What do consulting firms look for in a resume

All are accompanied by extensive feedback using systematic error codings for the most common mistakes. To be extra detailed, use smart spacing to make your phone number easy to read. For example, try These are sensitive subjects that have nothing to do with your desired positions. You are expected to stay neutral , or HR will stay away from your resume.

If you have previously worked at an NGO or NPO for a cause, keep in mind to use professional terminologies that do not express any beliefs. Hiring decisions made based on any of these 3 factors is strictly prohibited, at least in the US. The screeners will not risk the PR crisis for just 1 resume, so it is best to not include your photos, or your gender, or your ethnicity in your resume.

No matter how impressive your experience is, a 2-page resume will put it all to waste. Personally, I love looking at creative resume templates. But if I were to hire someone whose job is to steer an entire company away from bankruptcy in a stressful working environment, I would for sure go with someone who sticks to protocol.

Whether you are incompetent at English or you were careless, it is a red flag for screeners. How can they trust you to not make the same mistakes in future consulting documents? If you cannot format a 1-page resume properly in a low-stress situation, how can you expect to handle a big volume of complicated documents and reports with really tight deadlines?

Stick to the template I have provided you tightly! Since your resume is considered a professional document, please stay away from any informal expressions or wordings. People in the consulting field take this very seriously. Always use tried-and-true terminologies in your resume, just like what you can find in the Resume Toolkit Program. Whatever the reason for your stopping working at your previous job, do not talk bad about it, especially on your resume. Screeners do not have time for gossip or drama, and they certainly do not appreciate the negativity you bring.

Although there is no hard cut-off bar for GPA, one that is lower than 3. If you have a sub Your beautifully formatted resume may be botched horribly, and screeners know that, so they will spend significantly less effort and time on it. Remember to export your resume to PDF if you want to preserve it!

The screening process starts from the moment the office receives your email. Any email without a title , or an attached file , or a cover letter , or body text will be immediately disqualified. Consultants have to communicate through email day and night, so they will take this very seriously. Some students ask me whether they should include their ranking at university or even postgraduate study. And my answer is always YES. By including your ranking in class, apart from your GPA, the screener has a broader view about your academic background and how good you are compared to your peers!

If you have a good ranking or any title at school, put it in your resume to impress the screener. They are happy to see clear results and more important, this helps assess your ability! Most people think the two terms are synonyms, but in fact they are not. Here is the difference:. There are two factors that may affect your decision of using a CV or resume:. Applications for business fields are often reviewed by a standardized process under time constraints.

Because of this, brief and concise Resumes are much preferred. So according to this factor, resumes are definitely the format you should use. The people I have seen many times in our Consulting Feedback service are the people coming from academic backgrounds applying to management consulting. While businesses generally prefer resumes, there are exceptions in various locations.

But when in doubt, a resume is always preferred! We screeners have to work with a lot of resumes. And this is on top of the already heavy workload we do as junior consultants at the time. Resume screening is not high in our priority list.

This is just something we do as a goodwill for the office. The real reward only happens when we come across a really good resume.

And for some reason, we can sniff it very quickly. If you ask, most screeners will tell you that he or she spends about seconds per resume. But the honest number is much lower. After roughly 10 seconds, we have already formed an opinion about a resume and depending on the situation we may spend another 30 something seconds to confirm our thoughts. During those 10 seconds, there are certain areas that we look into more closely.

Look at it seriously and find your way out there! When writing each bullet, we focus on the micro details. But it pays to zoom out from time to time and evaluate your own resume from the top-down view.

Does it show off a well-rounded set of consulting skills and qualifications? Maybe it shows more than enough analytical skills while missing out on the leadership and people part?

But all the general ideas are pretty much the same. Some screeners do it in their heads while some others would even put grades on an excel sheet next to a carefully drafted grading table. Over the years, I have talked to many screeners and accumulated everything into a magic resume grading sheet.

This is like the average grading sheet that a normal and typical screener will use, either implicitly or explicitly. See this in the Consulting Resume Toolkit. Your resume is a cold hard sheet, while the cover letter is more like a human. It tells stories highlighting your personality and how you will come across as a person. In the massive application pool, you should stand out with your own story by attaching your cover letter together with your resume.

Impress the screener with your unique selling point, elaborated in your cover letter. If you have not got any ideas about the cover letter, check out at the Complete Guide to your Cover Lette r! As you may have realized if you read this article carefully- what you did in the past is not as important as the experiences and qualities reflected in the process.

That means you can include academic experiences in a consulting resume. However, there are two caveats to this, which I will discuss later. For now, first things first — do academic achievements show consulting-fit experiences and qualities? The short answer is that they can. The long answer is, academic projects presumably at college level or higher usually involve problem-solving in a structured, fact-based manner, as well as teamwork — matching the required skill set of prospective management consultants; what remains is to write your resume so that it portrays those academic experiences in the best possible light.

