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

Hello,

I have done interviews for Strategy& in Italy and I can confirm that business case are quite standard. Case typology is more correlated to your interviewer, I would suggest to try to ask for your interviewer name in order to get some information on the practice he works for.

Best,
Luca

Work culture at MBB in Germany is tough - definitely among the hardest in the industry. 70+ hour weeks are regular - although at least at Bain, weekends seem to be pretty respected. Part of what makes the job so difficult is demanding and generally very detail-oriented clients.

However, your alternative, Korea, is perhaps one of the few countries in the world with even worse hours and culture than Germany. Hours are even longer, with 80-90 hour weeks more the norm than the exception (admittedly based on a relatively small sample size of colleagues I encountered at training sessions). Compared to Germany, culture also appears to be much more hierarchical.

In the end, between your two options, I would probably choose Germany. It is the least intense of the two, and is also a much more mature market with less hierarchy. You are also based in Europe, so will potentially have a chance to work in other European countries where work-life balance may be better (e.g. the UK).

Hi Anonymous,

I am German, have worked in consulting in Germany and have seen my share of CVs, so I hope I can help.

So first of all: None of the three examples are total no-gos.

I would consider No 2 best / safest. It looks clean and modern, is well structured and you can find everything you're looking for.

No 1 looks good, but you really need to nail the "About me" section and the Skill-Thing with the stars is somewhat superfluous, and also kind of ridiculous to rank your skills on a 10-increments scale.

There's nothing wrong with #3, it's just a bit bloodless and less clean than #2.

Just one hint: The photos for 2 and 3 are no-go though. Suit and dress shirt (and probably tie) for a guy, similar standard for a girl.

Hope this helps.

Elias

Hi! Here is what I can say about Germany:

• BCG and McKinsey are both conducting interviews remotely via video conferencing. I had several mentees in the last two weeks interviewing for the German offices of McKinsey and BCG, and all have received offers with at least one of the firms (both internship and full time).
• Bain seem to be a bit hesitant with interview invitations - takes them quite long to reply to my mentees' applications. So will have to wait and see what happens.
• Roland Berger have started doing interviews via video conferencing, but have stopped, saying that they prefer meeting candidates in person. So interviews have been pushed forward to an indefinite later date
• Oliver Wyman have also pushed interviews further into the future

Cheers, Sidi

Hi A,


I was in your shoes back in 2011-12, when I also came from Ukraine to start i Germany, and search for consulting jobs. I started to learn German from the scratch. So I can really understand your challenges.

In fact, there is no so many firms offering English consulting in Germany, so I would strongly recommend you to focus on improving you German, also on practicing cases in German. It would be very tough n the beginning, but I also did it and I practiced 100+ cases in English and in German, and that is what help me to get all the offer, including MBB and then finally choosing Roland Berger.

If you have any questions or advice, feel free to reach out.

Best,
André

Hy Anonymous

I am in a similar situation here in France and I think that one big asset of BCG is the fact that they communicate towards scientists, and particularly towards PhDs. Thus:

1) we can see that the firm values the skills that we developed during our scientific projects. As they are already used to recruitig scientists we can hope that once inside:

1.1 - our skills will fit to the firm's needs

1.2 - the firm will provide training in the areas that we lack knowledge

2) there is a big proportion of PhDs working at BCG, thus once we are recruited we know that we will easily integrate the team, and we will have many people to talk to if we need to seek advice, and thus we will work more efficiently

This is my point of view but maybe someone who works / has worked for them will argue differently

Good luck with your interview!

Hi A,


I was in your shoes back in 2011-12, when I also came from Ukraine to start i Germany, and search for consulting jobs. So I can really understand your challenges. Regarding slow down in August, it could really happen, because most HR people plan for vacations for August. Therefore, in general it is a slow season. So I would rather recommend you to apply in June-July or later, in September.

As for the second question, I recommend you to practice cases in German. It would be very tough n the beginning, but I also did it and I practiced 100+ cases in English and in German, and that is what help me to get all the offer, including MBB and then finally choosing Roland Berger.

If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.

Best,
André

Hi, it depends on the interviewer and on the Geography, but on Glassdoor, you can find some useful experience of past candidates with questions and insights.

Hope it hepls,
Antonello

Hi Sinisa,

all the candidates I helped recently for consulting interviews in Germany were fluent in German – I am not sure if there are any companies hiring candidates not fluent with the language.

If you just speak English, the best options relatively close to Germany would be London, Amsterdam (certain companies only) and Middle East.

Best,

Francesco

Hi Anonymous,

please find below the answers to your questions:

1) Should I apply at all?

Unless there is a specific deadline for the internship application, I would try to do so. In terms of the next year, I don’t think you will target an internship starting from June, thus you could apply for full time starting from September if June won’t be an option

2) If so, to which office?

If you apply through the website you won’t be able to apply to the Netherlands if rejected in Germany, as the application process is centralized in MBB (if you apply via referral without a formal online application that may be possible though). I would recommend to apply in the Netherlands as you are not completely fluent in German and then look for a transition internally once hired. You should also target a referral to increase the chances of an invitation, you can find more on that at the following link:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

Best,

Francesco

Hi Anonymous,

first of all a disclaimer: I am a man, so I definitely have blind spots here and there and maybe see things for better than they really are. But I'll do my best to give an objective answer.

