Consulting Job Guide 2021

The easiest and most efficient way to land a consulting offer (in my opinion)

The inspiration for this guide

A little story

During my first year of yeshiva, I met a fellow student who recently accepted an offer from Mckinsey. Being interested in consulting myself I inquired into how he prepared. He said two words.

“victor chang”

“that’s it?”, I asked

“yup”, he responded

For those of you that don’t know, Victor Chang is the author of Case Interview Secrets, a very popular case prep book, second only to classic Case in Point by Marc Consentino. It is wildly popular and somewhat controversial for its “simple” approach toward case frameworks.

As I started to delve more deeply into the consulting prep world I began to believe that he was not telling me the whole story. Consulting prep is its own industry. With starry-eyed students often paying hundreds if not thousands of dollars on the countless programs and resources that promise to give them a leg up on the competition. Surely reading one short book is not going to be enough.

So I took the “safe route”, going far beyond just reading Case Interview Secrets, I engrossed myself in a plethora of other resources that I believed would provide me the “full” set up of skills that I would need to land a consulting job.

However, after having gone through the process and securing a position at a top firm, I now realize that he was actually telling the truth, the “whole truth”.

The problem

The internet is an amazing resource. Providing us more information at the tips of our fingers than ever before. But it also comes with downsides. By providing us with so much accessible information it can actually lead to a lot of misinformation and wasted time. Add to this that people are always trying to sell us stuff it can also lead to wasted money.

Consulting prep is not easy, it requires serious effort to solidify your resume and become competent in case studies. However, the process itself does not need to be intimidating or confusing. It’s actually quite straightforward. It’s really a matter of getting the right information and grinding.

So, can you really land a job by just reading Victor Chang?

Yes.

Should you?

No

I have a more comprehensive yet still simple method for getting an offer.

Welcome to the Consulting Job Guide 2021

What differentiates this guide from all the others?

1. I am not trying to sell you anything

This guide is pretty much a transcription of the advice that I provide to interested students when they LinkedIn request me. Unlike other guides that can be found online, you will not find here offers to buy any services from me. The only resources here that are not free are a couple of books that I highly recommend. I gain nothing from you buying them. 

2. I don’t provide any shortcuts or hacks

Other guides often make promises that sound too good to be true. They are. The only shortcut in job preparation is to realize that there are no shortcuts and thus its time to grind.

3. Comprehensive

This guide is short and sweet. But don’t be fooled. It is fully comprehensive. In here lies everything that you need. I truly believe if you provided this guide and the resources I mention to a complete novice to the subject and locked them in a room they would come out fully prepared.

How to get the most out of this guide

Stick to the Pareto principle (80/20 rule)

Ever heard of Tim Duncan i.e. “The Big Fundamental”

During his Hall of Fame basketball career, Tim Duncan earned the nickname because his signature shots were as mundane as they were effective. Although Tim was a boring player, he was a vicous scorer that players dreaded guarding. His success was a direct result of his mastering of the fundamentals.

Tim could have focused his efforts on learning new moves and working on different type of shots. But that would only distract him from honing on what made him such a good player. His mastering of the fundamentals. The fundamentals were the 20% that contributed to 80% of his success.

Consulting positions are competitive with some firms having lower acceptance rates than Harvard. However, consulting interviews are not testing for anything fancy. They are not looking for half court shots and windmill dunks.

A big way to differentiate yourself is by mastering the basics. By mastering the fundamentals you automatically place yourself among the top candidates.

Although this guide is comprehensive I focus on the fundamentals. As you prep I urge you to do the same.

Ok intro finally over

Let’s get started!

There are two components to land a consulting job

1. Getting Inteviews
2. Passing Interviews

Getting Interviews

The best way to get an interview is through a referral

This is critical 

46% off all hires at top performing firms are referrals

This is probably even higher in consulting

I asked a manager at my firm what percent of resumes sent his way get a first round interview. 

The answer was 50% of those with a referral and 10% of the those without. 

Applying to job posts without a refferal is usually a waste of time.

A 4.0 Harvard resume won’t impress anyone if it is not read because all the interview spots have already filled filled with referral candidates. Students with strong resumes are the most likely to make this mistake.