There will be a few differences here and there, but the basic principles will remain the same. Boutique or MBB, they are all management consulting firms, so they tend to look for the same kind of people — good leadership abilities, high achieving mindset, and structured problem-solving skills.

However, one crucial difference between boutique firms and top consulting firms such as MBB or consulting divisions of the Big 4 is the scope of their operations — while the large consultancies can touch on every industry, function, and location imaginable, their boutique counterparts focus on one or at most a few specialties , such as healthcare industry specialization , sourcing and procurement function specialization.

You can still find other careers just as rewarding as consulting, financially, and emotionally. Now, suppose you want to apply for consulting immediately and you want to make the best of the modest experiences you have — I can still offer a few tips:.

Generally, your GPA should be above 3. Again, I should clarify that there are no explicit rules or requirements for GPAs or any kind of academic scores for that matter — see this article on GPA Cut-off at Top Consulting Firms for more details — but anything less than extraordinary will not impress consulting resume screeners.

Along with the scores, you may want to include your ranking or percentile — this helps the interviewer perceive your score better since grading standards vary from one institution to another. Ranking or percentile is extra helpful if you come from a country with unfamiliar grading systems Germany, for instance. What if your GPA is low? Should you write it in the resume? Rest assured, those highlights can make up for a low GPA.

Again, you need to absolutely overwhelm the screener with consulting skills and qualifications everywhere else. Think of it as some nice little spices — not the main dish. Successful startups are rare, hugely successful startups are extraordinary, but failed startups… we have that every day, everywhere. The longer you work, the less important it becomes, and at some point, you will need to remove it from the resume, to make room for better career highlights.

You need to highlight the good points of that start-up experience, to make up for the negative connotation of failure. Good networking with consultants at your desired office will vastly increase the chance of you passing the resume screening.

In a boring, tiring, and busy setting. This might sound somewhat shady to outsiders, but in management consulting, the trick is completely legitimate — the job requires extensive people skills, and successful networking is one of the ways to prove that you meet those requirements.

So get out there, go to networking events online and offline, or cold-contact through LinkedIn, get to know a few consultants at MBB firms, and show them your merit. In fact, there are industries where networking is a must to have your resume accepted — such as Investment Banking — the importance of connections in those industries is almost scary. Management consulting, although conservative, is still more open, and you can get in without networking — i.

The hard part of this method is about standing out in a forest of applications — and you can maximize your chance by applying the rules and tips in this article, as well as in our Consulting Resume Toolkit. Just not in a positive way. Consultants generally love the cold beauty of neat, clean, black-and-white papers. A nicely formatted, formal resume exudes professionalism and mature personality — traits much desired in the management consulting world.

In contrast, sending a resume full of lively shapes and colors will only tell the screener that the applicant is childish and unprofessional. Yes, management consultancies love creative people — but they have to be creative in problem-solving, not in the arts.

On the other hand, formal, official templates are completely fine and in fact, encouraged. You can find them on this very website, in our free Prospective Candidate Starter Pack! However, an honest, objective answer is somewhat more complicated. Now, having former consultants from top consulting firms — such as McKinsey, BCG, or Bain — reviewing your resumes will of course drastically increase your chances of passing the resume round.

This stems from the fact that we are the people who screen your resume -we know exactly how to sound impressive and win the hearts of consulting resume screeners. The numbers speak for themselves. However, having been through the very same position as you — the reader — I also believe that resume-writing is a long-term process, and that resumes are highly personalized items — in other words, the best person to write your resume is no one but yourself.

You possess extensive knowledge about your own qualities, experiences, and personalities — we, the resume reviewers — can only know you on a surface level, through the information you provide us.

For this reason, I created the Resume Toolkit — at the heart of this package are 60 real consulting resumes at varying levels of experiences, qualities, and estimated passing rate, along with comprehensive materials on how to write the best consulting resume for yourself. In our trials, the product proved equal or even superior to the Review Service over a long period.

If you want excellent returns in a short time, Resume Review Service will suit your needs; but if you have time to practice which, by all means, you should! Write the Perfect Consulting Resume! Learn how to win the heart of consulting resume screeners in 10 seconds with our Consulting Resume Premium Package!

Resume review service, 60 resume examples, and a DIY consulting resume toolkit to help you land an interview! Bringing you the most genuine view of numerous resumes with diverse backgrounds and writing styles. Walk you into the real world of potential future consultants, so that you can really learn both from their strong points and mistakes.

Lost your password? What is a consulting resume? Incoming MBAs also need to acknowledge that consulting has changed from the world where teams consisted of MBAs, business school undergrads, and senior consultants.

Teams are much more diverse now, and incoming business school grads need the experience to work with the new consulting team of Increasingly, we need MBAs to become the conductors that can conduct those diverse teams.

Amber, who heads up BCG consultant recruitment, says candidates need to demonstrate intellectual curiosity, resilience, analytical rigor, and an ability to work with ease in a team and cultivate relationships. The qualities BCG looks for in candidates are qualities that are often valued during a time of crisis; resilience, focus on teamwork, and working well under pressure.

