Management Consulting Discussion - Page 13

never went to the consulting route seriously, was way more into finance at the time. Any way I had interview with the big as well as the small. Generally the first round were pretty decent, second round can be brutal to ok, then they definitely try to kill you in the third round (if there was one, which was the case with all the small one I interviewed back then).

I interviewed for consulting, trading and quant. job (quite phd program people here ). Didn't have real stress interview as in people are asshole, but definitely some hard hard questions (especially for quants., bunch math and physics phd/professors...).

What tends to be attractive is not whether or not you went to the best school (although firms tend to start there) but whether or not you were the best at your school.

Distinctiveness, wherever you may be, is attractive. Now that assumes you have all the basics checked (e.g., GPA, GMAT or test scores, analytics).

I think that's great advice for anyone mapping their college years to a degree actually.

It worked wonders for me personally, so maybe I am tainted by my own bio, but certainly I found coupling a major and a minor (kinda - Australia works differently) that no one else had done was a great leg-up in interviews and in differentiating myself from the candidate pool.

I always wanted to do consulting as a career. This thread is very informative so 'thank you' Artisan Fan. Anyways, I always imagined consulting as working with a client in mapping out and finding solutions to their problems. I just feel like I work better in an atmosphere where I can make connections one-on-one and go through a rundown in supplying my client with the 'needs' they are so intent on having. Currently I am finishing a dual degree in financial economics (business admin.) BS and quantitative management (statistics) BS. I am not sure if the two majors done together is anything different, but what can I possibly do in terms of a consulting career after finishing up? I have no prior experience other than a summer intern, and I do plan on going to a master's program as I feel I am not PhD material... yet? And instead of an MBA that I was so set on, I am really intent on going into graduate level statistics. Just not sure where to fit this all in as a job first sounds more appealing then continuance of school. Thoughts?

if you develop specialized knowledge within an industry, you can work for a vc or startup

If you learn a bit more application for your quant knowledge, eg operations research and resource modeling, I think you'd have pretty good luck even at non econ consulting firms.

I don't know if kill is the correct term. I think (like an interview with any company) keeping your cool so that you can let your true self come through* is all you need. On the one hand, yeah you are interviewing with smart people, but at the end of the day, they're still humans that you can deal with like those from any walk of life. Also, McK's first round is only based on an aptitude test and Bain and BCG only use two rounds of interviews. That might just have been how things worked for the fall round in the southeast, but I think that's their general procedure. I didn't interview with Bain so that's conjecture from the interwebs on my part. Honestly, just try not to screw up the math, walk your way through the cases with the interviewer, follow any directional hints they give you, and be personable. I read a bit of Case in Point, but I can't say the live interviews matched the examples in that book. The live ones were more dynamic. McK cases were more structured than BCG, but neither were step by step walk throughs. *Cliche alert. Edit: Just saw AF covered this in far fewer words than me. My mom does still say I should've been a lawyer .

I should also mention: Don't let your school or major ever keep you from doing what you want. It's only a roadblock if you make it one.

This is standard. McK's "test" is for non-MBA applicants. For MBAs all three have 2 interview rounds.

I know MBA's that have had to take McKinsey's test.