Getting referrals 

For many of us this can be the most nerve racking part of the recruitment process. Reaching out to a complete stranger especially for a request can be stressful especially for those of us who are shy.

Unfortunately, there is no way to circumvent this component

For me this was hardest part of the process. At least in the beginning. However, over time I became more comfortable and I actually started enjoying networking. Each call provided me another opportunity to improve my elevator pitch and learn from interesting people.

If you also dread networking I suggest you look at it as an opportunity to improve rather than a burden. You will need to do this on a frequent basis as a consultant so you might as well get comfortable now.

Networking

Sorry for the cringey gif but it is going to get us in the right headspace for what we need to do next. 

Getting a referral in 2 steps 

1. Getting the Call

For the sake of organization I suggest making an excel with all the firms that you are interested in applying to. Next find 2-3 associates at each firm that you can reach out to. This has become super easy with LinkedIn. Simply type in the name of the company you are intersted in and scour the "People" section for current employees. It is best to choose individuals that you have something in common with such as same alma mater, student organization, background etc. as it increases the chance of them getting back to you. Next message them expressing interest in learning about their experience in their role, company, industry or their opinion on how to stand out as a candidate. Here is a great example of a LinkedIn message I received from a current student. 

"Hey Inbar

I am a sophomore at Yeshiva University studying Behavioral Economics, currently interning at a startup as a business strategy consultant.

You have extensive experience in banking and strategy and I would love to speak, especially regarding your journey in consulting and to EY-Parthenon.

No worries if you are unavailable!

All the best," 

2. During the call 

Our goal here is to make a connection. We do this by displaying genuine interest through the question we ask. I suggest making a notecard before each call that will serve as a "sparknotes" of that person's life. You can include highlights of the person such as school, major, work experience, interests etc. pretty much anything interesting you can gather from their LinkedIn that you might want to bring up during the call. 

When appropriate I suggest providing a background of yourself. This can be done in the beginning of the call or snuck smoothly as a response to something they said. The background should reveal why you are interested in consulting. 

Keep in mind that the consultant has a financial incentive to give you a referal and is simply looking to see if you are the type of person that has a chance of passing the interviews and whom they would like to have as a collague.

Lastly, don't directly ask for a referral (he/she knows why you are calling). If at the end of the call he/she doesn't offer to give you a referral you can hint at it by asking a question such as "do you have any ideas on how I can stand out as a candidate?"

Repeat steps 1 & 2 until you have refferals for all your target companies

Tips:

• Do not become disillusioned by rejections, they are part of the process 😊
• Keep an excel of all your target companies and which employees you reached out to

Passing Interviews

There are 2 components to consulting interviews

• Case Study Questions
• Behavioral Questions

Case Studies 

Preparation for case studies involves:

1. Practicing case studies
2. Practicing mental maths  

Let's start with case studies as preparing for these is the more difficult and time consuming of the two.

As I pointed out int the beginning there are two books that dominate the case study prep market. Case Interview Secrets by Victor Chang and Case in Point by Mark Conseinto and each have its flaws. 

Case in Point frameworks lack flexibility. Students of this book run the risk of memorizing a long list of frameworks as opposed to learning the skill of developing unique frameworks on the spot. Being unable to improvize puts you in a weak position and can make you sound robotic during an interview. 

Case Interview Secrets is a good book and takes the opposite end of the spectrum due to its simplicity and flexibility. My only qualm with this book is that it is almost to simplistic with the frameworks being so simplistic you lack options. 

My favorite case study prep book Hacking the Case Interview by Taylor Warfield builds on Case Interview Secrets by maintaining simplicy and flexiblily while giving the students more ammunition to use in building frameworks. The blue book also provides the best practice questions and overall case study guidance. 

For this reason I highly suggest using Hacking the Case Interview aka the blue book as your main case study prep tool. Building on the blue book, the red book aka The Ultimate Case Interview Workbook provides 10 fantastic practice cases. 

How to get the most out of the blue book

Start off with giving the blue book a quick cover to cover read as this will aid in familiarizing yourself with all the necessary concepts that you will then later utilize. The book is extremely well written and straightforward and thus this first read should not take more than 2 days. 

