167: Consulting Values In Action
An hour ago I ran a screening call for case coaching with a candidate I will call Hector from Deloitte, let's assume the Santiago office. The student was at a very élite school, I will call Wharton. This tiny Deloitte office had for the first time offered to pay for an employee's MBA studies – a huge investment for them. McKinsey was now aggressively trying to recruit the candidate and he was on the brink of pursuing this. I was extremely proud of the way Hector reacted when, upon learning of the source of his funding and obligations, I immediately refused to conduct the screening call because it was not in his best interest. In these moments, we get to see tomorrow's leaders forged.
21 Marras 201319min
166: You Cannot Join McKinsey Strategy
Far too many candidates demonstrate poor knowledge of consulting by insisting that they want to work for McKinsey strategy and not operations or BTO. This is a flawed strategy which will only hurt their chances in the short, medium and long-term. This podcast explains why and how to compensate for this misunderstanding.
15 Marras 201310min
165: How Do You Gain More Experience
Many candidates are declined with the suggestion to gain more work experience. Unfortunately, candidates take this feedback at face value. This podcast explains what this feedback means and suggests a vital shortcut to fix this problem. Hint, it does not require work experience at all.
9 Marras 201312min
164: Tragic Mistake of Indian US MBA Hiring
This is an important podcast. Many Indian MBA candidates, those without permits to remain in the US post their studies, follow a dangerous strategy for their internship interviews. This podcast offers a very simple but highly effective strategy to ensure candidates keep themselves in the running for consulting offers. Moreover, keeping residency in the US is a vital prerequisite to maintain a candidates "risk profile" and this podcast again offers some ideas.
3 Marras 201313min
163: Declining Bain's CEO Over BCG
It is indeed a rare moment when the Worldwide Managing Partner of Bain calls a client to encourage him/her to accept an offer. We have had similar situations happen on a handful of occasions to clients. It is an accomplishment and should be celebrated. That does not mean the offer should be accepted.
28 Loka 201319min
162: Accenture to McKinsey
Clients we place into McKinsey etc from the so-called tier-2 firms like Booz, Deloitte, KPMG etc always think they will struggle most with the analytic and other technical elements. We see a flurry of activity, and anxiousness to master story boarding model building, brainstorming and hypotheses development. Our advice to these clients is that this should be the least of their worries. The harsh reality is that they have been pre-wired to think about the wrong priorities on soft-issues, and these intangible areas cause more trouble than they could imagine. Many find that very difficult to understand, so here are some stories based on our own clients' experiences demonstrating how the soft issues could betray your ambitions.
22 Loka 201321min
161: Evaluating Your Firm's Training
Too often clients ask the wrong questions when it comes to assessing training at consulting firms: do smaller offices have poorer training, should I attend training as soon as I join, does BCG have better training than Bain etc. When considering training you need to both consider formal and informal training. As we show, formal training is very useful, but not at all for the hard/technical skills it purports to impart on attendees. Informal training, also known as training on an engagement, is most effective when consultants can practice under diverse conditions. In other words, the more you travel and work with foreign teams, the better will be your training. Some firms encourage more global staffing and others far less. That counts.
16 Loka 201313min
160: Building Hypotheses From Data Exhibits
Reading graphs is a perennial problem for many candidates. Yet, the problem is not the interpretation of the graphical data itself. Rather, it is knowing what to do with that data once you have interpreted it. This podcast introduces a simple 4-step process we introduced for a Yale doctoral client, Felix, and a technique called the One-Sentence-Test which we again developed for the same client. The improvement in her answers warrants sharing this technique. You can see Felix's Improvement in Season One of The Consulting Offer.
10 Loka 201313min
