Management consulting has been proven to be a lucrative career. It has grown significantly in demand these past decades. If you are planning to consult or establish a career in this field, you should know its fundamentals.

 The ever growing and volatile economic conditions have in one way or another paved the way for small or large scale organizations to enlist the help of management consultants. The companies have benefited from their services over the years. They have found the recommendations to their problems useful in the efficiency of their business. Below are some information you can make use of as you pursue this career path.

Types of Consultancy According to Employment

There are two types of consultants that provide solutions to organizational problems: external and internal. Both types are expected to be equipped with the knowledge and skills necessary to help improve the company’s performance. External consultants, having been exposed to a lot of situations, are expected to have more varied skills because of their experience. They work independently or are hired through management consulting firms like Bain, Booz and McKinsey.

On the other hand, internal consultants are usually employed by the company on a permanent basis. Some organizations prefer this setup since it’s more cost-effective. They are expected to be adept in that particular industry because of their familiarity and experience with the regular operations. Their recommendations are also based on the culture of the company, which in most cases are more practical.

Tools of the Trade

Being equipped with the necessary competencies to address problems is of great value to management consultants. They must know the history of their client, utilize the various consulting frameworks and possess analytical, data gathering, presentation and negotiation skills. Companies always want to get a good value for their money, which is why they pay the premium to hire the best. It is given that they are computer literate, graduated from a reputable university and have the courage to rise to the challenge.

Best Practices

As management consultants, part of their job description is to improve the performance and output of companies by solving problems and developing recommendations. Their primary role is to give advice and share their expertise. This includes knowing the best practices in the industry that serve as the benchmark in the implementation and improvement of a specific condition. It is assumed that they have the exposure and experience within a variety of organizations. This includes knowing the best strategies, plans and whatever works best in a given scenario.

Much is expected from management consulting firms because the inputs consultants give are very valuable to the company or organization. They know the basic management principles, above all else, to be able to handle this work effectively and efficiently.

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The case interview, a classic screening strategy of management consulting industry, is a challenge that you need to overcome to get a position in global or boutique consulting firms. Read this post and learn more.

Many MBA graduates work hard to get a position in prestigious firms, such as PWC, Monitor and Bain & Company. Those who are wise enough have probably started preparing for this career while they were still at business school. They probably have joined management consulting club activities, workshops and social events where they could improve their performance during case interviews.

Unfortunately, many candidates fall short of the interviewer’s expectations due to lack of understanding and preparation. To know how to get through this intensive questioning successfully, read, “How to Pass Management Consulting Case Interviews.” ConsultingFact.com gave some surefire tips on how to nail down the questions.

Students go to law school to become lawyers. However, just like many other graduates, some end up working at different fields. One of which is management consulting.

Adam Hoff said that a recruiter once told him, “Management consulting firms love the way law students think, but they love what business school students know.” This line obviously implies that law graduates can be employed for consulting positions in firms like McKinsey, Bain and Booz, provided that they can prove they have the potential and interest to learn the nitty-gritty of business operations. Let’s elaborate this further by looking into four sections.

Similar Skills

Management consultants are popular for possessing problem-solving, analytic, communication and other relevant consulting skills. More often than not, these have also been developed and practiced by students at law school. As they evaluate cases, they have to consider all angles of the story. They must be critical enough to come up with a fair, well-reasoned verdict. They must also have the ability to express their standpoint in words and in reports clearly. Their ultimate decision is what they deem appropriate with regard to the situation and the people involved, something very similar to consulting.

Business Background

Lack of know-how on management principles is a factor that puts law graduates at a disadvantage. Unlike an MBA degree holder, law curriculum has less business subjects, and this may be a hindrance to resolving business cases. However, some firms, like McKinsey, have a mini-MBA program where hired law graduates learn finance, microeconomics and business strategies for three weeks. They contact professors from top business schools to handle the newly employed consultants during their training. Further, the experience in working with other management consultants in a supportive work culture is believed to expedite the process of learning.

