Confused about analyst roles vs. consultants? Learn about the similarities and differences here.
Career Profile (Salary, Job Titles, Grad School Data)
Consulting is a fairly broad term that can have a variety of meanings depending on the industry it refers to. For example, you can work as a marketing consultant helping companies create and optimize their marketing campaigns or as a software consultant, designing software systems for an organization. However, although the term has many applications, it's generally used to refer to management or strategy consulting, the practice of helping companies increase their efficiency and profits by addressing the major operational or strategic challenges they're facing. Vault has extensive resources on the consulting industry, including rankings, application prep and "day in the life" guides. Access the resources here. (CPD has provided free access to Vault resources for Gies students) In addition, we provide access to Management Consulted.
What do consultants do?
Consulting roles can vary greatly depending on the type of consulting firm you work for and the companies you work with. For example, if you work for one of the large management consulting companies (such as McKinsey, Bain or Boston Consulting Group) you'll be following a fairly structured career path, starting off as a junior consultant and moving up to a senior consultant role within two to three years. Working at one of the larger consulting firms also means that you're more likely to be a generalist in your early years since you typically only become specialized in a particular vertical, industry or type of work after working in consulting for several years. At smaller consultancies or boutique firms, you'll generally focus on a particular industry from the beginning (such as healthcare or technology) and work exclusively within that industry.
What are the challenges of working in consulting?
Being a consultant is an exciting career path but it does have its share of challenges. One of the main ones is traveling. Although many other careers require travel (e.g. sales), few are as travel-intensive as consulting. In fact, it's not uncommon to hear of consultants who travel four out of five days of each work week, meaning that your non-travel time will usually be limited to weekends. Additional challenges include long hours (12-hour days are standard) and working closely with a new team every few months. Although these factors might take a little getting used to, most consultants adapt to them fairly quickly and are able to thrive in their roles.
What are some of the benefits of working in consulting?
One of the main benefits of being a consultant is having the opportunity to learn about multiple industries and business models. Diverse project work is one of the biggest perks in consulting as you get to try out different roles and industries all the while at the same job. In fact, this knowledge will serve you well throughout your consulting career (and beyond), allowing you to quickly spot operational and managerial problems and come up with creative solutions to solve them. And although travel can be a challenging part of the job, it can also be an exciting one, giving you the opportunity to see new parts of the country (and helping you build up some frequent flyer miles in the process!). Consulting will also improve your presentation skills, teaching you how to build impressive presentation decks and communicate your point effectively to any type of audience. Plus, the pay is good!
What skills are needed to thrive in consulting?
As consultants, Excel, Python and PowerPoint are admittedly the go to tools on a day-to-day basis to help synthesize multifaceted ideas to clients in a digestible, actionable manner. Consultants need strong analytical and problem-solving skills. Soft skills are highly important to communicate your ideas and manage client expectations, both of which are equally important when working in consulting. Strong writing and verbal communication skills are essential as is the ability to present findings and proposals to groups. Consultants tend to travel frequently and work long hours during crunch periods with projects, so evidence of adaptability and a high energy level are valued.
Top Consulting Firms
The top 3 strategy consulting firms are in a league of their own, and they are commonly referred to as MBB. The members of this elite group are as follows: McKinsey, BCG and Bain. Beyond the MBB firms, there are several other reputable strategy consultancies. Below we've highlighted additional firms that are notable. You may notice that a few of these firms are the strategy branches of Big 4 accounting firms: Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, EY-Parthenon, Oliver Wyman, PwC, AT Kearney, Roland Berger, and Deloitte. Here is a list of 200+ firms.
Typical Consulting Career Path
Consulting offers a faster career growth trajectory than most industries. Most consultancies hold an "up or out" employee promotion policy, meaning you're either promoted "up" to the next level, or you're phased "out." These promotions typically happen every 2-3 years. If you're a top performer, there'll always be opportunities to advance up the firm's career ladder. Below is a typical career progression:
Confused about analyst roles vs. consultants? Learn about the similarities and differences here.
