Strategy to integrate a Tier1/Tier2 in April 2021

Question

Hello everyone,
Graduated with 3 masters, I’m a french engineer (not a target school) with a double degree in aerospace manufacturing in uk (#5 in uk for this field but not a target school) with an advanced master in international project management (#3 Business school in France, target school but not for my master)!
I have 6 months of manufacturing experience in famous aeronautics firms and will start a 6-month internship in a big 4 within the operations practice (advisory).
I will finish my internship at the end of March 2021 and my goal is to start as a junior in Tier 1/2 in April 2021. I try to leverage my profile with my dual competencies in engineering & business and a specialisation in operations... I have 3 months free before my internship.
Can you help me to define how can I use effectively this time?

- PREPARING INTERVIEWS
CASES:
Already Done: read 2 books (including case in point) + whole boot camp on preplounge + casebooks from universities & did more than 60 cases simulations as an interviewee
Planned: work more on my weakness (maths, exhibits, be more adapted to the case) + casing in English instead of french (~ 3 cases/week). I have some difficulties in English but take private lessons.
FIT:
Already Done: presentation for all my experiences & 20 basic questions + 3h with a coach from my school & train through fit simulations + lot of real interviews recently to find my internship
Planned: work on my answer to be more brief & relevant + prepare PEI questions in case of interviews at McKinsey
TESTS (reasoning/maths/excel):
Already Done: mental calculations + train for excel
Planned: Not sure how to prepare tests... It looks very difficult to prepare imbellus e.g.
1. train for classic tests with a tage-mage book (calculations, reasoning and logic parts) + with PST tests or BCG potential test in internet
2. Prepare for online cases with project simulations on preplounge?

- OBTAIN AN INTERVIEW
I don’t have a target background so I need to work hard on this part too...
RESUME & COVER LETTER: Should be ok, I took the consulting templates from my school and an alumni will review them! Moreover, I put specific facts for every firm and mention a cold call with a consultant.
NETWORKING: I started to contact consultants with a focus on alumnis or people in operations & aeronautics. Most of them answered me and we had a nice call (~ 20/30 mins).just to know more about their career & firm.

REFERRAL? I read on other topics that I should ask referrals. I feel very uncomfortable to ask for a referral. Should I contact consultants until one proposes to refer me? I keep in touch with every consultant in LinkedIn, is it weird if they see that I already contacted 3 consultants of their firm?
I didn’t talk again with them after the calls... To help them to remember me, should I try to have a mock interview in a few months? Saying “We had a nice chat in June that motivates me to apply to your firm. I worked a lot on case studies, I wonder if you agree to do a mock interview to verify if I’m in the right direction?”? As they are very busy, I’m worry to annoy them, even more, if it’s managers or partners... What do you think about it?

There are a lot of questions but to summarise:

Do you think my preparation is complete or did I miss things? Should I focus on something?
How can I train for tests (imbellus e.g.)?
How work referrals and how can I obtain one, concretely?

Thank you a lot for your help!

Answer 1

Hello!

Overall sounds great, you really put a lot of thinking into it!

Regarding FIT, the "Integrated FIT guide for MBB" has been recently published in PrepLounge´s shop (https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/integrated-fit-guide-for-mbb-34)

It provides an end-to-end preparation for all three MBB interviews, tackling each firms particularities and combining key concepts review and a hands-on methodology. Following the book, the candidate will prepare his/her stories by practicing with over 50 real questions and leveraging special frameworks and worksheets that guide step-by-step, developed by the author and her experience as a Master in Management professor and coach. Finally, as further guidance, the guide encompasses over 20 examples from real candidates.

Feel free to PM me for disccount codes, since we still have some left from the launch!

Regarding how to prep test, for instance, the Imbellus for McK:

It's a gamified test
Divided into 2 games, 1h to complete both of them:
- 1st one is a game about keeping an ecosystem balanced
- 2nd one is a defense game
It´s fun and there is not really a "way" to prep for it.
My advise would be to be fresh when you do it and pick a right enviroment -during my BCG test in their office there was construction in the patio and the screen was even shaking-.

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Answer 2

Hello Elodie,

Your preparation seems totaly complete and should give you the right tools to pass the interviews.

I advise you to multiply the applications and not to start with your top priorities.

Regarding the referal, you come from ESCP and the ESCP alumni network is very good. You have to try to dig in that direction to try to get one. Among others, I remember that there were many ESCP alumni at BCG in Paris :)

Best

Answer 3

Hi Elodie,

I think you have definitely a good plan. I agree the referral part will be critical

In terms of the tests, if you want to practice on a real example of a BCG Potential Test, you can find the one I created here:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/shop/tests-2/bcg-potential-testonline-case-1-13

With this test you will be able to:

Prepare on the exact same format of the BCG Online Case – 23 questions in 45 minutes
Identify your possible improvements thanks to detailed solutions for all the 23 questions
Work on material tested by multiple candidates who did the test and successfully passed the Potential Test

Here is a screenshot of the test:

BCG Potential Test

If you need additional support after completing it feel free to PM me, I can provide additional tips for free.

In terms of referrals, you should follow three steps:

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

As general tips:

Don’t use LinkedIn for your communication – emails work better. You should target 30% conversion for your messages; if you are not achieving that, there is space for improvement.
When sending emails, your goal should be to organize a call, not to ask questions – you can then use the call for the questions.
You need to close the call with an indirect request for a referral – don’t leave that to chances. There are specific ways to phrase it.

Before the call, you should have your CV and Cover ready – in this way you can send them right away it if the person wants to refer you.

If you are interested to know more on referrals, please feel free to PM me. I provide a 30 min session at 50% discount to understand the exact steps to get MBB referrals, directly from home – no events participation required.

Following the same process, I managed to get 6 invitations out of 6 applications – including all MBB – and I regularly see my mentees getting referrals for MBB with that.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 4

Hi Elodie,

This looks quite comprehensive!

However, I have one big piece of feedback for you. This will help you not just in your future job at a tier 1/tier 2, but in life.

Be concise.

This was far too much text and not only did I feel like you were trying to boil the ocean and not focused with your thoughts, but my eyes glazed over!

1) Learn what's important to think about / communicate. Cut the rest.

2) Do so with short/sharp sentences

3) Signpost/organize thoughts (I know you did so here, but it still felt messy)

4) Learn to guide others eyes. Space segments out, bold important pieces of information.

Hope you're ok with this feedback but it's super important to communicate quickly and effectively :)

Answer 5

Congrats! You seem to be doing really great if that is the feedback you got. Introverts make for great consultants. Y... (ganze Antwort lesen)

Congrats! You seem to be doing really great if that is the feedback you got. Introverts make for great consultants. You don’t need to be an extrovert and you don’t need to be co... (ganze Antwort lesen)