I'm currently preparing to apply for tier 2 consulting firms, such as big 4 / Kearney / Accenture / LEK. However, after doing some research, I realized that the recruiting is not so structured compared to MBB, and often, there is no job posting for experienced hire on the website. Also, for big 4, sometimes it is hard to say which roles are the "pure strategy roles".
My question is:
(1) What are the general strategy of applying to tier 2 firms? Maybe even more emphasis on networking, to try to find whether there is a position opening?
(2) For Big 4, what would be a good networking strategy, as there are so many different "consultant" on Linkedin, and hard to differentiate whether they work at the "pure strategy" group.