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Posts tagged ‘Deloitte’

Oct 5

9 Comments

Is Deloitte IT strategy equal to McKinsey BTO/BCG?

“Michael,

I listened to your podcasts about McKinsey, BCG et al versus the so-called second-tier of Deloitte, Accenture etc.

My focus is IT strategy and I have offers from both McKinsey and Deloitte in the North-Eastern USA. I am obviously keen to take McKinsey but I have had coffee chats with the partners from Deloitte and seem to be doing much more strategic and exciting work than McKinsey. The people are also great and went to some amazing schools. The Deloitte recruiting partner is also Harvard alum and I cannot see any differences between her and the McKinsey partners

Maybe you could shed some light on how this decision should be made?

Alex” Read more

Sep 6

5 Comments

Brainstorming, MECE & 80/20 principles case interview video

You are unlikely to pass a McKinsey, BCG, Roland Berger or Bain case unless you can brainstorm. Although, you may never receive an isolated/explicit brainstorming request in a case, the skill is needed to identify drivers and build out an analyses structure.

Why is this important?

Candidates who can brainstorm well will never need to memorize a case framework for the rest of their lives, or get stuck in a case when they cannot recall a framework. No matter how many frameworks they memorize there is bound to be a case which requires a type of analyses they have never seen before, and if they cannot brainstorm, they cannot develop the required analyses approach. Moreover, comfort with this technique plays a major role with confidence building since the candidate never needs to worry about facing a case without a bag full of frameworks. They will not need them. Read more

Sep 2

17 Comments

Oil & Gas case interview candidates aggressively poached

In just 2 weeks, Firmsconsulting has seen six clients withdraw from the interview process to accept lucrative energy industry offers. Three had written offers in hand from BCG, Bain and McKinsey. The geographical scope of the offers, range of degrees affected and that such poaching has happened since at least June 2011 warranted us discussing this trend in more detail.

For context, since mid-2011, a client has withdrawn from our program every single month to accept an energy industry offer. That our clients span over 60 countries and the trend keeps increasing indicates the energy sector is far from its peak in hiring. All degrees have been positively affected, though MBA’s with heavy construction and/or energy experience and PhD’s with energy backgrounds are the dominant group.

Consulting firms are therefore even more desperate to find oil and gas talent since they are losing so many consultants, candidates in the interview process and interested profiles. Read more

Aug 26

4 Comments

What must I do on my first business case?

“Hi Michael,

I really enjoyed meeting you and your team a few weeks ago. Thank you for taking the time to join me for coffee and discuss my career. I thought your stories were a little funny but really insightful, especially the Paris Hilton analyses. I never looked at it like that before. You were right, Joe Davis is a great guy to work with, and likes constant contact.

If you recall, I mentioned I would be going onto my first business case engagement at BCG and wanted to know if you had any specific guidance on what I need to know to support my manager. I do not have a quantitative background and read history at Oxford. Any tips or guidance will be greatly appreciated.

I would prefer printing the advice, so if you could kindly respond as an article that would be great.

Scott” Read more

Aug 22

10 Comments

Case Interview Solution, new: Operations Case Video

Operations cases are difficult. Most candidates struggle to generate frameworks and invariable use a trial-and-error approach to find their way through. This is a messy technique which fails most of the time. Yet, the approach to solve operations cases surprisingly sits at the core of solving estimation and IT cases. Therefore, understanding proper operations case techniques is vital.

Moreover, operations consulting is a major part of McKinsey, Bain and BCG’s business as we discussed in this overview of the difference between strategy and operations and this overview of a McKinsey supply chain project. There is a severe shortage of candidates for these practices. Remember, all consultants at the top firms are treated equally, and due to the generalist model, you will be expected to do operations and strategy projects. So entering here makes you as good as any other consultant at these firms.

The video which follows presents an elegant method to solve operations cases. This case expects candidates to have a thorough understanding of some basic operations concepts. Any MBA graduate should easily be able to solve this case. Therein is the challenge. This case does not test any complex ideas. It merely tests the most basic principles of operations, and unless a candidate understands them very well, they will fall short. Operations cases can always be reduced to a 3-step analysis of a supply chain, but this needs to be carefully presented to the interviewer. Moreover, lack of familiarity with the approach will lead to lots of wasted time. Understanding bottlenecks in operations cases is also vital. A related concept to understand is marginal cost analysis. When joined, operations cases and marginal cost cases tend to be very challenging. Operations cases tend to be very long. It is essential the candidate uses guidance from the interviewer to focus on that part which will likely generate the answer.

This case video is animated. Selected screen shots of the video are presented below. Clients will find this video in session 6 of the online case solution library. The video is only available to clients of our case coaching service.

Jan 11

13 Comments

Experienced IT Executive Trying to Break into BBM

My responses are in italics below within the email sent from a reader:

Thanks for maintaining such superb information at your site and allowing potential consultants to ask questions!

I tried to look if this question was answered in your forum but could not find it hence the question. The question is representative of many experienced professionals from top IT consulting firms who are looking to make a career change. I would like to mention that these firms also derive 5% of there revenues from management consulting example Infosys, TCS, IBM, Cognizant, Wipro. Read more

Dec 28

New Video: Detailed explanation of solving a case interview and differences between using decision trees and hypotheses

This is the number one question we receive from the candidates, right at the start of the coaching problem. They all read about the hypotheses-led approach, and assume it is the only way to solve cases. As many know, we teach both, but highly recommend the decision tree approach. We also know how much candidates struggle to identify the key question to be solved in a case. This detailed video, with rich and detailed drawings, and lasting 76 minutes, explains the differences and provides some added guidance. It is an excellent video to watch when you are mid-way through the more complex stages of the case training, when these questions about decision trees, hypotheses, key questions etc are likely to pop up. Read more

Oct 26

3 Comments

Keep a long-term perspective as the case interview results come in

As results come in, it is important to keep a long-term perspective. At Harvard-Stanford-Wharton-Kellogg-Booth we are only showing a 60% success rate for BBM (100% across all firms) and likely to end between 60% and 70% for BBM. This is the same as last year, and a little below our global average. Read more

Oct 15

5 Comments

When Things Don’t Go According to Plan

File:Torus Trooper - Game Over.jpg

Max (not his real name) is an aspiring consultant who is looking to secure an analyst role with one of the top firms for the upcoming recruitment cycle in September 2011. His interest in management consulting was sparked by a failed McKinsey interview last year. In this series of blogs, he will be sharing his background, case preparation process, useful resources, and any breakthroughs or setbacks that he experiences.

I hope everyone is still doing well and getting lots of interviews and offers! Unfortunately, I have been dinged without an interview from most of the firms, and I have an aching feeling that the rest of the ding e-mails are a mere formality at this point. The list below contains the firms I applied to, and the current status. Read more

Sep 29

7 Comments

Playing The Waiting Game

Max (not his real name) is an aspiring consultant who is looking to secure an analyst role with one of the top firms for the upcoming recruitment cycle in September 2011. His interest in management consulting was sparked by a failed McKinsey interview last year. In this series of blogs, he will be sharing his background, case preparation process, useful resources, and any breakthroughs or setbacks that he experiences.

All of my applications have been sent off and I’m now nervously checking my e-mail frequently throughout the day. The firms I ended up applying to are: Read more

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