All questions tagged on the job - Consulting Q&A - PrepLounge.com

Hi Anonymous,

here is a list of the main things you may learn as a consultant:

1. Solve complex problems. You will learn how to find appropriate solutions for complex issues, even in areas you are not familiar with, using a defined structured approach.
2. Develop great communication skills. You will learn how to communicate properly with everyone in a company from new hires to C-levels.
3. Acquire knowledge of multiple industries. You will learn insider aspects of several industries in a very short period of time.
4. Reach challenging goals with a set time frame. You will learn how to respect apparently impossible deadlines and achieve the objectives required.
5. Become a team player. You will learn how to have a team-based mentality, as your job as a consultant will be strongly influenced by your team performance.
6. Master Excel and Power Point. You will learn how to become a lot faster and proficient with these tools than the average user.
7. Prioritize activities. You will learn how to become 80-20...or alternatively how to sleep very few hours ;). As a consultant, you will always have more things to do than the ones achievable in a certain time frame, hence you will have to constantly decide what to give priority to.

Dolf and Elias have also provided some very good points here:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/learning-curve-internship-consulting-331

Hope this helps,

Francesco

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,

So, everyone is different with their personal needs for down-time, but from my (BCG) perspective, it's better to start earlier in the year - why? Because consulting billing slows considerably closer to December because of the holidays (this may be a different month in different regions, so if not in the US/Europe, apply this same logic to your situation). Therefore, if you start in October or November, for example, there is a greater chance you aren't staffed onto a client case until January or February (when billing tends to pick back up). Since the clock is always running on your promotion windows, you don't want to wait that long to get staffed. I'd go with September, in your case

BCG will provide you with anything you need to do your jobwithin reason:

-laptop

-wifi hotspot

-multiple chargers

-3M privacy screen

-phone

-secured USB stick

-pen, paper,etc

-etc

what you might want to get yourself due to personal preferences:

-(if you use one) travel mouse

-(since you are an associate) second screen for when you travel so you can work on multiple screens

-USB power bank

In terms of clothing there was a post a few weeks back about it.

hope it helps,

Andrea

Hi,

You'll work with 3 tools where you need to quickly develop proficiancy (know all the key function and work fast)

- Excel : function to know vlookup(), index(match(..)), sumproduct(), sumif() . In addition you may learn to work with the keyboard only, this allow higher productivité than using the mouse pointer. You will also need to develop your own rules to always check your results and make sure your calculation are right on the first time

- Powerpoint : alignements, formats. In creating content you'll need to make sure you use parallel phrasing

- Emails : sharp wording, direct and clear phrasing, easy reading

Hope this helps

Best

Benjamin

Hi,

The firm will give you: laptop (with privacy screen), phone (with cover and privacy screen) + bag where to put laptop and documents + paper, pens, pencils, and all office stuff

What you should buy:

- Solid, high-quality luggage: you'll use it literally every-day, thus you don't want it break after the first month :)

- Backpack: business-like, if you don't want to put the laptop in a bag that you have to carry on one of your shoulders or by hand

- Suits and a lot of shirts :)

That's what comes in my mind

Hi Anonymous,

If it helps, I also considered this decision. I ultimately decided on keeping a home. At least for me, having a home base to put my things, relax/recover in on the weekend, see familiar faces at etc. definitely kept my sanity. Most people I know have a home base, though I have heard of a few people calling their hotel home.

That being said, I was travelling to a city where I knew noone and I was very far away from my home country - if I had travelled to a number of other cities where I knew people, had a parent's home I could store my stuff in, and perhaps started BCG at a younger age I probably could have done it!

I think that the benefits also play a bigger impact lower down the food chain. For example, the returns on this decision are very high on the lower wage of Associate, however, at Project Leader level this probably doesn't make sense!

It depends what it is stressful for you. I think it is fair to say it is a demanding but very rewarding job!

In my experience, most common stressors for people approaching / intending to work in consulting are
- Working under pressure
- Constant travel
- Long hours
- Changing deliveries ( in time and content) - somehow linked to point 1

No secret, consulting job can be all of the above.
But, i'd like to comment on some myths
- Stressful situation can happen wihtin the projects but are not the norm. Depends also on the industry / project / where you are in your learnirng curve
- It is extremely satisfying job if you are one person which is TRULY enjoying the challenges
- You can find stressful situations also in other jobs, not only in consulting, so this should not be the (only) decision factor

Hope it helps,
Best

I think you have the right answer staring at you in the face: what happens if you take the new project, fail your interviews and never get into MBB - what then? Will you hate yourself forever?

Having said that, I'd like to challenge two of your core assumptions however:

1. Do you truly need 2 weeks to get ready for an MBB interview when you arguable have already succeeded at such an interview at a Tier2 (even if the bar was lower, most of these do give case interviews). Let me answer for you: many of us got into MBB by preparing while working full time & having a family. Just commit to a plan such as "review feedback in the morning before work, listen to audio on my way to work, do a case in the evening and 2 each day during the week-end". Sure you will hate life even more than usual for these 2 weeks, but what's 2 weeks in the grand scheme of things?

2. You seem to believe this will be the last opportunity you have to apply for / interview at MBB. First, you can probably delay the interview if needed; second, they will probably still be interested in 6 months if they are interested today

Also, you mention that you've waited for "one year" to do this type of project? One year is NOTHING! I can't even remember the type of projects I used to dream of doing when I was 1 year out of school. [insert old geezer joke here]

Last but not least, let's also look at the bigger picture: You are just 1 year out of undergrad. Odds are, a Masters degree is in your future, which will then give you another solid chance at MBB.

