It’s important to be well-read when you apply for a consulting job, for several reasons:
1) Your knowledge of current business issues will be tested (directly and indirectly) throughout the recruiting process
2) Gaining exposure to business issues – the situations, problems, solutions, etc – will be a litmus test for your own interest in consulting as a career (if you don’t like reading about, for example, how the U.S. automobile industry got into the pickle it’s in today and all the areas they need to fix in order to get out, then you probably won’t enjoy consulting much)
3) You get a faster start at the new job

That said, here are my Cliff Notes recommendations:

BOOKS

The McKinsey Way and The McKinsey Mind, by Ethan Rasiel. Written by a former McKinsey consultant, gives you a great in-depth on firm culture and practices. You’ll learn things like 80/20 thinking, hypothesis-driven problem solving, etc – things I will write about in future posts, but here’s stuff that’s already out there. Plus, the lessons here are equally applicable across ANY consulting firms. If you aren’t applying to McKinsey, you should still read these. They will help you in interviews and in understanding management consulting (and in particular, McKinsey’s) culture.

Anything by Jim Collins – personal favorites are Good to Great and Built to Last. Collins does a great job shaping the zeitgeist of current business thinking. Ideas generated from his books are often conversational fodder for consulting teams and influence the way consultants understand their clients and corporations analyze themselves. Phrases like “BHAG” (big hairy audacious goal) are often thrown around in client and team settings, and understanding what it means can go a long way towards making you look good.

PERIODICALS and MAGAZINES

Harvard Business Review. Every issue is worth a quick browse – I haven’t read a single one cover-to-cover. But the topics addressed – from how to encourage bottoms-up innovation to establishing the right organizational systems for retaining talented employees – are topics that consultants live and breathe. Reading this will also help you develop your own topical interests within the business world. For example, if you find that you really love innovation and how it’s developed within companies, that can be a great topic for cover letters, to bring-up during interviews, etc. Just some extra credit.

McKinsey Quarterly. Ditto.

The Economist. Thru my McKinsey tenure, I’ve been surprised by the number of people who regularly read the Economist. It’s the one magazine I consistently subscribe to, and will serve you well in understanding the key global issues (and in particular, finance, economics, and business) of the day. Reading the Economist consistently will give you the ability to intelligently discuss current events with recruiters, interviewers, and eventually in the course of your job.

Fortune Magazine. A more personal recommendation – Fortune has consistently high-quality articles and in-depth pieces on leading business thinkers and companies, and is also a much more interesting read than the Economist.

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