CV for Academic Candidate

Question

Hello,

I am interested in going into consulting and coming from academia. In case it is relevant, I did a PhD in Philosophy of Science (at Notre Dame, USA) and I am currently doing a postdoc in Philosophy at Oxford University. I know that McKinsey, Bain and BCG all have special tracks for candidates coming into consulting from academia. However, I have read conflicting information regarding the CV for candidates coming from academia. As you know, the CV in academia is very different from a CV in industry/business. In academia, the CV focuses on publications, conferences, teaching, and it also tends to be long (like 5 pages or even more). In some parts, I have read that if you are coming from academia, you do no need to change much your CV when applying to consulting firms because these firms have specialized people that can understand the academic CV. But in other places, I have read that they want you to really try to adapt your CV to a standard one page format.

In short, my question is about what to do (or not to do) when preparing my current (academic) CV for consulting applications. Should I fit it into one page or the longer version is fine? Should I remove things such as “conferences presentations” and the references for my papers? Should I emphasize or remove my teaching experience? Finally, if you are someone who got a job in consulting after coming from an academic background, I would really appreciate if you share with me your CV or the template you used!

Thanks so much,

Sebastian

Answer 1

Hi Sebastian,

at BCG I do have often Ph.D. newcomers, it is common. For your CV I would give you the same advice I am giving any candidate:

Use easy to understand language/expressions (very junior HR person will evaluate your CV and it must understand it all)
Quantify (impact, achievement) → not what you have done, but what does your work contributed to
Prioritize what is important to highlight
Tell powerful stories
Include extra-Curricular Achievements → if relevant, usually those get you extra point, shows you go extra miles

MBB looks for a candidate, that has the following capabilities: leadership, ability to make an impact, problem-solving, communication skills, teaming up, flexibility and open minded.

In the end, it is not important where you come from, as long your CV tells us you do have these traits.

Please feel free to reach out if you would like to have support from the “other side”.

Good luck,

Lucie

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Answer 2

Hi there! You mention these special tracks for PhDs. What are you referring to? There's plenty of PhDs across the spectrum from generalist consulting to all sorts of other things that are more or less specialized. There certainly isn't “one” track for all PhDs.

However, I do see your point and here's my advice:

Generalist role: If you're going for this, which is a valid path for PhDs, you should completely revamp your CV to make it fit for business. That's because it will land in the same pile as all the MBA CVs that are following this template, which ultimately is perfect for MBB generalist roles. Anything between 1 and 2 pages is OK (assuming that form, content, and format are spot on).
Specialized roles: As mentioned above, there's various non-generalist paths for PhDs and your CV should be adapted accordingly i.e. relevant technical details proportional to the degree of specialization regarding target role. However, as a general rule, I wouldn't go beyond 2 pages. MBB simply isn't academia and this still has to be read by a recruiter, who won't have/take the time to do more than 2 pages.

Could go a bit deeper if you could share the type of role you're thinking of.

Hope this helps for now!

Answer 3

Dear Sebastian,

in your interviews or your cover letter you can also point out the many similarities between academy and consulting that you enjoy and why the differences motivate you. Similarities for example:

Building up expert knowledge in a topic

Continuous learning and challenging, competitive environments

Teaching/presenting/sharing know-how element

Meaningful, impactful work

Problem solving

etc.

Differences that might motivate you:

More practical applications of consulting

Constantly teaching new topic (every presentation is different instead of having to lecture the same course)

The joy of solving business problems and interacting with people

etc.

Please do not hesitate to reach out, should you have further questions.

Answer 4

Hi Sebastian,

If you apply for a job in consulting you need to change the CV and adapt to the consulting format. This means you should keep 1 page every 10 years of experience (with the exception of a few countries such as Germany, where also 2 pages are fine).

Some of the key things to consider for a good CV are:

Use action verbs to describe the experiences (eg “Led…; Analyzed…) and use a structure of Action - Results
Quantify results. If you find challenging to have specific numbers, you can use number of countries/clients/forecasted results
Show experience related to leadership or teamwork. A good number of candidates have points on problem-solving and drive in achieving results, but lack experiences related to work in/leading a team
Show relevant extracurricular activities and interests. They make the profile more interesting and help to show leadership skills when you don’t have relevant work experience on that

You probably know this already, but typical 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 gaps without any explanation

For an ad-hoc review, many coaches do a session on CV improvement. Otherwise, you can post a sanitized version here in the Q&A to get feedback.

If you have more questions please feel free to PM me.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 5

If you are applying to the generalist track, you should have a 1 page CV. You can add your academic CV as an appendix to that CV if you like.

Answer 6

Hi Sebastian,

You shouldn't remove most things but you should change them. You need to reword them to emphasize and highlight more consulting-based traits. What you choose to put in and how you put it in the resume can make or break your application. Feel free to reach out for support in this.

If possible, you need to get additional consulting-related experience as well. That could be by getting leadership positions in various clubs, working on a side project, doing pro bono consulting (like through Impact Consulting) etc.