All questions tagged Preparing for consulting work - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi,

I assume your question is about the skills that are usefull once you're in the job on a day to day, not the skills specially looked for by the recruiter on your CV.

Here is a personal list of the skills I have developped at school and that were usefull for my consulting experience. I am sure other will find additional class usefull, it actually depends on the types of engagement you will work on :

Hard skills :

• Supply Chain / industrial engineering : helps a lot to understand the process and organisation of the different industries
• Basic corportate / project finance : learn P&L, valorisation, principlesof accounting
• excel modeling : any class involving intense usage of excel and allowing you to develop your skills will for sure be usefull when starting the job

Soft skills :

• project management : will help you on a daily basis. This is a must have skill, but doesn't necesseraly require a special class
• Oral communication : will help you presenting your work with impact
• Strategy : will teach you the basics, but honestly I found the interest limited since it's to theoretical

Hope this helps

Best

Benjamin

Hey,

Let me start by congratulating you on your upcoming role at MBB.

Regarding your question and/or any market estimation in general (whenever you can't find any report with the data are already off-the-shelf somewhere else), there is two main options to go: top-down or bottom-up. Assuming it is a too fragmented market, it would be difficult to go into a bottom-up, so most likely you will need to find a proxy/approach to reach a value from a top-down perspective - which is just the same problem solving method you need to use in consulting interviews asking for a market sizing estimation.

That said, if I was you I wouldn't be worried about this type of issues... as you shouldn't be expecting the clients to just pop up in the team room and ask such questions out of nowhere, so you will have plenty of time to problem solve it (with the help of your team)

Best

Bruno

Hi,

The most important thing you need to understand is that consulting is a client business and client is always first. Here is my subjective view of what's needed to succeed on different levels of hierarchy. Pls take into account that it's the ideal state and getting these skills is a journey.

Analyst / associate level

• Having a good DGL / career counselor, etc. (Each company has different names). This is a person who guides your development in the company, collects the feedbacks on you, and presents your case to a promotion committee. Make sure to have a person who is organized enough to collect the feedbacks in time, who is a nice person in general and who has enough authority in the company (i.e. Senior partner - the more power he has - the better)
• Choosing the project you work on smartly (i.e. collect the feedbacks on each and everyone prior to accepting the project)
• Perfect technical skills (Excel, PPT, Problem Solving)
• Good feedbacks on you from the client. Thus try to make friends with your clients (Both senior and non-senior role. Even a bad feedback from a blue collar can ruin your career)
• Ability to manage your own standalone workstream with minimum supervision. TOP performers bring the end products that impress others
• Being proactive - helping the team with daily routine, scheduling, etc. Participating in the office initiatives
• Establishing relationships with your managers and partners. Ideally, you should have multiple senior partners to be excited about you and to support you)
• Being lucky!

Manager level

A lot of the above, plus:

• Having your client happy - this is the most important! If the client is happy - everything else will work
• Managing multiple partners who have different opinions. Since partners have a busy schedule it becomes very tricky to synchronize them and to align the viewpoints
• Good feedbacks from your team - having a happy team is important. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a trade-off between having your client and partner happy
• Telling about your success on projects to others - I'm personally not a fan of this kind of selling, but I know many people who made a career using this skill

Principal level

A lot from the above, plus:

• Having multiple clients happy
• Having a long list of partners supporting you (More than 10)
• Contributions to the development of the company (Knowledge, office ops, etc)
• Selling the projects. If you manage to sell to existing clients or even bring the new clients - you are the champion.

Partner level

A lot of the above, plus:

• Sales, sales, sales

Best,