Hi there,

1) Which countries should I target that may be more open to those without backgrounds from target schools? 

I would recommend that you reverse-engineer where the alumni of your school managed to get a job in consulting firms in the Middle East, you should be able to do so with LinkedIn.

2) Are there certain firms or types of consulting (IT, management, etc) that I should focus my search on? 

I would suggest applying to all the major consulting firms interesting to you – I don’t see an advantage in excluding some of them.

3) What can I do to strengthen my profile and network to increase my chances?

If you would like to get an invitation from a top firm from a non-target you should work on 3 things. I have listed them below.

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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

You can compensate for possible red flags with a referral (see point #3 below).

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2) COVER LETTER

You can structure a cover in 4 parts:

1. Introduction, mentioning the position you are interested in and a specific element you find attractive for that company.
2. Why you are qualified for the job, where you can report 3 skills/stories from your CV, ideally related to leadership, impact, drive and teamwork.
3. Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons.
4. Final remarks, mentioning again your interest.

In part 2 you can write about experiences that show skills useful in consulting such as drive, problem-solving, leadership, teamwork and influencing 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

To find a referral, you should follow three steps:

1. Identify the people who can help you
2. Write to them a customized email
3. Have a call and indirectly ask for a referral

You can find more information on networking and referrals here:

▶ How to Get an MBB Invitation 

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BONUS: INTERVIEW PREPARATION

After you managed to get an invitation you need to find out how to pass the interview. You can find more on that at the link below.

▶ How to Prepare for an MBB Interview

Best,

Francesco

Hi there!

My undergrad was from a Russel group uni in the UK, so I know the struggle with screening. What helped me a lot later on was that I had a Masters from Oxbridge, and that strengthened my profile. 

There are many things to do and consider. 

1. If you're not from the ME and have no work experience, it's going to be rather difficult to get a job directly there. The core reason is that you're going to get screened out because there is no clear answer as to why they would be considering you and what is your connection to the region. 

2. To increase your chances for screening, you should have an amazing application package (CV, CL), get referrals (ideally for all of the firms and from people who are in your target office in ME), and apply broadly. With a strong application and referrals you're likely to pass screening with Tier 2 and 3. 

3. Networking is the key here from my point of view. Not only in terms of getting referrals but also in understanding what offices are accepting applications and how other non-ME nationals have managed to get a role there. 

Feel free to reach out with questions. Between a quarter and a third of my candidates are focusing on ME, so happy to provide direct answers to any follow-up Qs. 

Sharing with you here also several articles as deep dives to what I mentioned above. I hope you'll find them helpful:

• Expert Guide: Build A Winning Application Strategy
• Expert Guide: How To Handle Networking Calls and Get Referrals
• Expert Guide: How To Get Referrals Via LinkedIn?

Best,
Cristian

Hi,

Thanks for asking this question and definitely an important one for many who are in similar situations as yourself. 

All top firms will have preference on where they hire their consultants from, hence the term ‘target’. Naturally, the lower tier the firm, the less ‘exclusive’ they typically tend to be, so you will have better chances at smaller/boutique firms.

In terms of strengthening your application and networking, there are tons of post on this on Preplounge and articles on this as well - many of them have great points so I won't repeat them here.

What I will ask you to do is to think about your timeline and mid-long term goals more deeply and detailed. The reason is because there are many paths to consulting. The MBA is a very tried and tested path because getting into a good MBA puts you in precisely that target school. But the path there may take several years and significant preparation on itself.

HI there, 

you challenge is little experience that can outweigh your non-target school. The more expert you are, the less relevant the school is. 

I would recommend to try to enter any consulting firms (e.g. PWC, etc.) to get the consulting experience that would allow you to break the barrier to get your CV scanned. 

Yet, don't give up, get a coach to check your CV, you must be EXCELLENT and usually only 5% pass. 

All the best and feel free to reach out,

Lucie

Hey,

Firstly, you will need to make a list of management consulting companies in the region. You can check the rankings by consultancy.me portal, for example.

Secondly, you will need to heavily network with the employees of these companies on Linkedin in order to learn more about the companies and potentially get a referral.

Good luck!
Nick

You have to 

1) network

2) make sure you have some good indicators of excellence in your CV 

3) have as an option working for “lower ranked” consulting firms, e.g. in an internship, in the Middle East in order to have experience in the region