Working with Numbers

Mathematical ability isn’t a requirement to get into law. In fact, the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) only measures logical reasoning, reading comprehension, analytical reasoning, and writing ability. Recruiters would be able to weed out law grad applicants who aren’t comfortable with numbers through management consulting tests or case interviews. Tests usually include in-depth numerical analysis and graphical interpretation and analysis of business scenario during case interviews usually involved mental math, so the proficient applicants can be easily spotted.

Consulting Frameworks

Law grad applicants will also undergo the same recruitment process as others. Hence, they must spend lot of time on mastering consulting frameworks. They may not have a hard time understanding the structure, but since the concepts are far different from typical law cases, they must spend more effort in familiarizing them. It is also encouraged that they apply the frameworks to as many business cases as they can for thorough practice.

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When you embark on a new career venture, you must do some research. This will encourage you to ponder on the profession you truly desire to pursue. In this post, read four facts about management consulting industry and let them guide you in coming up with a career choice.

Fact No. 1: Getting Through the Recruitment Process Is Difficult

Applying for a position in a consulting firm is just like going through another recruitment process, only many times harder. First, the competition is tough. Top tier management consulting firms like Bain, PWC and McKinsey receive numerous resumes each month from qualified candidates. Many of them graduated from prestigious universities. Further, the screening process is tougher. The tests have a higher level of difficulty, and the interviews require exhaustive preparation. You must rehearse your answers to common behavioral questions and master the management consulting frameworks to ace the case interviews.

Fact No. 2: Your Effort Will Be Rewarded

If you are fortunate enough to make it to your goal, you should congratulate yourself on acquiring a great milestone. Unfortunately, the hard work doesn’t end there. Once you start doing the real job, you’ll realize why the recruitment has to be tough – to choose the best person for tougher responsibilities. You will be working on different business dilemmas, taking advantage of your analytic, communication and logical skills. In some weeks, you will have to spend a few more hours at the office even when your client’s employees have all gone home for a sumptuous dinner with their loved ones. You will never say your management consulting work schedule is lenient. However, during paydays, you can always attest that each minute of effort is financially rewarded.

Fact No. 3: Traveling Becomes a Wearisome Activity

For you to perform your management consulting roles and responsibilities, you must be at your client’s office on most weekdays for data collection, workshops, meetings and analysis. For firms whose clients are only within the city, this isn’t a main concern. However, when they are located in another city or country, this can cause physical and emotional stress in the long run. For some, it is inconvenient to spend many hours every week travelling. The trip becomes strenuous because of the homesick feeling, too. You must love the idea of always being active to survive the hectic schedule.

Fact No. 4: Management Consulting Isn’t Only about Expertise

You will be hired primarily because of your technical know-how about project management, human resources or marketing. Other recruiters will consider you because of your impressive analytic skills or superior score in a numerical reasoning test. Though you won’t survive the job without that knowledge and ability, you must also be able to interact with different kinds of personalities. Your people skills will be your key in getting necessary information. Moreover, since you’ll be sent to different locations, your sociability will help you adjust with the new environment readily.

After reading the aforementioned facts, does consulting field still attract you?

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Being called for interview by a management consulting firm is a privilege. Only a few percent of the applicant pool are given the chance to be assessed further. Hence, necessary preparation must be done to nail down the questions.

This doesn’t only include identifying the most appropriate outfit. More importantly, you should anticipate the possible interview questions and rehearse your ideal answers. This ensures your ideas are substantial. It also makes you appear eloquent and confident, two necessary characteristics of management consultants.

Top tier consulting firms like Bain and McKinsey have two types of interviews: fit interviews and case interviews. Below are categories of questions you will most likely get in both interviews.

Fit Interviews

This type of interview focuses on who you are as a person. It gauges if your personality is a perfect match for the vacant management consulting position. It includes the following areas:

Personal Background

You will be asked to share general details about your life. The common question under this category is, “Please tell me about yourself.” When you answer this question, include only bits of information that are relevant to your application. You don’t have to mention unnecessary details, such as the awards you received in high school or your academic achievement back in elementary. Always ask yourself, “What does the interviewer want to hear from me?”

