Alle Fragen zum Tag France - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi there,

First, wishing you the best of luck!

I'd flag that Spain is highly unlikely given that you don't speak Spanish. France will be difficult as well...decent French is far from the level required at a professional level.

Your priority order makes sense, and I think your best odds lie in the UK. Moreover, it seems you're trying to end up in the UK (France + Spain both include a UK transfer), so I would take the most direct route.

Please note that this route is a tough one and will require extensive networking, persistence, and flexibility in regards to target companies. I would encourage you to diversify and apply to both UK and Indian offices in order to maximize your odds.

Again, good luck!

Having worked frequently in McKinsey France, I have also heard that BCG historically was the stronger performing consultancy compared to McKinsey until 4-5 years ago. My undrestanding is that they are now comparable where McKinsey Paris is performing very well and the office has also cotinued to grow. The nuances will be that either firm will be stronger in particular sectors/CAC40 clients/etc. but that is true in any location and easily changes over time.

For the second part of your question. The correlation was somewhat true 5+ years ago where although McKinsey opened Casablanca in the early 2000s the local office was much smaller and Francaphone Africa was still being served by consultants from the Paris office. Today, McKinsey Casablanca, in terms of consultant size, is double the size of BCG Casablanca (i.e., 80 vs. 40 consultants) and has also built a digital hub there for the region.

Hi Elie,

I wouldn't do that.

It depends on the overall profile (academic achievement, practical experience, experience abroad...), less on a single factor. Even without Target School you can join MBB, I also did this.

After your Master of Business Administration it would be a waste of time to do a further Master. Even if it would help to join MBB afterwards, the time advantage of a faster career would be greatly reduced by this waste of time.

Best regards,
Marco-Alexander

Hi there,

So reaching fluency in an “easy” language like French requires around 1000 hours starting from zero. You have to consider if you really have the time to reach that level.

If by a few months you mean 3-4, this means 8-11 hours per day every day, which doesn’t sound very realistic.

B2 would not be enough as you should target a C level to be able to work in French.

Alternatively, you could consider the UK, the Netherlands (for Bain) and the Nordics, where local language if different from English is not required.

Hope this helps,

Francesco

Hi there,

At Roland Berger we had a lot of gap year interns from French/German/Dutch universities
(https://www.rolandberger.com/en/Join/Blog/Starting-my-Gap-Year-at-Roland-Berger.html).

What is good about this program is that it is split between practical work experience (startups) and international experience (most interns choose Dubai)

I hope this helps,

Khaled

Hello Anonymous,
Thanks for reaching out.
In Paris offices, BCG and McKinsey are generalist office that have several industries and functional practices.
The main ones :
- In terms of industries: industrial Goods, Consumer Goods, Financial services, and to a certain extent Telco & Media and Healthcare
- In terms of functional expertise: Organization, Operations, Technlogy & Digital (highly growing in both firms), Marketing & pricing
I hope that helps - do not hesitate to DM me if you have any questions.
N

Hey A,

indeed you might have been right with your statement 9-10 years ago. This was a time right after the introduction of Bolognia system, which standardised university degrees (bachelor & master) across Europe.

In 2009-2010 I was one of the first bachelor grads at the age of 21-22 and applied for the full-time positions with MBB and other tier-1 players. I had roughly 5 interviews with all top players. However, I was rejected all 5 times with a feedback that I am still very young. Several companies offered me an internship for instance saying that I should do master and definitely come back afterwards.

However, the conditions have radically changed towards favoring bachelor grads starting in 2014-2015. This was a time, when MBB and others have introduced so called "Gap year" programms aiming full-time placement of students between bachelor and master. Since then it has become way easier to get into consulting with a bachelor degree. This applies now to all European offices, including the countries you have mentioned (Switzerland, France, Belgium, UK, Germany, etc.).

Nevertheless, after getting into consulting with a bachelor degree you will be asked after 2-3 years to leave the company to obtain masters degree or MBA.

I hope this clarifies.

Best,

André

By definition, your final answer is wrong, but the beauty of these exercises is, neither you nor the interviewer know the right answer. As long as your logic was sound and the final is believable, you would be fine.

In your example, I think the logic is sound indeed. Ok to bring in some outside knowledge; ok as well to make assumptions of course (cf. '5%'). What you might want to do is do a soft check witth the interviewer to confirm he/she agrees with these numbers. For example, "is it fair to assume ...", or "I will estimate that this number is 5%; does that sound right?", or "if that is ok with you, I will ..."

Do you have any update on the outcome of your interview? Let us know!

Hi Fouad,

in general, the answer to your question is "yes". But there are a number of factors to take into account:

- do you need a working permit?

- do you fluently master the local language?

And more in general:

- does a local candidate with qualifications similar to yours have any sort of advantage when working in this location?

Most of the times, answering these questions is easy and you can easily understand that a local candidate has a substantial advantage as he can speak with local clients in their same language. This also means that you will have a substantial advantage when applying in your own country or any country where you speak the local language at a very fluent level.

However, there are two great exceptions:

1. Locations where English is the mother tongue (for example UK):

given that you probably master English at a very high level, you might be considered here a good candidate. However, exactly like you, there are many candidates that are fluent in English, therefore these are usually the locations where it is most difficult to get an offer.

2. Locations where the office (or, more in general, the Industry) is in a developing stage and local candidates are not many (for example Middle East):

here the advantages are many, above all: English as the language spoken in the office and at the client, possibility of being part of a still small and highly growing team. If you want to follow this road, the best option is that you gather Firm-specific information: where is the Firm opening a new office? Which offices did it just opened and are still in a developing stage?

JS,

No responses so far, so I'll chime in. I strongly caution you against preparing this way: cracking a case is a very repeatable process, so if you know how to crack a case today, we can pretty much guarantee you'll crack the one tomorrow and the day after.

If however you start learning to the test (prepare a specific case), you run the risks of (1) not getting the same case you prepared on, or worse, (2) getting a case that LOOKS like what you've prepared but actually different. And here, I don't think you will like the result.

In any case, the answer to a case is not necessarily as important as the way you got to it -> there is no shortcut.

My strong recommendation is for you to take on a variety of cases and learn how to crack them. That will serve you well, both in the actual BCG/McK interviews and in the (real) corporate world outside of consulting.

Good luck

G.

ex-BCG Dallas (and yes, from France)