Career & Application at Roland Berger

Hello!

First of all, it´s quite unusual that the 2 first interviews from 1st round are spread in two days, but can happen in a particularly peak session in the office.

Secondly, don´t give up! Even if outperforming in the second interview was not enaugh -which you still don´t know-, it´s still a great learning opportunity for you to learn in a real-life interview. Hence, don´t even think of cancel it ;)

Regarding how to improve your performance: (1) practice, practice, practice!! and (2) be aware that you won´t have the negative effect of the 1st time again, you are experienced!

Good luck!

Best,

Clara

Hello ishani,

I am sorry to hear your situation.
The CV screening across consulting firms typically revolves across 4-5 key parameters, depending on your profiles.

As a fresh graduate, firms would focus on the following 4 parameters:

• Academic achievements: a combination of GPA, academic accolodates (e.g. dean list, awards, etc), research publications
• Extracurricular involvements: leadership in various organizations (within or outside of educational institution), social service, or other events / programs; extracurricula achivements (e.g. in sports, arts, entrepreneurship, etc)
• Professional experiences: for fresh grads, this often refers to internship experiences
• For all experiences above, it is very helpful if you have international exposure towards multiple countries (displayed your flexibility in adapting to different cultures, as consultants are likely to be assigned to projects in different regions, they even need to adapt to different company culture in a single country).

If you have post-academic professional experiences, then similar metrics will apply, however, much more emphasis will be placed on your professional trajectory. The firm will evaluate if your trajectory is in lone with the expected trajectory of a consultant at similar tenure. This is often the more difficult part for a professional profile. Unless one is more senior with known expertise in a particular industry or function.

Typically, the following information would be scrutinized by the firms of professional profiles through CV screening as well as interviews, it would be preferable if you could display this within your CV:

1. Details of your professional experiences, e.g. types of projects you were leading, what is your role and specific tasks you were working on, the size of the team you led, how did you allocate and manage the work across the team, your client / stakeholder interactions, deilverables, and impact / results
2. Leadership experiences, whether in project settings, knowledge development, or other office initiatives
3. Client development experiences & portfolio, including the question on what potential clients you might bring onboard to the firm
4. Knowledge expertise: alignment of your industrial and functional expertise with the current need within the firm, added value to existing practice / new practice that you would be able to establish and lead, your suggestions on novel capabilities that should be developed within the firm with the high-evel implementation plan
5. Culture fit, e.g. communication style, logical flow & structure, mobility, working norms
6. Correlation between your mid and long-term career objectives with the firm's growth trajectory - would you be suitable for the partner track on the firm?

I hope it helps to clarify a bit regarding the preferred content.

I would be very happy to help you in reviewing your CV and drafting improvement plans together. Please fell free to DM me.

Kind regards,
Nathan

Hi,

Every office has his own policy and you can directly ask for it during the interview, but for sure you can join a Top MBA also coming from Tier 2 firms. OW, for example, offers an MBA scolarship that is even better than some offered by MBB.
Universities want to keep some "diversity" also in terms of firms represented, you don't have to worry about it.

Hope it helps,
Luca

Hi

If it was not clear from your cover letter that you are interested in general management consulting and you didn’t explain how your experience is relevant to this, then I can see why you may not have got through resume screening. This may also be why the HR team is suggesting you look at risk advisory – since they will look at what you have been doing for the last little while and make assumptions on where you fit. HR typically have a narrow brief and a checklist that they are working to when screening.

I think the first thing that you need to be clear on is the type of work that you would like to do. If its related to your current experience (which sounds like an internal audit and monitoring role), then its only the Big 4 accounting firms that would be relevant. They all have teams that focus on this type of work, usually within the Financial Assurance business line (where financial audit typically sits).

If you are looking to do more general operations or strategy consulting, then you have a broader set of options. Again, the Big 4 accounting firms have strategy and operations consulting capabilities, which typically sit in their Business Advisory business line. The top tier (MBB) and tier 2 consulting firms only play in this space.

I think a plan of action might be to speak with risk practitioners and consultants to get a more granular understanding of the day to day work they do. See what resonates with you and get an understanding of the competencies that are required. (Most experts on this site can help on the consulting side). Once you have clarity on this you can revisit your resume and cover letter and refine as needed. Finally to re-engage with the firms you are interested in, since you already have some work experience, try to find a contact in your network or Linked-In that you can meet for a coffee to get a warmer introduction to the firm and get their advice to further refine your cover letter and resume. This will have a much higher probability of access, rather than applying with graduates through HR screening.

Hope this is helpful and feel free to drop me your resume and cover letter if you would like me to review.

Kind Regards,

Adam