Education

Especially if you are a fresh graduate, interviewers will spend a few minutes digging information about your education. They might ask about your major subjects to get an idea about your understanding of management operations. Also, you will be asked to describe your extra-curricular activities since they indicate your commitment, interpersonal and leadership skills.

Skills and Professional Experience

Interviewers will also go into details of your significant experience in the past. This includes how you resolved a major problem, how you maintained work-life balance despite your busy schedule and other queries related to the daily life of a management consultant. Answers to these behavioral questions are believed to predict your future reaction to similar situations in the workplace.

Case Interviews

This type of interview is classic to management consulting. Interviewers give you an ambiguous case to assess how you break a complex problem into small, manageable chunks. Questions under this type of interviews are categorized into three.

Business Case

You will be presented with a real-life business case similar to what professional consultants deal with every day. It can be a market-related or competition dilemma. They are best resolved with management consulting frameworks. They provide structure and logic to the process of arriving at an acceptable answer.

Estimation Questions

From its name, it can be derived that you will be using numbers to guesstimate the answer based on a logical explanation. For instance, you will be asked to determine the number of mobile phones that should be produced next year or the number of hotdogs that are eaten by Chinese children in a week. Mental math is very important in answering these questions.

Brain Teasers

This category includes riddles that must be answered with an out-of-the-box thinking. A common example is, “Why are manholes round?” If you happen not to know the correct answer, it’s alright. Recruiters go after the means to an end. What matters is you are able to provide a rationale for your answer.

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Recruiters of management consulting firms hire applicants who they think will become successful in the field of management consulting. However, though the process they follow is effective, real success of consultants can only be determined at the workplace.

Potential Success Determined during Recruitment Process

Since consultancy is a heavy responsibility, recruiters ensure that they hire the most qualified candidate for their vacancy. They usually receive thousands of job applications per year, and it is their duty to determine who among the aspirants can do the job well by thorough screening.

Preliminary Screening

Recruiters primarily assess the knowledge, skills and ability of candidates through cover letter and resume screening. Knowledge includes evaluation of general educational background, GPA and grades on major subjects, and for experienced hires, their technical know-how and the tangible results they achieved. When they assess skills and abilities, they go through extra-curricular activities and achievements enumerated on the job application.

Tests and Interviews

Some management consulting firms, such as McKinsey and Bain, weed out applicants through testing. Some administer verbal and numerical reasoning tests but others include personality tests, too.

In the consulting field, there are two types of interviews: behavioral (or fit) interviews and case interviews. In the former, interviewers ask situational questions to gauge the applicant’s interpersonal, communication and stress management capability. At times, this is done through phone interviews. Case interviews aim to find out if the applicant is capable of doing the main roles and responsibilities of a consultant. They are given vague problems to resolve within a limited period of time.

Indicators of a Management Consultant’s Success

While recruitment process is helpful in determining who will do well in the industry, firms only know the real score as soon as the newly hired starts working. In all cases, consultants are considered successful if they value integrity.

Quality of Recommendations

Consultants take the role of an expert. So much decision making hinges on the recommendations they give to the company. They cannot afford to make mistakes, so their advice must be factual, proven and customized to client’s needs. They know it is unprofessional to give packaged plans or solutions to companies who are undergoing similar problems. They must develop customized, executable and sustainable plans and recommendations.

Commitment

Management consultants always place the interest of their client before them. This is the reason why they spend long work hours to meet deadlines, conduct research studies, brainstorm ideas and prepare presentations. They strive to deliver what’s expected from them by doing all possible means. If clients are satisfied with their output, they have a good reputation. They start making a name for themselves and for their firms. More companies will keep availing their services.

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Though management consulting is one of the most rewarding jobs ever, it has also its share of disadvantages. Unfortunately, those working in the industry are known for their lack of quality time for their loved ones.

It’s commonplace to hear that management consultants work for at least 50 hours per week. At times, when they’re working on an urgent project for a very important client, they have to render about 80 hours in the office just to beat deadlines. It’s not also surprising to know that their family life is affected by their hectic schedule. More time for work simply implies less time for the spouse and kids.

