Consulting 101

Part of the perks of working for global consulting firm (MBB) is getting to attend global/regional training workshops on a regular basis. You get an opportunity to travel abroad to the regional headquarters for a full week, and you also get to meet global colleagues around the world, and see how they have been going through, as consulting projects really differ in dynamics depending on the local context and client.

It can be difficult to network, and get to know your work colleagues when you work in consulting. Since most of the job is done on a different client site on a project basis, you tend to build strong lasting relationships with your project members, but have a limited view on everyone else who works at the firm. Thinking in terms of simple math, you generally work in a team of 3~5 people for a duration of 2~3 months per project. In a given year, you may interact then with only 20~30 people.

consulting firms generally have a big workshop once a year on a company wide scale to get the whole firm together for team-building, but also to share company-level updates, and also just allow the members to indulge and have a good time. We generally refer to this is the company ‘outing’ and is generally a mandatory internal event

I’ve counted, and it turns out that I’ve gone through around 40 actual case interviews, interviewing at multiple firms over the course of 3 years…
3 rounds at PwC (got offer), 5 rounds at Oliver Wyman (final, no offer), 2 rounds at McKinsey*, 5 interviews with BCG, (2 occasions, got offer on second try, accepted in ‘22), 5 with Bain (2 occasions: got to final one occasion, dropped process on a separate occasion), 8 with Deloitte (2 occasions, got offer on 1 occasion), 6 rounds with LEK (Final), 4 rounds with Kearney. (Got offer, Accepted in ‘20)

Just make sure that the habits you inculcate as a BA are sound and productive. In my personal view, it seems each consultant's style/personality (i.e. the style of slides, the writing, the analysis) seem to really form during your time as a junior, so unless you don't know want to go through a hard time as you go up the ladder, buckle up and embrace the suck.

In terms of content, one should always be able to fill out, as a general rule of thumb, around 1~3 slides based on a 1-hour interview with an expert. In order to do that, you must have already have a good understanding of the storyline of the project, and the framework with which you will be approaching the work module you are working on. You do not go into an interview without having a framework to work with, and you must be able to filter out any information that does not fit well with the framework throughout the interview.