This document summarizes a career conversation on management consulting. It discusses why students should consider management consulting as a career, the roles and expectations at top consulting firms, key challenges in consulting, and how to prepare for interviews. Some of the main points covered include the opportunities consulting provides to work across industries and functions, examples of the type of work consultants do for clients, and the typical career progression from consultant to partner level.

1. Career conversation on Management Consulting
An IIMB NSRCEL & Goldman Sachs Supported Firm

2. Agenda
• About Me
• Why look at management consulting ?
• Roles at Big 3 – What they expect?
• Challenges Faced in Consulting
• How companies shortlist resumes and Interview
• Key Success Factors during placement
• Leveraging 1-Year for a Career
• My Biggest takeaways from MBA
• Q&A

3. About me
• What I do ?
• My Journey – Before and after MBA
• My MBA experience

4. Some common terms and consulting recruiters
• Consulting Big 3 – MBB (Mckinsey, BCG and Bain)
• Accounting Big 4 – EY, KPMG, PwC, Deloitte
• Big 4 (Strategy Consulting rms) - Strategy& (PwC), Monitor (Deloitte),
Parthenon(EY)
• Operations - A T Kearney, Accenture
• Technology – IBM, Accenture
• Specialized - Olivery Wymann, Alvarez and Marsal, LEK

5. Why look at management consulting ?
• Brand name and credibility
• Work on important problems that impact the enterprise
• Learn to solve problems in a creative way
• Make connections at CXO levels
• Work on a new problems every few months
• Fast growth; Can become a partner in 7-8 years (Consultant -> Manager ->
Principal -> Partner)
• Excellent exit options; Alumni network ; can fit into any industry; high
demand from start-ups

6. Roles at Big 3 – What they expect?
• Start as a consultant (previous experience is discounted)
• Start with Project Scoping, Data Gathering, Model creation, taking notes
and making a PPT
• How to Analyze and break down a problem in smaller parts; Structured
thinking ; (Interview Skill)
• Focus on 80/20 and Answer first (Interview Skill)
• Communication and people skill (Interview Skill)
• Good team player – The Fit question
• Leadership, Drive and enthusiasm

7. Challenges Faced in Consulting
• Extensive travel
• Work life balance and Stress ; 50% will leave in 3 years
• Breath but not depth for a subject; taking things to conclusion?
• Hard Work may not always be recognized
• Extreme meritocracy; Up and Out; Review every 15 days; Reporting to your
junior

8. How companies shortlist resumes and Interview
• Spikes
• Academic (IQ)
• Professional (transferable skills learned, such as data analysis, presentation skills,
team work etc.)
• Personal (Aptitude for cracking tough problems, developing strong relationships
and being a part of high performing teams)
• Part of committees/ organizing important events (Speaks to leadership)
• Relevant competencies
• Relevant industry/ functional expertise (Commercial Awareness)
• Digital / Emerging tech (Hot topics across a variety of industries)
• Diversity
• Case Interview – My experience

9. Key Success Factors during placement
• Communication Skills is key (Clear, concise, enthusiasm)
• Ability to demonstrate growth, flexibility to learn from mistakes and an all
round personality
• Confidence and presentation
• Be open to options, don't restrict on industry, role , salary or location
• Use the process to your advantage; companies need to close quickly ; trying
to hire rather then eliminate
• Past experience counts for a lot ; have a lot of confidence
• Use your network, connections on Linkedin are best if you come from
specialized field

10. Leveraging 1-Year for a Career
• Last chance to change your function, domain
• Will only be the first job, most people have changed in first 3 years
• Difficult for people who are coming from traditional industries to change ;
easier for Tech, Analytics, Consulting and BD background
• Electives, Clubs and CGPA don't play a role in hiring unlike PGP

11. My Biggest takeaways from MBA
• Brand recognition, resume to be looked seriously by recruiters
• Network for friends and mentors
• Learning from International immersion and other international courses
• Option to change industry and change career trajectory
• Open mind to other industries and subjects

13. Why consulting as a career
✓ Opportunity to work across multiple industries in short time
✓ Opportunity to work across multiple functions in short time
✓ Opportunity to work across multiple geographies
✓ Great Exit options
✓ Good industry connects
✓ Overall personality development

14. Why do companies need consultants
✓ Data driven analysis to prove clients’ intuition right
✓ Big decision support / validation; For example
• Cost cutting decisions
• A PE firm asks consultants to do Due Diligence

15. Example of work
✓ Examples

16. Other activities
✓ Thought Leadership – Business Wired, Books, Trends,
Articles, Interviews, Points of Views (POV)
✓ Knowledge Enhancements – Certifications, Events /
Summits
✓ Support in Pre-Sales / Business Development Effort
✓ Practice Support – Mentoring, Hiring

17. Growth path
• Most consulting firm are partner driven
• Partners and Directors are ultimate sales people
• Designation and positions may vary but the usual path is finally towards
Partner or Director. Typical growth path could be:
• Associate/ Consultant
• Sr. Associate/ Consultant
• Principal Consultant / Engagement Manager/ Project Leader
• Executive Director
• Director
• Partner

18. Key challenges
• No ownership of final outcomes (well that is changing now)
• Travelling
• You are always under microscope of clients/ seniors/ partners
• Long hours and stress

19. How to shift to MC career
• From a Tech role
• From a Non-tech role
• My views
• Your story
• Any other story

20. How do they shortlist resumes
• Spikes
• Academic
• Professional
• Personal
• Part of committees/ organizing important events
• Relevant competencies
• Relevant industry/ functional expertise
• Digital / Emerging tech
• Diversity

21. Key skills to be evaluated during interviews
• Problem solving
• Leadership & personal impact
• Communication skills
• Fit to the role

22. Examples of interview cases/ questions
• A telecom company losing market share, how do you suggest to improve the
market share
• How do you price this pharmaceuticals
• A printer company is losing its ink business against fake ink providers, how
do you arrest this situation
• Estimate the number of autos in Bangalore
• An EPC company wants to digitize, suggest?
• A cement company wants to open a new manufacturing facility in South,
please create the business case for it?

23. How to prepare for interviews
• Case in Point
• Sample Case Questions in the Company’s Website
• Prepare based on Role offered (Job Descriptions)
• Consulting (Advisory) Roles are usually small sized teams, less of people
management and more of client stakeholder relationship

24. How MBA helped
• Spreadsheet Model – highly recommended for aspiring consultants
• Strategy – understand and define it in your own words
• Finance and Accounting – annual statements, NPV, ROI, Cash Flow
Analysis, etc.
• Operations – achieving efficiency and effectiveness
• OB and HRM – understand organizational inertia, value system, people
resistance to change
• Marketing – understand the needs of clients
• Connect all these courses together to solve a specific problem for a customer

25. What kind of electives should be taken
• Strategy
• Emerging careers
• Some amount of finance
• In case you are targeting functional consulting such operations/ analytics
etc. then function specific courses
• Excel modeling
• Design thinking