The Downside of Traveling

At first, the concept of traveling excites consultants. An out-of-town trip once a week is a wonderful opportunity to explore a new place – its culture, food and tourist spots. However, as years pass by, they realize it’s just another assignment they have to deal with, and they won’t be home for days. The enthusiasm gradually subsides, and homesickness replaces it. The sad thing is that they can’t just turn their back on it. They know that they must visit the client’s office to interview employees, to attend meetings with the management and to gather information. These are part of their responsibilities and, therefore, missing these tasks is practically the same as being negligent.

Lack of Quality Time with the Family

Due to frequent trips and necessary overtime services at the office, the management consultant barely have quality time for the family. Annual reunions and other big family events are usually scheduled and may be inserted in the organizer, but those simple, happy moments are often forgone. Many consultants get home with their kids already sleeping soundly. They miss having dinnertime together, laughing in front of the television and doing the storytelling ritual between a parent and a child. Skipping moments like these can be a threat to the relationship. It leads to serious problems, such as wide relationship gaps, miscommunication and the feeling of neglect on the part of the child.

Managing Time

One of the top three success factors of management consultants is organizational skill. This doesn’t only include creating a Gantt chart, maintaining a proper folder structure on your PC or dealing with various forms of communications neatly. This skill can also be used in maintaining work-life balance so they can allot sufficient time for their personal commitments. This is easier said than done as many consultants are actually stuck in their work even after midnight. However, those who are as committed to their family as to their job will make a way, even if it means a great deal of sacrifice. These consultants find time to:

• Maximize technology to communicate with the family. They make sure they give them a call, a chat or an email.
• Find time to have meals together once or twice a day. When they talk with each other, they ascertain that everyone in the family is doing well.
• Spend quality days together in a trip, on lazy Sundays, in a mall, etc.
• For the highly family-oriented management consultants, transfer to a firm where clients are only located in the city.

If you’re confident you can manage the lifestyle of a consultant, start grooming yourself for a position in Bain, McKinsey and AT Kearney now!

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University of California Berkeley Haas School of Business has an organization that prepares students for a promising career in management consulting. Learn how the club carries out their goals.

Firm Night

It’s a three-hour event when different companies gather to meet Haas MBA students. They introduce their practice areas, the sectors in which they work, their recruitment procedure and other significant information. It’s a well-participated event, with professionals representing renowned management consulting firms like Bain, Monitor, McKinsey and Ernst & Young.

Boot Camp for Students

The activity aims to improve club members’ performance during case interviews. This one-day event starts with an introduction to case interviewing and then it’s followed by interview rounds. The interview per se lasts for 30 minutes and the giving of constructive feedback for another 15 minutes. It’s a perfect time for first year students to be exposed to this challenge and for second years to prepare for actual management consulting interviews after graduation.

Summer Internship Preparation

At the end of each school year, the club hosts a panel discussion for those who will pursue summer consulting internship. The selected experts will give the participants tips on how to seize the experience – from observing the consulting dress code to filling the firm’s vacant position. They will also clarify issues and answer questions for students to get through the program successfully.

Visit Haas Consulting Club’s Website

The club has a lot to offer! Visit their website now and become familiar with their initiatives.

Jargon is inevitable. Circles of friends, flocks of nerds or groups of employees develop their own terms or phrases that only make sense when used among themselves. Continue reading this article to become familiar with common acronyms and abbreviations used in the management consulting industry.

As a consulting aspirant, you should learn the management consulting dictionary – the jargon that consultants use. Once you get hired for the position, you will interact with partners, and they might be using technical terms that aren’t in your dictionary. To deal with this proactively, start learning the terms as early as now so that when you get there, you’ll be working on the same page with others.

AOB

Stands for Any Other Business. Acronym for miscellaneous topics to be taken up in the meeting.

It’s almost 7:00 P.M. now. Shall we meet tomorrow for the AOB?

Big 3

Refers to the three most prominent management consulting firms namely, McKinsey, Bain and BCG. It is also called MBB.

Big 3 firms provide rewarding compensation to their employees.

