Top tips on get­ting a job as a man­age­ment consultant

It has been said that a year work­ing as a man­age­ment con­sul­tant brings you five years of experience.

There is some mer­it to this opin­ion. As a man­age­ment con­sul­tant, you’ll be exposed to mul­ti­ple indus­tries and busi­ness func­tions with­in a cou­ple of years. So, in terms of broad­en­ing your CV pri­or to choos­ing a long-term career path, a man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy is a great place to start your work­ing life.

The prod­uct of a man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy is its peo­ple. There­fore, man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cies usu­al­ly have some of the most dif­fi­cult recruit­ment process­es to nav­i­gate. Being aware of what these are can help you pre­pare to get a job as a man­age­ment con­sul­tant – and pre­pare you should. Here’s how you can get a job as a man­age­ment consultant:

1. Your online presence

Are your Face­book and Insta­gram accounts pub­lic? It’s not always a good idea for poten­tial employ­ers to see evi­dence of late-night par­ties and bol­shie talk. Set­ting up a LinkedIn pro­file, how­ev­er, is a very good idea. You should main­tain a LinkedIn account that reflects your aca­d­e­m­ic and busi­ness life. If you are active­ly look­ing for work, be sure to check in on LinkedIn at least once a day – miss­ing a mes­sage from a poten­tial recruiter by a few days may mean a lost job opportunity.

2. Past expe­ri­ence is important.

Do what you can to add business-related ele­ments to your resume, such as past work expe­ri­ences. This could also include seek­ing out a com­pa­ny to part­ner with on a the­sis, or get­ting work as a tem­po­rary employ­ee, or win­ning an intern­ship somewhere.

3. Num­bers stand out

On your CV, high­light with num­bers how you helped improve a sit­u­a­tion. For exam­ple: “In the role as chair­man of the col­lege char­i­ty, I was suc­cess­ful in increas­ing stu­dent vol­un­teer hours by 50%.”

4. Extra-curricular activities

Some­times, the per­son inter­view­ing you wants to get to know you more as a per­son. Your extra-curricular activ­i­ties can be a good con­ver­sa­tion hook. Don’t fake it, though. If you state that your hob­by is pho­tog­ra­phy, make sure you’re able to talk about it in detail. If you don’t have much in terms of extra-curricular hob­bies, seri­ous­ly con­sid­er start­ing some­thing – it just makes your CV more interesting.

5. Do your homework

Before apply­ing for a man­age­ment con­sul­tant job, at the very, very least, be sure to vis­it their web­site and social media pages to find out what they are doing. It’s also a good idea to fol­low their asso­ci­at­ed social media accounts.

6. Tai­lor your applications

If you are apply­ing for an open­ing with a par­tic­u­lar set of require­ments (for exam­ple, in the telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions sec­tor), be sure to bias your CV and cov­er­ing email/message with rel­e­vant expe­ri­ences. Don’t sub­mit a CV with­out a cov­er­ing message.

7. Expect a tele­phone screen­ing call first

If you have applied for a job and see an unreg­is­tered num­ber call­ing you, don’t ignore it! It could the be recruiter want­i­ng to talk.

8. Group assessments

If you get past a tele­phone screen­ing, in almost all cas­es, you will be expect­ed to attend a group assess­ment. Typ­i­cal com­po­nents of group assess­ments include:

• A numer­i­cal rea­son­ing test
• A psy­cho­me­t­ric pro­file test
• A group exercise
• A pre­sen­ta­tion you are expect­ed to give

You can find prac­tice numer­i­cal rea­son­ing and psy­cho­me­t­ric tests online. While numer­i­cal rea­son­ing abil­i­ty is a must-have for a can­di­dates, your psy­cho­me­t­ric pro­file is more about under­stand­ing your per­son­al­i­ty. Don’t try to fake your respons­es, there are built in con­tra­dic­to­ry ques­tions to give a con­fi­dence lev­el in your test results. You can’t fake your per­son­al­i­ty, so don’t do it.

The key to the group exer­cise is to par­tic­i­pate and demon­strate lead­er­ship traits (such as sug­gest­ing how the team might process the prob­lem, like using a white­board to brain­storm out ideas).

With regards to pre­sen­ta­tions, if you are allowed to pre­pare in advance, choose a top­ic you know well, and prac­tice, prac­tice, practice.

9. Ref­er­ences

You may be asked for one aca­d­e­m­ic ref­er­ence, and one non-academic ref­er­ence. Make sure who­ev­er you nom­i­nate, they know about this.

10. The final round(s)

Post group assess­ment, if suc­cess­ful, you will prob­a­bly have addi­tion­al fur­ther inter­views. These inter­views may be with the peo­ple whom you will be work­ing with. They will be think­ing: “Is this the kind of per­son I want on my team?” Be sure to use your inter­per­son­al skills to strike up a rela­tion­ship. Also expect real life sce­nario ques­tions, such as: “Imag­ine this is the first day on your job, what are you going to do?” At this stage the peo­ple inter­view­ing you will be look­ing for intu­ition and your abil­i­ty to plan.

As the say­ing goes, if at first you don’t suc­ceed, try, try, try again. While you may fail in the recruit­ment process of the first man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy you try, the expe­ri­ence should help you bet­ter pre­pare for the next one.

Also, ask your­self, do I want to be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a small pond?

Bou­tique con­sul­tan­cies such as Renoir Con­sult­ing gen­er­al­ly give you more auton­o­my with clients, which leads to a more rapid learn­ing curve, and faster pro­gres­sion through the ranks to high­er renu­mer­a­tion lev­els.A career as a man­age­ment con­sul­tant is a reward­ing one. If you would like to explore oppor­tu­ni­ties with Renoir Con­sult­ing, check out the career page on our web­site: https://www.renoirgroup.com/career/