First, getting fired in management consulting doesn’t happen often. There are many reasons for this (eg, the rigorous recruiting process, the supportive development-focused culture).

However, in tough economic times select firms will significantly tighten hiring and raise the bar on promotions. Those who don’t make the cut must leave the company within a rough timeframe – the “up or out” policy.

Not all consulting firms employ “up or out” – some are comfortable letting people stay in the same positions for many years. Booz Allen is one example

1. Not managing upwards effectively

The best consultants are experts at upward management. Until you’re a senior partner, you’ll always have people above you that need to be managed. This is the ability to do a few things:

-Manage expectations regarding deadlines and work quality. You don’t want the senior partner of your project demanding a functional model in 2 weeks if the data won’t arrive for a week and a half

-Learn to pushback effectively when suggestions are not efficient or practical, or when you’re simply overwhelmed. You don’t want to involve 5 partners in weekly brainstorming sessions when only 2 have relevant content knowledge and the rest argue incessantly

-Engage senior consultants in areas where they can contribute the most. You don’t want expert consultants on HR hiring policies to attend a low-level 2-hour discussion on streamlining IT systems

-Process management. This is the ability to stay on top of all the little things – from daily status updates for your project leader to scheduling key partner and client meetings early 

Pushback is an art – I’ll cover how to pushback effectively in a separate future article

2. Drinking too much at work functions or client dinners

This is an obvious no-no, but it happens all the time. Two casual happy hour beers after-work can turn into drinks at the restaurant bar before dinner, which becomes a few glasses of red wine during the meal.

At some point, you’ll be complaining about the client team with the senior partner sitting to your left. You’ll share your secrets for avoiding unwanted work with another consultant, only to see your project leader starting at you from across the table. Bad news.

3. Staying silent during team and client meetings

This is a common mistake for junior consultants – you’ve only spent 3 months studying cellphone manufacturers when the partner has spent 10 years, so what can you possibly contribute to the discussion? You’re afraid of being the guy that asks a dumb question, or makes a meaningless remark that is swiftly ignored by everyone else.

Silence digs your career grave. It may take a few weeks to acclimate, but the best consultants get up to speed quickly

Here are a few strategies for contributing effectively when you know very little:

-Ask specific questions – questions can be as powerful as comments, and are much easier to generate

-Become master of your domain – whatever information you’re in charge of, know it well. Not only will you have the answer when called upon, but you can reference esoteric points of data unfamiliar to anyone else

-Synthesize what’s being said – this is an invaluable skill, and doesn’t require new insight. Simply take a few important points and sum them up, in the guise of trying to understand the conversation’s direction:

“So if I’m understanding this right, it seems that the collections process is inefficient because of 2 reasons – one, 75% of the processes that could be automated are manual, and two, none of the frontline employees are compensated based on performance…”

4. Repeating mistakes

Consultants make mistakes – blame it on the unfamiliar clients, rotating working teams, and constant travel. The key is to avoid making the same mistake repeatedly. Here are a few examples:

-Not double checking new additions to a financial model, even after calculation errors were pointed out at a team meeting

-Forgetting to confirm the attendance of a specific client executive, after they were left out of previous progress reviews

People notice repeated mistakes, and eventually you’ll be known as unfocused, careless, or worst of all, lazy.

5. Not seeking help when you have no clue

Like mistake #4, consultants constantly cover unfamiliar territory. Your responsibilities change from project to project, and part of consulting development is to acquire new skills. That adaptability is part of the reason why companies hire consultants.

You’ll be asked to take on new challenges. Whether that’s developing potential business unit organizational structures, or constructing a performance-based compensation policy, you’ll often find yourself clueless.

At times like these, be upfront about what you don’t know. Seek help immediately, whether from fellow consultants or your engagement manager, your friend in investment banking or your firm mentor.

If you don’t, it rarely ends well.

Hi all – frequent visitors will notice that the site has intermittently disappeared in the past 2 days. After a poor experience with Dreamhost’s hosting services, I’ve moved the site over to Bluehost in the hopes of eliminating server issues that were causing the problem.

Giveaway alert

This week, I’m releasing the 2nd edition of The Consulting Bible. More details to follow on what this update includes, but in anticipation of that release I’m giving away 5 copies of the interview guide.

Just email me with 3 suggestions on how this site can improve. They can be small (eg, “make the font size larger” or big “add a forum for discussions“). The top 5 responses win!

