Hi there,
1) How to strengthen my profile (w/o an MBA)
Your profile is fine to transit to consulting. It would also be important to see how you structured your CV. There is a specific format consulting companies look for.
One of the most important factors to land an MBB invitation is having a referral. You have not mentioned if you have any, if that’s not the case I would look for one.
Overall, to get a consulting invitation, you will need to work on 3 things: a great CV, a great Cover and a referral.
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(1) CV
The key elements they will look for and that you can optimize are:
- University brand
- Major
- GPA
- Work experience
- Experience abroad
- Extracurriculars and volunteer experience
Red flags include:
- Low GPA
- Lack of any kind of work experience
- Bad formatting / typos
- 3-4 pages length
- Lack of clear action --> results structure for the bullets of the experiences
- Long paragraphs (3-4 lines) for the bullets of the experiences with irrelevant details
- Long time gaps without any explanation
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(2) COVER LETTER
You can structure a cover into 4 parts:
- Introduction, mentioning the position you are interested in and a specific element you find attractive for that company
- Why you are qualified for the job, where you can report 3 skills/stories from your CV
- Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons
- Final remarks, mentioning again your interest and skills
In part 2 you can write about experiences that show skills useful in consulting such as drive, problem-solving, leadership, teamwork and convincing others.
It is important that in part 3 you make your cover specific to a particular firm – the rule of thumb is, can you send the exact same cover to another consulting company if you change the name? If that’s the case, your cover is too generic.
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(3) REFERRALS
This is probably the most important point, assuming your CV is structured fine. To find a referral, you should follow three main steps:
- Identify the people that can help you (most of the time, the best bet is Alumni of your university)
- Write to 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 chance. There are specific ways to phrase it
You should prepare three main things before the call:
- Your own pitch. 3-4 lines should be enough
- 3-4 questions on the personal experiences of the person. Avoid to ask questions about the company
- A closing question for the referral. It should be an indirect request to avoid being too pushy
You can find more information on networking and referrals here:
▶ How to Get an MBB Invitation
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2) My chances of getting an interview/ offer with top firms (MBB)/ 2nd tier firms/ B4
Interview: depends on the points in 1)
Offer: depends on your level in the case and fit parts – we have no data points on that so we cannot answer. You can find some tips on how to prepare for that here:
▶ How to Prepare for a Consulting Interview
Good luck!
Francesco