It will also help you get a sense of the magnitude of these numbers: You’ll deal with large sets of numbers on a daily basis and being able to calculate these numbers without cranking out a calculator every time just saves lots of time. So why is the interviewer looking for skills you probably have not used since elementary school and in a world with calculators in every mobile phone?įirst of all, being able to calculate both fast and correctly in your head is of great value in the consulting world. You should be prepared to answer questions like these during your case interviews, whether they are part of the case you’re solving or fired at you by the interviewer in an attempt to test your quantitative skills.
So, without using a calculator: what is 40 x 36? What is 12,5% of 160? What percentage is $ 2 million of $ 14 million? If we sell product A 5.000 times for $ 1,49 a piece, what is our revenue? In our next post, we’ll focus on that other important document that you send with each application: your resume. In my book I discuss five proven methods in great detail and help you secure that interview invitation. There are multiple ways of standing out from the crowd and differentiate from the bulk of applicants (in both negative and positive ways). So you need to do two things in your cover letter: The perfect cover letter is one in which the decision is made easy, where you can be sure that rejecting candidate X with the 7 page cover letter saves both the firm and the candidate precious time and where candidate Y has to be invited to the interview because we risk losing his or her talent to a competitor.
How would you feel? What would the perfect cover letter look like? Think about the poor guy sifting through those endless piles of boring letters, trying to decide whether every candidate is a consultant or not in a minute or less (or do you want to spend the evening reading these letters as well?). You’ll want to make that decision as easy as possible for the person scanning your cover letter. Those 30 seconds will determine whether your application ends up on the ‘reject’ or the ‘invite’ pile. So, every application gets about 30 seconds worth of attention. The limited timeframe is why (positive!) differentiation is so important: you only get 30 seconds to prove you need to be invited for the interview. So don’t expect them to read a four-page document in which you elaborate on why you are the perfect consultant. Since these companies get hundreds and sometimes thousands of applications each month, not every cover letter is read: they are scanned. Referring to a previous event or a (former) employee shows you did your research and directly sets you apart from the rest of the applicants, who send typical letters in which they link personal characteristic X to firm benefit Y. Even if they aren’t able to recommend you, you can still refer to these meetings in your cover letter, easily differentiating you from 90% of the applicants who did not take this opportunity. All with the goal of having your application recommended by one of these people. Your application process should start with networking: visiting recruitment events, having coffee with consultants and searching through the alumni network of your university for (ex-)consultants. At least, it should not be, even though it is the case for 90% of applicants. Let’s first debunk a myth here: sending your application to the firm’s recruitment manager is not the first step in the interviewing process. Since so much can (and does) go wrong with these basic elements of your application I’ll cover both on this blog, starting with the cover letter. Your grades from high school and universityĪside from falsification, there is little you can do about nr.3 on this list, so we will focus on the cover letter and resume.When applying for a consulting firm such as McKinsey or BCG, you’ll probably be asked to send them three things:
Before you even get to the case interviews to which this blog is dedicated, you’ll have to apply to the firm you’d like to work for.
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