Site updates

In addition to the consulting interview guide, I’ve been hard at work on the Consulting Jobs Toolkit. It’s going to be huge. 114 consulting firms, more than 600 contacts throughout the consulting industry, and 25 pages of detailed networking strategies including call scripts and email templates. Expect more details in the coming week.

Many of you have noticed the new Twitter widget in the right navigation bar. I’ve used Twitter infrequently in the past, and decided to convert my personal account into a Management Consulted-focused account. While I haven’t posted much recently, expect lots of Twitter updates soon with topics like resume pointers, useful consulting blogosphere resources, and the like. Follow me here.

It’s worth mentioning that Management Consulted was recently named one of the Top 100 MBA blogs from GraduateDegree.org. While not the most prestigious award in the known universe, it’s this site’s first honor of any kind so I’m feeling quite proud.

That’s all, folks. The Consulting Summer Internship series will continue tomorrow.

Stay connected:

Readers are in for a real treat this time as the Life of a Consultant series continues. Read previous interviews here and here.

Some background: I’ve followed Steve’s blog even before I entered the consulting world. Back then, it was one of the few insightful and well-written resources in the consulting blogosphere. It was a given that I’d approach him for this interview, and he graciously accepted.

Now on to the interview! I’ve bolded a few things that are particularly helpful for prospective applicants

Please note, the personal views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the interviewee and do not reflect the views of the interviewee’s employers or affiliated entities.

1. For the benefit of readers, can you give us a summary of your background?

I’m a principal consultant with Nortel Business Consulting which is unique in that we provide traditional business management consulting services in conjunction with deep technology consulting resources within the company. In the past, I’ve worked as a management consultant at Pittiglio Rabin Todd and McGrath (PRTM), as an independent consultant with start-ups and middle-market firms, and as part of the executive management team of a number of angel- and corporate venture capital-funded businesses in the telecom, software, and social-media industries. I’ve also worked in various product management and engineering types of roles with companies, such as AT&T Bell Laboratories and Telcordia. I have an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Masters and Bachelors degrees in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University.

2. You’re a well-known blogger in the consulting space. I’ve been reading your articles even before I started my consulting career. What inspired you to start the site, and to keep it going for so many years?

Kevin, thanks for following my blog. It really means a lot to me.

I started blogging during my time as an independent consultant and just before business use of blogs started to take up. With that as context, blogging for me started as an alternative to traditional newsletters that many consultants use as part of their marketing arsenal. Blogging evolved into online networking for me, and I ended up getting approached by some social media and publishing companies for consulting and interim management roles. I basically went with the flow and where demand was taking me. Also, in terms of people that reached out to me (e.g., via email), I was finding that people were really seeking information about being in the trenches as management consultant. Down-to-earth, practical information on management consulting has been somewhat scarce in the online space. My experience in consulting with a traditional firm, as an independent, and also as part of a large corporation also seemed to provide a unique angle for the readers.

I have not blogged so much in the recent past due to saturation in the blogosphere supply-side, but I am considering a return.

3. You’ve worked for several consulting firms in your career. What perspective has this given you on the consulting industry?

For one thing, I think a consulting experience can provide an excellent foundation for developing general management skills. There are a limited number of professions where one can work on numerous projects for different companies. As compared to corporate positions, it is also easier to work on management issues as opposed to being embroiled in the politics and administration of working within a company. The list of tradeoffs to working in consulting, however, can be large. Some areas to watch out for include not having a constant environment (e.g., regular peers to work with as compared to working in a larger company) and not developing specific operating or tactical expertise (e.g., having to execute marketing campaigns, run quarterly financials for the public markets, or approaching customers in sales meetings). There are ways to address the potential shortcomings as part of consulting – tactics likely vary by industry and where one is at in terms of career goals (e.g., if one wants to be a lifetime consultant).

4. Can you tell us a bit about each of the consulting firms you’ve worked for?

At Nortel, we have a core team of traditional management consultants and mix these skillsets with experts (e.g., engineers) in areas such as network architecture or operations systems. An example engagement could include developing the business strategy and plan (which would be approved by its Board of Directors) for a carrier to move from the wireline to wireless space. We might also help a company with more focused areas such as development of a marketing and sales plan (covering pricing, product packages, channel strategy, collateral and campaigns, etc.) or with a network evolution options analysis.