All your questions are justified and the observations are 100% correct.

Consulting is still male-dominated, and the more senior it gets the more so. Tons of reasons for that, many of them related to compatibility of consultant lifestyle with family.

The good news is that I believe that the industry has relatively little gender bias or gender discrimination, especially when it comes to recruiting. The firms in Germany that I have worked for and with or that I know well from close friends (Horváth & Partners, goetzpartners, BCG, Bain, McKinsey, SMP, EY, to name a few) are very conscious of this imbalance and actively try to work against that.

So I believe that being a woman definitely doesn't hurt your chances during the recruiting process. It may even help just a little bit (but really only a little bit).

During work, you'll obviously encounter the everyday sexism both from clients and colleagues. Consulting is not a safe haven from that, although you'll mostly be working with young, highly educated and relatively progressive, open-minded individuals (as colleagues), so there are definitely worse places. I hope this sexism doesn't manifest itself too much in your formal evaluations and feedback on your work, but it will definitely happen in everyday situations. Sorry about that!

Regarding the long-term: That is up to you. I believe the way to senior roles is wide open for women. But, consulting is a really tough job to align with family, even under the best of circumstances and even for men in more traditional family settings (man as the sole / main breadwinner). So I am aware that the sacrifices that are demanded from women to get there and the conflicts regarding expectations are infinitesimally higher for women than for men.

I can only encourage you to try to be a trailblazer because our industry needs more of them. But I am aware that it's asking a lot.

Hope this helps,

Elias

I assume you gonna have at least two interviews each at least half an hour but usually it takes longer. Normally, they’d provide you with two ordinary case studies and, in addition, an online-case. Be aware of brief math tests since they are very popular there. And what your interviewers love to ask you in order to throw you off the track is whether you remember having a huge problem in your life and how you managed to solve this specifically.

Hey A,

BSA is a relatively young but very dynamic consulting boutique. One of my ex-colleagues from our Automotive practice moved there couple of years ago.

Among traditional topics like performance increase, process and orga optimisation, they do pretty much of the innovation stuff like digitization and new mobility services (autonomous, connected, electric vehicles, etc.).

Working culture is pretty good, since the company is still pretty small, so most of the colleagues normally know each other.

I can tell you more about mandates, rates, etc, if you contact me directly, since it's not publicly available information.

I hope it helps.

Cheers,

André

I would suggest you to look into the industry focus, project types, and working approaches of these two companies.

Hi,

I'd be happy to provide you a BCG-specific case based on my experience interviewing+working here!

Hi Panos,

A few points to answer your questions above:

1) McKinsey pays for your MBA/post-graduation degree if you have received a rating of 'Clear and Accelerating' (2nd highest; usually top 25%) in your last rating cycle

2) They will pay a maximum of 2 years worth of tuition. If you're thinking of law school or PhD, you'll have to cover the duration beyond 2 years. However, McKinsey does cover expenses for books and insurance, and lets you keep your firm laptop as well, which is a very sweet deal. In fact, you get a signing bonus (25-30K) when you re-join.

3) This one is interesting. During your post-grad, if you do your summer internship at McKinsey, they pay the tuition to your school directly. However, if you plan to do your internship elswehere, you still get the tuition money but it's sent to your bank account, implying it is treated as income and is taxed. When you're looking at tuition fees of >$150K, that is pretty significant. (55-60K)

4) One you come back, you're expected to stay for a minimum of 2 years. If you decide to leave after 1 year, you will be liable for 50% of the tuition/expense McKinsey covered

It's truly amazing to see how much McKinsey cares for it's employees. Hope this helps!

Thanks,

Nirmit

I am a specialized consultant working 90% of the times in energy projects. Happy to help if you could little bit explain your question in detail.

Do you stand a chance? Yes, absolutely. I started my career in Germany at a time when I spoke decent German but (1) make grammatical mistakes, (2) still clearly had limited vocabulary, and (3) couldn't write very well. Your German is much stronger than mine was

Does this mean your linguistics skills won't be an issue? Obviously not. But it is possible to get in, yes.

Hi,

I will also have my 2nd round in Germany soon (maybe we could get in touch).

As I know from friends that work at BCG, the real-life interviews will also test the weaknesses that you showed in the first round.

It can range from:

• getting information from a client during a taxi ride
• producing an executive slide for a partner based on multiple slides you receive
• convincing colleagues over lunch about an idea
• writing an email to a client
• ....

Hope it helped a little bit. BCG says you can't prepare for those short interviews.

I think you can already go through some situations and train things like producing slides etc.

Dear Anonymous A,

Congratulations on your interview invitations from DETECON and SENACOR!

As already mentioned above we also offer several cases in German. To see our German cases, just change the language to German by clicking on the German flag on the bottom of the page or click on the following link: https://www.preplounge.com/de/case-sammlung. You can of course still change the language back to English :)

Best,
Your Talent-Management Team