This article addresses consulting-related extracurricular activities and is aimed towards undergrads, MBAs, and other students.
So you’ve landed a spot at a pretty good college/bschool. Now, all you have to do is do well in classes, and you’ll automatically find a great consulting job, right? Wrong.
Actively contributing to consulting-related extracurricular activities doesn’t just look good on your resume. It can help you perform better on consulting interviews and even help develop the skills to perform well after starting your consulting job.
Joining the consulting club on campus is an obvious first step. However, after serving hundreds of clients using our resume editing and interview services, we’ve noticed that many people simply stop there. Simply mentioning membership in the consulting club doesn’t help your candidacy much. You should try to get a leadership position on the club, preferably President or another position that allows you to directly contact consulting firms (e.g. External Liaison, Vice President of Employer Relations). This will give you a lot more opportunities to network with consulting firms compared to people who are simply members of consulting clubs. Make sure to mention your club activities on your resume and in your interview rather than just stating your position name. Regardless of what position you have in the consulting club, you need to be proactive. Leverage your school’s alumni network and LinkedIn to connect with more consultants and invite them to speak at your school. If you’re lucky, some consultants might even agree to help out in running a mock case interview session for your club.
Some consulting clubs are only about networking, speakers, and interview prep, but other consulting clubs actually perform consulting services for companies and organizations (often for free). This can happen even at the undergraduate level; Stanford Consulting is one example. This may take a great amount of work reaching out to companies, marketing services, developing strategies, and coordinating classmates, but will pay off greatly in terms of experience gained, and you can talk about such consulting engagements in your interviews. You don’t necessarily have to aim at Fortune 500 clients, which would be difficult; you might provide your consulting services to local small businesses or even non-profit organizations in developing countries.
There are actually many other activities that can help you besides joining the main consulting club. There may be similar clubs such as the Operations Management Club or the General Management Club. Some schools offer courses that involve significant consulting field work in another country, such Global Consulting Practicum at Wharton or the Global Entrepreneurship Lab at MIT Sloan. You could also find a professor that engages in external consulting and offer to contribute. Finally, even if you are not involved in consulting activities, any leadership position in a student organization is much better than not being involved in extracurriculars at all.
What if your school doesn’t have a consulting club? That’s actually great, because that means you can become the founder of your school’s consulting club and you’ll be able to talk about the great leadership accomplishments you’ve had.
Don’t underestimate the value of such extracurricular experiences for interviews, resumes, and cover letters. Talking about how you created impact for a real client of your consulting organization is infinitely more effective than talking about how you created a great business plan for a virtual company in class and received an A on it.
If you’ve had any interesting consulting-related experiences at your school, it would be great if you could write a comment about them here. Stay tuned for more MBA-related articles.
These strategies to obtain a consulting job are also useful for those who took online mba programs.
About the Author:
The author of this article is a long-time team member of Management Consulted and has extensive experience in consulting and at bulge-bracket investment banks, including interviewing MBA applicants. He has requested anonymity to protect his employer.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Kevin
Thanks for all the wonderful articles. This website is great!
Anyhow, I am currently a sophomore in Computer Science Engineering at a university in the US. I am planning to intern at Deloitte Consulting next summer, as a Business Technology Analyst. The position, as the name suggests, will be related to technology and implementation. I was wondering how the kind of consulting Deloitte does, is different from the kind that McKinsey, BCG etc. do. That is, how does management consulting differ, and are you aware if I can follow such a track at Deloitte. Also, is it possible to switch from technology consulting into management consulting at a later point in my career- just wondering which one I will be more rewarding/fun and give me more opportunities to learn (and earn).
Sorry for such a long question!
Thanks
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MC Reply:
March 17th, 2010 at 12:52 am
Hi Jumping Beans,
Many people from IT backgrounds go into IT consulting first and then transition to management consulting later. Although Deloitte has a heavier focus on IT than McKinsey or BCG, all of these firms consult in a variety of fields. Your compensation would be a bit higher at McKinsey and BCG both in the long and short term, but you could also potentially pursue a very fulfilling career in IT and other consulting at Deloitte. IT and strategy can overlap on many projects, so you want to make sure you are learning more than just IT in your work to maximize your future versatility. Good luck!
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Hello Kevin,
Your article had great advices and was very assuring for my current situation. I am a first year under-graduate at Ryerson University which is located in Toronto, Canada. I am majoring in Global Management and Marketing. My aim is to land a job at McKenzie in a strategy function.
We do have a student formed management consulting organization which helps small and mid-sized businesses. Unfortunately, i can not be a part of it until i am in my second year. However, I just became a part of another student organization which is all about implementing the top student business ideas and to promote student entrepreneurship.
I am also running for the city’s public school board office in the upcoming municipal election, i have high hopes of securing this office. I think the campaign itself will reflect leadership qualities. Also, i founded a small screen printing firm which is in business for two years now.
Thank you again, your article provided me assurance that i might be taking just the right step…
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Thanks for the tips! I’m matriculating the coming Fall and looking forward to get involved!
Needless to say, this website has been of tremendous help. Thanks for that too.
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Does this mean that other than good grades, extracurricular activities and clubs are the only other ways of making oneself look more attractive to an employer? Or is this more like: as far as school goes but outside the classroom?
Thanks
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Just found this website today and already I’ve read several articles with great interest! As with many of the other commenters, I only wish I had found it sooner!
But this one I feel is a lacking only slightly. The main focus is getting involved in clubs. Which I agree, is a great quarter inch on the resume, but I expected a few more tips and since they weren’t there I decided to heed the call to suggest one!
I’m an undergraduate Senior at UGA seeking a Management Information Systems degree, but I’m also an employee with the university in a small cost recovery department focused on creating applications for other departments. This is a GREAT way to get real analysis and consulting training and real-world experience. I strongly urge all my peers (the ones I wont be competing with that is :)) to look to the huge opportunities available behind the academic veils of their school and reach out to departments that match your interest and offer to volunteer for 20 hours a week. Since it’s all government run, they will LOVE the idea of free work, but what you pass up in pay, I believe will result in a resume of gold!
You’ll start off doing grunt work for sure, but if you keep pushing your responsibilities you’ll end up much further ahead of the curve when in the interview you can say you have 6 months to a years experience dealing with real cases! Thats how I started and mine resulted in being hired on and even managing a few other interns!
By the way, GREAT idea to found a club, I am seriously going to be looking in to doing that for the upcoming fall!!!
-Russ
russelllamb.info
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