At PRTM, I worked mostly with clients around new product introduction, product development, and/or operational processes. In contrast to the corporate structure I am in now and using very broad brush strokes, the structure of firm is similar to other management consulting firms (e.g., McKinsey, Deloitte) in that it is a partnership. PRTM has historically a lower leverage ratio (e.g., partner to non-partner) compared to other firms. Some tradeoffs of that difference can include more involvement with total deal lifecycle, more trench experience with senior personnel, and higher required utilization rates.

As an independent, I worked with start-ups and middle market firms mostly around business development, marketing, or quantitative analysis. In that environment, one needs to understand the full lifecycle of consulting from lead generation to sales, contracting, and delivery.

So I guess in closing I would say that the type of consulting firm one works with will likely change the style that one approaches consulting. Be cognizant of the tradeoffs.

5. Given your experience recruiting and interviewing candidates, what advice can you share with people currently in school who are looking for a job in management and strategy consulting?

Management consulting jobs are harder to come by in today’s climate. At business schools, it’s a common theme to see the 30% of the community that would have normally pursued investment banking instead seek out consulting jobs. If you want to land a management and strategy consulting job, consider casting a very wide net. This may mean seeking out geographic opportunities where your diversity in schooling may be seen as an immediate asset as opposed to someone that is just part of the crowd. In today’s climate you may also want to seek out an unpaid internship, depending on corporate policies and labor laws. Beyond the resume and any case study, key skills that entry-level consultants must project during the interview process include being smart (often analytical), having professional poise, and having energy. I find that applicants sometimes do not focus enough on these latter two items, and they are critical for a client-facing position within a consulting firm.

6. Many readers come from overseas – China, Western Europe, even South America. Have you worked on international/overseas projects? If so, can you share with us those experiences?

Outside of North America, my specific practice has done most projects in Western Europe, South America, and the Middle East. Language, ability to pay, and willingness to pay for consulting have been key drivers for that mix. I guess one thing that comes about by working in those environments is that it is key to get local information about the countries. For example, I often use Pyramid Research (subscribed reports) to help me initially get grounded on the macroeconomics, consumer environment, and trends within the telecom space within a country. I also use my network (e.g., the account team, friends) to get some color on the culture, trends, and norms. Finally, I have found it useful in many situations to have Google translate as my friend! That feature has helped to get me in the ballpark (e.g., translate presentations, contracts, emails, marketing websites) and/or augment using translators on a project.

7. What’s your view on the consulting job market given the economic backdrop?

/* Sort of covered above in #5*/

8. If you could retire today, what activities and hobbies would you pursue?

I might pursue something that would help me give more back to community and improve the world. Getting involved with non-profit, education, government, or the energy communities come to mind as aspirations. I’d also spend more time with jazz drumming, wine, and my family (not in that order for the record!).

9. How should readers get in touch with you?

Readers can feel free to reach me via contact methods at my blog

Are you a current consultant or someone who recruited successfully? Interested in being interviewed? Please get in touch to be featured in the Life as a Consultant series.

Summer internships in management consulting are tough to find because there are so few. Some companies have just begun to expand their internship programs (eg, McKinsey) and some don’t hire summer undergraduate interns (eg, smaller boutiques). However, landing one is incredibly valuable – you get a trial period to determine whether its the right career path for you, and it sets you ahead of the pack for fulltime recruiting (assuming you either didn’t receive an offer to return or wanted to test the field).

The recruiting process

Similar to the fulltime process. Summer recruiting typically begins in January/February at college campuses for undergraduate and MBA. Expect a standard succession of information sessions/mixers/company presentations, then resume and cover letter screens, then multiple rounds of interviews focused on fit/personality and case studies.

The process may be less rigorous than fulltime (eg, one fewer interview round, less challenging case studies) but the competition is equally tough

What if consulting firms don’t recruit for summer interns at your school

I plan to write a full post on this later as its a common concern. You have 3 options:

• Find contacts at target firms through your school’s alumni database. Get in touch with them to learn more about their firm and express interest in working there
• Find contacts at target firms through your school’s career center/career development office. This is typically alumni-based as well, but the career officers may have additional resources (eg, headhunter/recruiter databases)
• Submit resumes and cover letters through each company’s online application process – not all firms have these. Big ones like McKinsey and Accenture definitely well, but you may need to get creative with smaller ones like Katzenbach and LEK

In this situation, your best bet is to network, network, network. Friends, family, university alumni, try to build connections to your target firms and dialogue with those people. That’s the best chance you’ll have of recruiters and HR taking a serious look at your resume

Further reading: What if consulting firms don’t recruit at your school

The goal of summer internships

To receive a fulltime offer! Everything you do over the summer should be geared towards helping you reach this goal. In the process, you’ll learn plenty about the job itself and even if you decide management consulting is not for you, options never hurt.

