Hi there,

1) How to strengthen my profile (w/o an MBA)

Your profile is fine to transit to consulting. It would also be important to see how you structured your CV. There is a specific format consulting companies look for.

One of the most important factors to land an MBB invitation is having a referral. You have not mentioned if you have any, if that’s not the case I would look for one.

Overall, to get a consulting invitation, you will need to work on 3 things: a great CV, a great Cover and a referral.

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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

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(2) COVER LETTER

You can structure a cover into 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
3. Why you are interested in that particular firm, with additional 1-2 specific reasons
4. Final remarks, mentioning again your interest and skills

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

This is probably the most important point, assuming your CV is structured fine. To find a referral, you should follow three main steps:

1. Identify the people that can help you (most of the time, the best bet is Alumni of your university)
2. Write to them a customized email
3. Have a call and indirectly ask for a referral

As general tips:

• Don’t use LinkedIn for your communication – emails work better. You should target 30% conversion for your messages; if you are not achieving that, there is space for improvement
• When sending emails, your goal should be to organize a call, not to ask questions – you can then use the call for the questions
• You need to close the call with an indirect request for a referral – don’t leave that to chance. There are specific ways to phrase it

You should prepare three main things before the call:

• Your own pitch. 3-4 lines should be enough
• 3-4 questions on the personal experiences of the person. Avoid to ask questions about the company
• A closing question for the referral. It should be an indirect request to avoid being too pushy

You can find more information on networking and referrals here:

▶ How to Get an MBB Invitation 

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2) My chances of getting an interview/ offer with top firms (MBB)/ 2nd tier firms/ B4 

Interview: depends on the points in 1)

Offer: depends on your level in the case and fit parts – we have no data points on that so we cannot answer. You can find some tips on how to prepare for that here:

▶ How to Prepare for a Consulting Interview

Good luck!

Francesco