Next we will want to dive into the meat and potatoes of the book which are the frameworks. I sugest creating a flashcard for each framework provided and the buckets and questions that fit within it. Whenever you have a couple minutes here and there pull out the flashcards and review them until you have them memorized. 

Complete the practice questions provided in the blue book and remember to refer back to it to 

How to get the most out of the red book

How to get the most out of the red book

Give the introduction/pre-case studies section of the book a quick read. There should be a good amount of overlap with the material you came across in the blue book. Move onto the practice questions. 

Try to spend 80 - 100 hours going over the practice cases. There are only which means you are going to be doing each one multiple times. 

Remember that you are going to fail. Everybody does. Learning how to craft answers to case studies is like learning anything new. Difficult, slow and perhaps frusterating at first but rewarding. Be easy on yourself and don't feel bad if you need to peak at the answers. That is part of the learning process. Every once in a while go back to a practice case give a previously attempted question another crack. 

20% of your study time should be spent practicing practice cases with a partner. This is very useful for two reasons. One it provides you an opportunity to learn from each others mistakes. Secondly, it creates a slightly stressful environment as you will being like you are being judged. This is good preparation for the your interviews. 

The latter 80% of your time should be self-learning. The book is formatted in such a way that makes this quite easy (you don't see the answer until you flip the page). 

Final tip: Success is measured by time spent studying, not number of cases covered

Mental Math

The second important and in my opinion easier component of case studies is mental math.  This is the easier and yet most often neglected part of case study preparation. For this reason mastering mental math is a relatively quick and easy way to differentiate yourself from the other candidates. 

Crunching giant numbers might sound intimidating but it shouldn't be for one critical reason. You interviewers are not interested in the exact answer to any calculation and in fact, providing one might be detrimental. Rather your goal is to approximate the number through estimating. 

There are a number of methods of efficiently estimating the answer to big calculations. I suggest watching a couple videos on youtube and find the method that speaks to you. Upon familiriazing yourself with the different methods move onto practicing them. There are a number of platforms that provide questions to practice your mental math.

If you enjoy the convenience of using your phone I suggest downloading the Magoosh Mental Math app  and practicing for short intervals whenever you have some spare time. The goal is to become so comfortable crunching (estimating) numbers in your head that you don't freeze up when you are in the interview. Many people fail in the mental math department due to overconfidence and thus lack of preparation. Don't let yourself be one of those people. 

Behavioral Questions

The behavioral question covered in consulting interviews are quite standard and easy to prepare for. Best way to do this is to come up with around 7 stories from your life that exhibit some trait or achievement.

You should have at least one story that covers each of the following topics

• Strength
• Weakness
• Leadership Experience
• Creativity/Taking Initiative
• Deal with a challenging situation/person

The stories should follow this format

• Problem - What was the problem you were facing? 
• Action - What action did you take to solve this issue?
• Impact - What was the result of your action? How did it benefit the org?
  • Try to quantify the impact if possible

The stories should be concise but memorable. Write down each story on a seperate notecard and run through them until they are memorized.  During the interview you will be posed with a variety of behavioral questions. In response, simply cycle through the stories that you prepared for and decide which one is the best fit for the question. Tailor your respones a bit so that it doesn't sound robotic. 

Bonus Tips 

Resume Tips:

• Were you a social studies or STEM major in college
  
  • If you were a social science major compensate by focusing on anyltical/techincal experience in your resume
  • If you were STEM compensate by putting extra social/leadership experience in your resume
• Each experience should preferably include an Action and Impact
  • The impact should be quantified (make an educated guess)
• Don't get carried away on your resume
  • An hour spent on networking will go a long way further than an hour spent on your resume

Interview Tips:

• Find a way to relax before the interview (coffee/tea, relaxing music, bath etc.)
• Remember that this is 2-sided. You need to find out if you want to work there. 
• Don't come off as a stoic math robot. Your interviewers wants a human being who not only gets work done but can be a pleasant addition to the culture. 
• Feel free to crack jokes and reference things that are not related to the interview
• Try to make an impression, so that they associate your name with a positive feelings
• During the case study component reference any knowledge that you have that could be relevant to the market, product, etc. in question