The standard summer internship structure

You’re assigned to one project that should occupy your entire summer (ranging from 10-14 weeks). There is a very short training period (1-2 days) after which you’re expected to function like a regular consultant – complete with your own workstream and deliverables.

You’ll have several “managers” – someone junior (such as an early analyst or early associate) as well as the standard team leader/engagement manager. There will be an endless stream of social events – designed to help you network with the rest of the office and the fellow “summers“.

How to ensure a return/full-time offer

• Do your work well. This is an absolute must. Doing your work well comes down to three things: #1, understanding directions and clarifying when you don’t; #2, checking and double-checking and triple-checking your work; #3, expressing your opinions often. Participation is critical to a consultant’s job, and if you don’t speak up, you won’t move up
• Network, network, network. The more senior consultants that you meet at the firm, the better your chances of receiving a fulltime offer. Strike up conversations based on shared backgrounds, career goals, personal hobbies, whatever!
• Build a strong relationship with your team leader/engagement manager. They have the biggest influence on your return offer prospects. Create one-on-one time with your manager – setup weekly coffee times to discuss your work, get advice about the job, and so forth
• Ask for continual feedback. This is a great way to not only improve your business skills, but to build rapport with your colleagues and managers
• Impress the lead partners. There are usually several partners who are closely involved with your project and client. Through the summer, you’ll have opportunities to get in front of them – whether that’s presenting a small piece of your work, or chiming in during brainstorming and team sessions. Capture these opportunities – the sooner they know your name and the more times that you impress them, the better your chances of landing that valuable offer

This is post #1 of my series on recruiting. Below, I’ll touch upon the main components of the consulting job search and what I believe are the key do’s and key don’ts. Feel free to post comments below or email me with any questions and followups. I want to thank my readers for making these first 2 weeks of blogging a very interesting time – blogging is a 2-way street where the writer learns as much as the readers.

I’ve also lined up my first “personalized consultations” (for one college student preparing for summer internships and one recent grad interested in switching industries) and will be posting updates on how these sessions go in the coming weeks

Now, on to RECRUITING. The key components are:

Note that each of these sections is worth a long post alone (similar to my first post, Management Consulting and the Consulting Industry 101). This is a Cliff Notes version for now

#1 Company presentations/mixers/information sessions

Far more common if you’re currently in school (undergraduate, MBA) where consulting firms ranging from Boston Consulting Group to Mercer HR to Kurt Salmon will swarm campuses, giving presentations, holding social mixers, etc in an effort to publicize their firm and identify “high-potential” candidates. Handling a company presentation is like, as a quick sports analogy, being the heavy favorite as a nationally ranked, Division 1 team in a game against an unranked, Division 2 team. In other words – there are 10,000 ways you can mess up, but very few ways to truly beat expectations.

Key Dos:
-dress sharp (refer to my Interview Tips page, tip #2)
-meet at least 3-4 consultants/recruiters present, ask for their business card, and FOLLOW-UP to ask for advice/interview tips

Key Don’ts:
-spend the entire time talking to your friends
-spend the entire time by the snack bar
-hand your resume to recruiters or consultants unless SPECIFICALLY ASKED
-ask 50 questions – people remember the ANNOYING APPLICANTS

#2 Application – resume + cover letter

This is where the wheat begins to be separated from the chaff. At this point, you’ve decided management consulting is a potential career path for you. You may not be 100% sold over other options (eg banking, accounting, corporate, etc) but are interested enough to invest significant time. There are many variations of how this process works: if you’re currently enrolled in school, there are typically resume submission periods followed by a selection process to determine who receives interviews. If you’re not in school (or your target firms do not recruit at your school), it typically means submitting your resume through internal friends, HR and recruiting contacts, or even in-person at job/career fairs and waiting indefinitely to hear back. Either way, a top notch resume will ALWAYS STAND OUT. Cover letters, on the other hand, present significantly more room for error and have limited upside.

