a) I would practise top-down communication in verbal conversations and in writing. So mention the conclusion first then the supportive facts. Be ready to contribute when speaking to partners and engagement managers for example when you are at the office or on projects, in meetings etc. Be ready to network a lot in your first 2 years at the firm to set yourself up for success overall. 

b) Practise managing your own workstream, so being a leader yourself. 

c) And personally simplify any aspect of your life you can to support the likely lifestyle you way find. Stay motivated, you landed a great job and will do terrific. Your existing experience means so much. 

d) I would use the materials on Preplounge to practise the areas you mentioned a bit. You can even use peers and set up meetings, you interview them and in return they can go over some practise slide decks or excels of yours. 

e) In particular take any of the free courses available on storylining, consulting skills, communication and you should be ready to go.

If you run into any specific questions while doing so, let us know.