Management Consulting is the business of analyzing and offering solutions to complex problems within an organization. This is a valuable service because consultants can offer an outside, unbiased perspective to the problem and devote their full attention to solving it. Management consulting firms include top strategy firms such as Bain, BCG, and McKinsey. These firms hire business-savvy problem-solvers to help their clients:
Strategy consulting involves bringing a third party to of analyze client operations and challenges to provide appropriate recommendations.
Strategy consultants usually have considerable industry knowledge and are expected to assess high-level business issues objectively. They take a holistic look at specific problems companies are dealing with and give advice on how they should approach them. Sample job titles:
Operations consultants are hired by clients to support them with improving the efficiency of their value chain. These services include developing and implementing target operating / service delivery models, executing cost reduction programs and optimizing business processes.
Sample job titles:
They primarily focus on assisting clients to develop and apply IT solutions within the organization. In IT consulting, your role is to facilitate the transition of projects into the ICT (Information and Communications Technology) scene so that they can become more effective. Sample job titles:
These consultants are a part of an internal team that is tasked with providing management consulting services to the company. They are essentially employees of the organization, and their primary role is to track the operations of the business and propose new strategies for growth. Internal consulting teams are beneficial to businesses because they are already aware of company operations and can provide in-depth solutions to complex problems. Internal consultants are also fully vested in the success of the company, because their financial well-being is dependent on the company's success.
Having the right talent within the organization is a key focus of many businesses. Human Resource (HR) consulting helps clients manage their employees and improve the performance of every team member. As an HR consultant, you will often tackle problems regarding organizational management, terms of employment, talent management, and retirement plans. You may also be involved in transforming company culture and other core systems & processes that relate to the HR team. Sample job titles:
Large accounting firms also offer consultation services to their clients. This group mainly targets financial advisory roles within a business. On top of evaluating financial capabilities, financial consultants tackle questions regarding financial reporting procedures, techniques for improving cash flow, tax-related questions, and risk management.
In most cases, financial consulting falls under larger management consulting firms such as Deloitte, PWC, and KPMG. Sample job titles:
Networking is key to getting a job in the consulting industry. The top 3 management consulting firms receive over 200,000 applications per year and only about 1.5% of them are selected to work at BCG, McKinsey, and Bain. One of the best ways to get your resume noticed is to attend an event where their representatives and recruiters are present. Start making connections with people who are working for those organizations, beginning with alumni from your school. Develop a relationship with them when you start and follow up with them regularly. Having an advocate inside the organization is the best way to get that chance for an interview.
Soft skills like leadership, communication, and teamwork are coveted by consulting firms, and you need to show these to the recruiters. Considering joining RSOs such as Illinois Business Consulting (IBC), Illinois Consulting Academy (ICA), OTCR, EntreCorps, Illinois Design Consulting, iData, Students Consulting for Nonprofit Organizations, FACES Consulting, Disruption Lab and others to build not only your consulting experience, but also your project management and leadership skills.
You can also utilize resources such as Forage to develop your skills through virtual consulting programs.
Grades (3.5+) do matter to these types of employers, especially the top consulting firms. Management consultant firms highly value academics as an indicator of discipline and intellectual curiosity. Also, focus your studies in the area you want to tackle in industry. If you want to work in Org Development, make sure you take those courses. If you want to work in Supply Chain Management Strategy, the courses you take should reflect this to the companies you are applying to.
Consulting firms are famous for using case interviews during their recruitment processes. Case interviews are much more difficult than the type of interviews you would encounter at a typical corporate firm.
The case you encounter will often be modeled after real business problems that your interviewers have encountered. They will expect you to analyze some aspects of the problems they faced and produce a recommendation.
If you want to land a job offer, you'll need to prepare thoroughly for your case interviews and you should practice as much as possible.
Utilize Management Consulted to prepare or schedule an appointment with one of our case consulting trainers.