Key Dos:
-build a consulting-ready resume (refer to my Resume Tips page)
-make sure you have the RIGHT FIRM, ADDRESS, ETC on your cover letter
-follow-up with recruiters if you haven’t received confirmation upon submission
-let contacts within firms know that you have applied – they can send a positive recommendation to recruiters if they are inclined to do so

Key Don’ts:
-send more than 1 email asking about the status of your application
-have more than 1 page for either your cover letter or your resume
-send additional materials (eg, portfolio work, letters of reference) unless SPECIFICALLY ASKED

At some point you may need to narrow your scope – I recommend submitting resumes/cover letters to as many firms as possible, but if you’re lucky enough to receive tens of interviews you should really consider which firms are best for you so you can focus on the ones that matter. This post on global management consulting firms versus boutique firms may help

#3 Interview (phone)

Self-explanatory. Phone interviews are usually fit-oriented, and if done are either because #1, the firm doesn’t have enough resources to immediately hold in-person interviews or #2, you’re a “borderline case” and they need additional information about you and your background to decide. The approach with phone interviews should be to focus on answer quality, and less on building interviewer rapport given the difficulties of doing that over the phone. Cover the bases below and you’ll do fine.

Note that not all consulting firms will have phone interviews. Some may skip directly to in-person interviews. Some may have several phone interviews before any in-person meetings

Key Dos:
-place the call in a QUIET AREA WITH GOOD RECEPTION, preferably a land-line
-ask for time if you need to collect your thoughts – but don’t take longer than 30 seconds
-have a notepad handy for technical questions
-ask for their email address to send a THANK YOU NOTE/FOLLOW-UP EMAIL

Key Don’ts:
-conduct the phone interview while on a train from Lumsford, New Mexico to El Paso, Texas
-be too casual – its easier to make this mistake on the phone – remember that it is a JOB INTERVIEW. No excessive laughing. Keep discussion of personal matters to a bare minimum unless directly asked

#4 Interview (in-person)

Also self-explanatory. If you’ve made it here, congratulations! They clearly think highly of what you’ve accomplished and now want to know you as a person – your communication skills, your on-the-spot thinking and analytical abilities, your presence and personality. This is truly the most difficult part, as I can guarantee that at this point you’re up against some very qualified candidates. To stand out, the keys in management consulting interviews are to really ACE THE CASE, have well-rehearsed but NATURAL RESPONSES to non-case questions, and be well-informed about current business news. Sounds simple, but takes many many many hours of solid preparation to make this happen.

There are two components to interviews (both phone and in-person) – the case study, and the fit/behavioral questions. I will dedicate separate posts to each, but the important thing to know is that the case study accounts for at least 50% (and usually more) of your final “score” in determining whether you get an offer

Key Dos:
-everything I wrote on my Interview Tips page

Key Don’ts:
-forgetting everything I wrote on my Interview Tips page

#5 The Waiting Period

Like #1 Company Presentations, there’s not much upside but you can do a lot to ruin your prospects. Be patient and focus on other priorities – and NEVER STOP LOOKING FOR OTHER JOBS.

Key Dos:
-wait patiently and if you have upcoming interviews, prepare for those
-if you have no response after 1 week of the “final interview”, send an email to the recruiter asking if they need anything more from you regarding your application; CC one or two consultants you interviewed with or talked to extensively in the process

Key Don’ts:
-assume you have an offer and stop the job search process
-send an email a day to recruiters/consultants at the firm inquiring about your status

#6 The Offer!

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve done it. It’s extremely difficult to receive offers from management consulting firms – their scale is simply an order of magnitude smaller than financial service firms (as an example, McKinsey’s New York office, one of their largest, occupies about 10-15 floors of one skyscraper. Goldman Sachs in New York has 3 skyscrapers all to itself). Now is time for thorough due diligence and diplomatic negotiation if necessary regarding final terms, start date, etc. Again, congratulations on a job well-done and welcome to the challenging and wonderful world of strategy and management consulting.

Key Dos:
-thank them nicely for the offer
-send an email to firm contacts that you’ve met through the application process and thank them/notify them as well. Setup time to discuss the offer and ask questions of them
-gather as much information as you can from current and former employees, friends, books, etc
-ask your primary HR contact with any “administrative questions” eg salary, benefits, etc

Key Don’ts:
-accept the offer immediately unless you are 100% sure that’s the job for you
-ask non-HR contacts any “administrative questions” unless you know them well
-immediately negotiate details of your offer without fully informing yourself first. And as a general rule of thumb, don’t negotiate anything that won’t SIGNIFICANTLY change your decision or satisfaction in the job