Big 4

Refers to the largest audit firms namely Deloitte, PWC, Ernst & Young and KPMG. You should not confuse Big 4 with Big 3!

It would be difficult to compete with the well-established Big 4.

MBB

Stands for McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. Booz & Company is sometimes mixed in with the Big 3 firms, thereby adding one more B to the acronym.

Many graduates wish for a position in MBB.

MECE

Stands for Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive. An acronym that originated at McKinsey. Wikipedia defines it as a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets.

Why don’t we try MECE to analyze this scenario?

QC

Stands for Quality Control – A process that ensures products or services meet quality standards.

You need to send your slide deck through QC before sending out to the client.

SME

Stands for Subject Matter Expert – A person proficient in a certain field. An example would be a management consultant. This acronym is often confused with Small-Medium Enterprises.

XYZ Company needs an SME in information technology to enhance their business operations.

SWAG

Stands for Some Wild-Ass Guess – An idea formulated without supporting data or facts. Often created based on experience.

It wouldn’t be safe to rely on SWAG completely. We must do our research for this project, as well.

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The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is often used by business schools as part of their criteria in admitting students into their MBA program. However, what does it have to do with your management consulting career? Read more and know the purpose of this standardized test.

Recruiters look at your GMAT score not because they want to know if you can proceed with your MBA degree at a particular school. They consider it because the results tell something about your management consulting competencies. The GMAT score will be one of several criteria that recruiters look at before inviting you for an interview. Once you land the consulting interview, your score doesn’t matter. Let’s look at four main parts of GMAT tests.

Quantitative Section

The quantitative section gauges your quantitative reasoning and interpretation skills. Questions are related to arithmetic, basic algebra and common geometry concepts. Some items require you to resolve numerical problems while others ask you to examine quantitative figures logically.

A good score in this section means you are capable of dealing with numbers every day – common factor recruiters look for in management consulting candidates. If you, fortunately, land your dream job, you’ll be dealing with financial reports, working on the quantitative aspect of your research, assigning product prices and computing costs and revenues. If you are terrible with numbers, you will be in trouble as a consultant!

Verbal Section

The three types of questions in this section are reading comprehension, critical reasoning and sentence correction. In the first type, you will be asked to understand written text, interpret ideas and answer inferential questions. The second type measures your reasoning skills by evaluating contentions and formulating a plan of action. The last type expects you to select which among the choices is the best way of expressing an idea.

If you score high in this section, it can be interpreted by recruiters as possession of outstanding verbal reasoning skills. This is important in management consulting since you’ll deal with researches and written reports that must be evaluated with critical thinking. Your incapacity to do so will lead to recommendations without factual basis. With this, you will lose your credibility. On the part of the client, this will result to poor decisions and irrelevant costs.

Integrated Reasoning Section

The integrated reasoning section includes items on graphical and table analysis. You will be presented with data that come in different formats and from numerous sources. You need to integrate the available information to be able to resolve a complex problem.

A good score in this section is impressive because it implies you can put together facts meaningfully. When you resolve a business case, several factors are to be considered. For instance, if you assess a market situation, you must look into the characteristics of customers, capability of suppliers, ongoing competition and the performance of current market. You can only come up with a recommendation after analyzing the costs and benefits of each factor.

Analytical Writing Assessment (AWA)

In this section, you are asked to understand and critique the argument presented to you. MBA.com states that it is not a requirement for you to have specific knowledge of the essay topic. What matters more is you’re able to write analytically within a limited period of time. You need not express your personal opinions about the subject. You will be evaluated based on your ability to organize ideas, provide supporting facts to your main points and use English correctly.

As a management consultant, you are expected to make comprehensive presentations for clients. However, they won’t just drink the kool-aid. For them to be convinced, your solutions or recommendations must have a solid basis. You can bring up the results of a survey, findings of your market study or summarized report from your interviews with employees. Hence, a good score in AWA section will also put you at an advantage.

Do not just take GMAT for granted. Perform well in this test for it tells something about your capability to do management consulting roles and responsibilities.