Behavioral interviews are an important step in the recruitment process for all consulting companies. Behavioral interview questions can be either Personal Experience Interview (PEI) questions or fit questions. Here are examples of each:
Fit questions: These are high-level questions such as "Why consulting?" or "Why firm X?"
Personal Experience Interview (PEI) questions: These are questions that start with "Tell me about a time when..."
All firms ask a mix of these two types of questions but some are more focused on one type than others.
You can get valuable experience in another firm and may be able to get broader experiences more quickly with an organization less structured than the large firms.
Case competitions are academic contests where teams of students are presented with a real-world business problem or challenge. They must analyze the situation, develop a strategic solution, and present their recommendations to a panel of judges.
Why Participate in a Case Competition?
Consulting jobs are highly sought after because they are prestigious and offer excellent pay and benefits. To come out on top, you need to know where the jobs are and how to learn about companies that are hiring.
For undergraduate and master's program recruits, full-time consulting application deadlines typically fall between July and September, depending on the consulting firm and the specific program. Summer internship application deadlines usually occur between June and August. It's essential to be proactive and start preparing your application materials early to avoid missing these deadlines.
Visit Management Consulted to view
Consulting Application Deadlines.
When using job search platforms, such as Handshake, utilize keywords to find appropriate positions for the industries you are interested in.
Below are consulting job titles Gies Alumni have had:
Consulting resumes and cover letters are a step above what you would need at a typical corporate firm. The leading consulting firms get hundreds of thousands of applications for a small number of positions and their recruiters will scan your documents only for a few seconds. As a result, to be successful you'll need to optimize your resume and cover letter for consulting positions. TIP: Consultants are obsessed with quantifying things. A big part of their job is to crunch numbers to back up ideas they present to clients. So, in your resume, you will need to demonstrate this skill by using numbers wherever possible.
How does your experience align with the skills the employer is seeking?
A simple way to get started is by learning more about the companies that hired Gies students in the past. Once you have identified your target companies, follow these companies on Handshake to be informed about opportunities and info sessions, in which you can network with recruiters and professionals. Check out this list of 200+ firms if you'd like to broaden your search. Vault also rans the top 50 consulting firms in the U.S.
Interview questions for consultants vary depending on the type of company to which you are applying. Consulting interviews typically include a mixture of behavioral, fit and case questions.
The fit interview focuses on your background, skill set and your interest in the role. A typical fit interview includes questions like, "Tell me about yourself" but also focuses on your leadership style and your interest in consulting.
You will also likely be asked a number of behavioral interview questions. These are questions about how you have handled various work situations in the past. For example, you might be asked how you have handled an issue when working with a team.
Other questions might be situational interview questions. These are very similar to behavioral interview questions. However, situational interview questions are about how you would handle a future work situation. For example, an interviewer might ask how you might manage a project with a very tight deadline.
*Tip: Schedule an appointment to meet with a Career and Professional Development Case Coach to practice your case interview skills!
The most common type of consultant interview question, however, is the case interview question. A case interview question is one in which the employer gives you either a business scenario or a brainteaser, and asks how you would solve the problem. These kinds of questions show the employer that you can use logic to solve complex problems. The formats of these interviews differ depending on the firm that you are interviewing with. There are candidate-led case interviews and interviewer-led case interviews.
Candidate-Led Case Interviews: During candidate-led case interviews an interviewer requires the candidate to direct the discussion of the case. Your task as a candidate will be to develop and evaluate your hypothesis while answering the pertinent questions. BCG, Bain, LEK, Deloitte, and PwC conduct their case interviews using the candidate-led style.
Interviewer-led case interviews have a pre-structured format. The interviewer presents you with a problem (sometimes with or without data) and then asks you a set of pre-determined questions. The same method of approach applies in both formats, but unlike the interviewer-led cases where you solve the case from beginning to end, in the candidate-led, you will jump around to different points of the case. Interviewer-led case interviews are typically used by McKinsey, Oliver Wyman, and Accenture.
Most questions in case interviews belong to one of these 9 types: