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

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.

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!

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

Hi,

The recruiting process is exactly the same. However, the German market is bigger and thus hiring more people.

Best

Hi Anonymous,

it seems like the PST has been largely abandoned in the German office. But honestly - the best strategy is to not ask here, but instead pick up the phone and call the recruiting ladies at McKinsey and BCG. They will be able to give you the most reliable information on the current process at their respective firm.

Cheers, Sidi

MBB does not ask you for salary expectations

Best

Hi Anonymous,

it is not true that you need to put your salary expectations on every application in Germany. It is common practice in most industry corporations, but NOT with large strategy consulting firms. Speaking for MBB, it is definitely not part of what is asked for and you should not include it in your application letter! The salary is standardized anyway.

Cheers, Sidi

Hi Anonymous,

I believe you are pointing to the right direction. Actually, I always recommend to ONLY network with Partners and Junior Partners. It is much more powerful, and the quality of insights you will get is much much higher. And if done correctly, the response rate tends to be even better than for junior folks! What you need to do though, is investing into a really thought through and concise message which brings across your point, highlights your similarities and gives an outline of what you would like to get the partner's insightsand/or help on.

This approach has proved to be outstandingly effective! Much more than messaging Engagement Managers or, even worse, Associates (which are still very junior roles in the grand scheme of things).

Cheers, Sidi

Hey,

I have worked with Bayer Consulting in the case of a university project and my experience was that they were also often traveling but only to Bayer locations. Nevertheless, I would say that they are less traveling than MBB or other external consultancies. However, as you have mentioned it depends also on the inhouse consulting company, as SMC consultants travel a lot.

Other inhouse consultancies I know are i.a. Telekom, E.ON, Volkswagen, Porsche, Allianz, DB and Mercedes-Benz.

I hope this helps a bit.

Best

Hi Anonymous,

I would strongly recommend to always start with your strongest argument, i.e., what YOU bring to the table. Your motivation is rounding off your storyline.

So here is a structure that tends to work very well:

0. Subject line which clearly indicates the purpose of the letter (i.e, application) and the position

1a. Short first paragraph* outlining ~3 central requirements that you believe are needed to excel at the job you apply for (--> ask yourself "what makes an excellent consultant?" --> https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/what-makes-a-good-management-consultant-1710)

1b. Second paragraph where you give evidence how your skills, experience, and track record lead to a strong match with exactly these previously outlined requirements

2a. Third paragraph outlining your motivation to work in consulting

2b. Fourth paragraph outliningyour motivation to work at the specific firm

Cheers, Sidi

* If you use a referral, you can start the cover letter with a short sentence where you mention the corresponding person within the firm.