5 things strategy consulting firms are looking for

1. Intellectual horsepower Recruiters will look to your grades/major/school and test scores to assure themselves you have the intellectual firepower to handle the work. You don`t have to be a straight A student from a top 10 school. But if you aren`t at a top 10 school, then you’re gonna need to either have a very strong GPA in a challenging major or very high test scores. Recruiters don’t like to take risks on the horsepower side. You will need to give them a level of confidence that you can handle the work be considered for an interview. 2. Achievement and work ethic You will need to demonstrate an achievement focus/drive to achieve great things. You can show this in any number of ways (career advancement, excellence in sports, etc.). One of the best ways I’ve seen people bring this out in resumes and interviews is through initiative-taking and/or entrepreneurialism (e.g., starting a small business, launching a fundraiser at a nonprofit, etc.) By the way … this achievement/work ethic point s especially important for those people who have less-than-perfect academic records. You can solve for the intellectual horsepower question with great test scores, but you will need to show somewhere that you have the drive and work ethic needed to be successful. 3. Intellectual curiosity As a consultant, you’re gonna spend pretty much 100% of your time identifying, structuring and solving problems. Intellectual horsepower and work ethic help, but to be truly successful and happy, you need to be incredibly curious too. Are you the type of person who could spend their entire summer internship thinking what they would do if given the CEO’s job. Do you find yourself constantly thinking how businesses you run into during your daily routine (the post office, restaurant, big box retailer, etc.) could redesign their operations to provide better service? A good interviewer will probe for problem solving aptitude AND affinity during both the resume portion of your resume and the case interview. 4. Authentic case analysis This goes hand-in-hand with point above, but one of my biggest sources of disappointment with case portion of interviews is that many candidates have become too robotic (forcing standard frameworks that don’t fit, focusing so much on their plan of attack that they ignore suggestions, or miss details behind questions, etc.). Most of these cases are real situations that the consultant struggled with in the past year. Try to think of the case less as a performance by you and more as a conversation where the interviewer lets you in on a problem they faced. Some tips along these lines: Talk about how you’re going to solve a problem before you go into the math (and keep talking as you work through the arithmetic). Ask clarifying questions to make sure you understand the context, questions before suggesting an approach. At the end of the day, you are responsible for getting to the answers but don’t let that reality make it feel like a test. One way to help yourself here is to do a practice case or two with a consultant from the office (see below) 5. Relationship-building skills It is absolutely critical in consulting that you enjoy working with other people/through other people to get to solutions. At it’s best, consulting is a counseling relationship you share with a client. So its fine if you are a rock star problem solver, but that in itself is not enough. Building rapport with clients, getting along with people, delivering tough messages and convincing clients of the answer are often more than 1/2 the battle. In the interview process, candidates need to show how they`ve done this in the past. By the way … you can begin to show this skill well before you get to the interview; you should be showing it at campus, other recruiting events. Set a goal at any of these events to create a connection with two or more consultants who’ll take an interest in you and give you honest coaching/feedback throughout the recruiting process. This will not only be invaluable in getting help refining your approach. It also shows them that you know how to work with people. Source: http://www.gottamentor.com