Here's what I suggest:

1. If you are "MBB or bust", you take time off and prepare as best as you can

2. If you are a type-A and think you can do it all, you take this cool new project for now since it is important to you - but you also kick your prep into high gear before/after work and during week-ends; if you honestly feel you would need a little bit more time, ask MBB for a delay, they will usually try to accomodate. And you can still ask for a couple of days of beach time / PTO if needed (I'm sure you can be creative here).

Good luck.

Hi Anonymous,

I definitely don't think 20 months is too early to leave the job. Generally at MBB there tends to be a pretty significant exodus at the ~2 year mark, either to industry, finance, or to work at / start their own start-up.

However, I would echo what others have said - you should consider if what you hate is consulting, or just the firm you are working for. Think about the actual content of your work, the types of problems you work on, and the interactions with clients. If this is something you enjoy, you could look at applying for other consulting firms. If, however, you are simply tired of consulting as a whole, then it is definitely not too early to start taking calls with headhunters and see what is out there!

Good luck!

Hi Anonymous,

the main element to consider is always your motivation for the change. Normally, you want to move to a company better positioned to your goals, thus you should do due diligence in advance to ensure the target company fits that (eg faster career, higher position, better work-life balance, better culture...)

The best time to switch depends on your goals - people switch at all levels of the hierarchy, although usually it happens at Manager/Principal level. And yes, I would say it is pretty common.

You can find some other general tips on that for MBB lateral hire, mainly true as well for 2nd-3rd tiers, at the following link:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/lateral-hire-at-mbb-2352#a5186

Best,
Francesco

Formative

What a very kind gesture - I don't know how much you want to spend but here are some rough ideas.

• Cufflinks
• Tie
• wireless headphones
• laptop bag
• briefcase
• travel suitcase
• watch
• starbucks voucher
• gym related workout clothes to encourage him to keep healthy
• belt

Hi Anonymous,

your certainly need to meet a certain threshold regarding cognitive smartness ("IQ"). However, you do not need to be Albert Einstein for sure! If you meet that required IQ floor level, it is much more important that you

• are able to navigate social/political client settings,
• build trust quickly,
• have the work ethic to put in the hours, which can be brutal at times.

This is why you need a well-rounded profile as a consultant - if it was only about cognitive smartness, the firms could just go and offer huge salary packages to the best graduates from the most difficult programmes at universities around the globe.

Cheers, Sidi

This is a really common question a lot of people ask when moving into consulting. A few thoughts from my experiences:

- You will simply NOT be productive if you are working 80+ hours a week for a sustained period. In 3+ years at McKinsey, touching every continent, I never exceeded 60 hour weeks for more than a couple of weeks at a time. Maintaining productivity in the shorter term in a very different prospective.

- Eating meals away from the desk helps - I was always more productive after a good meal break

- Try to build in a couple of activities a week (Gym, sports, music practice, etc) where you are completely offline for a couple of hours, and provides you something to look forward to. Your productivity normally increases when you are working to a deadline

- Try to work with others - working in a hotel room there can be a lot of distractions. If it's late and you are working next to someone you don't want to disturb your colleague too much

- Prioritise ruthlessly and ask questions like 'does this need to be done today', and 'will this change the answer'. Partners are people and are very open to these challeneges. New consultants are often afraid to ask these questions, but they are crucial in maintaining productivity

Hope this helps

Cameron

In a certain sense YES...without great interview skills you are not given the chance to prove yourself as a great consultant :)

A more serious answer: Definitely not. I've interviewed several false positives unfortunately. Great interviewers and then didn't succeed on the job. Usually for the below reasons:

- lack of practicality

- difficulty in connecting with people

- inability to cope with the pressure

- inability to cope with travel and long hours

Keep honing your interview skills!

andrea

Hey Anonymous,

I'm sorry to dissapoint, but there is no such thing as a typical day. Some days I will be staffed somewhere in Kuwait working until 3am on some obscure valuation, and then the next day my team decides to go to a team dinner downtown and we call it a night at 11pm. The variability in your day is one of the key elements of consulting, so I'd say the question is a bit counter-intuitive.

P.S: I work for BCG and we always laugh at newbies who ask in the morning whether the day is going to be intense

Cheers,

Vasilis

Totally agree with Hemant; I would add to the list of exit opportunities Private Equity, in particualr if you are coming from MBB (Bain is particularly strong on that thanks to Bain Capital connections). Dolf also provided a pretty complete list here:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/exit-options-most-lucrative-ones-249#a459

As for why people choose a specific exit, there may be multiple reasons for a particular choice; some of the most common are: (i) better work-life balance (eg Industry); (ii) increased salary (eg PE/partner track in a smaller consulting firms); (iii) control on execution (eg Startup founder).

Hope this helps,
Francesco

Hi Anonymous,

personnally I am not a fan of in-house strategy consulting opportunities, and am a bit sceptical about the rational of choosing this type of opportuntities as it seems to share the downs of each job without capturing the benefits :

1. If you are really interested in consulting, then go for a proper consulting firm
You're learning curve will be much steeper, salary growth higher, and exit opportunities better

2. If you are really interested by a specific industry, then go for either a consulting firm with strong presence in that industry or an attractive player of the industry
Both will give you more exposure and concrete experience in the industry. Being a third party consultant is sometimes an enabler for achiving a job vs. being challenges from inhouse consulting

3. If you are really interested by a specific company, then identify what are the core jobs of the company (every company has on or sevral key jobs / function) and apply directly to it

I realize this is a very personal thought and not every one can be aligned with this, but at least you will consider this to make your own opinion

Best

Benjamin

After 6 years in management consulting, I have noticed that those who stay in consulting and strive have become more outgoing. I have seen many consultants in their entry positions as more introvert who evolved towards more and more extrovert over the years.