How do you become a Bain management consultant? Bain looks for people with analytics skills; the ability to break down challenging problems into parts they can tackle in a sequence; strong communication skills; the ability to simply communicate complex concepts; strong team skills and the ability to work successfully alongside others to win as a team.

Keith says successful Bain MBA recruits understand the benefits of what it means to be a Bain and want to go on that journey with them. He explains that consulting on a Bain case team is more like playing in a jazz quartet than a classical orchestra. I need students who are comfortable in that sort of environment.

This article was first published in February and updated in February We are working with more sophisticated tools and deeper expertise than we ever have before. Columbia Business School. IE Business School. In particular, make sure to triple check your contact details. Now that you know about the 10 most important tips to craft the perfect consulting resume let's use them to build a McKinsey resume sample you can reuse for your own application.

Every consulting CV should be split out in 5 sections:. Let's step through each section one by one and highlight the important elements you need to replicate in your own resume. In this section you should include all the basic personal details the consulting firm you are applying for is requesting.

Here are a few things to keep in mind as you put this section together:. This section should summarise the different degrees you graduated with.

If you have recently graduated and only have internship experiences, this section should follow the Personal Information section. Here are a few tips on how to write this section:. The work experience section should include the previous work positions you have held as well as your main achievements in these roles. Here are some more important points to help you put this section together:. One of the most common mistakes we come across in resumes we receive from candidates is the absence of an extra-curricular achievements section.

This section is particularly important if you have limited work experience as it's a great way to show leadership, entrepreneurial drive and personal impact. It's also a great way to compensate for average university grades or a non-target school. The way you write about your Extra-curricular experiences should follow the same format and tips as for the Work experience section.

Here are different types of activities you could write about not exhaustive :. Finally, you should focus the last section of your resume on additional skills you master. Our recommendation here is to keep things simple and to list the foreign languages and programming languages you master. For each language you should specify your level of proficiency.

The guide above as well as our consulting cover letter guide should go a long way in helping you crafting documents that will get you interviews. But if after using this guide you feel you need additional help, we have also put together a Resume writing service for you.

By signing up to this service, you will be matched with a former Resume screener from a top consulting firm. They will assess the existing version of your resume and work with you to improve it and make sure you get interviews. Check it out, you'll be in good hands!

Consulting resume review services. If you have any questions about consulting resumes, do not hesitate to ask them below and we will be more than happy to answer them. All questions are good questions, so go ahead! Crack the Interviews Practise case and behavioural questions 1-on-1 with ex-interviewers.

Stories New. Start Free Login Cart. My Account Logout Cart. Get Interviews Crack the Interviews. Here's the announcement about a special offer - learn more here close. Get your resume reviewed by ex-consultants. Learn more. Part 1: What top consulting firms look for? Top consulting firms tend to all be interested in candidates who exhibit the following four abilities: Problem solving. This means you need to have shown strong intellectual abilities to solve problems at University and during your work experiences.

Personal impact. This means you've shown a dedication to achieving great things in most projects you undertook in the past. You've got a strong personal impact on most projects you are part of. Entrepreneurial drive. This means you should have a track record of launching new initiatives. You are not satisfied with doing things the traditional way and like innovating. Leadership abilities.

This means you've shown you can lead groups of people in the past either in a professional context or at university. Big brand names First, your resume screener will be looking for big brand names when going through your CV. This can feel very frustrating and unfair if you don't have these brand names on your resume. In these situations, it does not mean you won't be able to make it into consulting.

It just means that unfortunately it will likely be more work for you than for other people. But you can still do it. As a consequence, you will need to compensate for this with very strong achievements in other areas of your resume.

For instance, this could be an extra-curricular activity where you showed strong leadership and entrepreneurships skills. Languages Finally, one important aspect of consulting resumes that's not very often discussed is languages. Indeed, most consulting firms operate a global staffing model. If you are based in the London office but speak French and Spanish, that means your firm will be able to send you on projects in the UK, France, Spain, but also North and South America and many countries in Africa.

Your value to the firm will therefore be much higher than if you only spoke English. Part 2: Top 10 consulting resume tips Now that you know what consulting firms look for, let's turn our attention to how you should package that information in your resume.

Tip 1: Keep it to one page We know this is challenging. Tip 2: Use a standard format and standard font Using a special format with a slightly funky font is tempting. Tip 3: Use 5 sections All consulting resume should have 5 sections: Personal information, Education, Work experience, Extra-curricular achievements and Additional skills.

Tip 4: Dumb things down This is particularly important if you have written a PhD. Tip 5: Show your soft skills As mentioned in the first section of this guide, McKinsey, Bain and other firms are looking for skills which are very specific to consulting. Tip 9: Ask for feedback Once you have put together a first version of your resume you need to ask for feedback to improve it. Tip Proofread - Multiple times!

Part 3: McKinsey resume sample Now that you know about the 10 most important tips to craft the perfect consulting resume let's use them to build a McKinsey resume sample you can reuse for your own application.