Friend Experience Sharing-How I got an offer from A. T. Kearney Amsterdam Office

Last Friday, I got an offer from A. T. Kearney Amsterdam Office. This is my first offer in management consulting. I hope my experience can help those interested in a career in management consulting.

First of all, some background information about myself.
Gender: Female
Age: 25
Education:
1998 - 2002 Bachelor of Science in Computer Science, Peking University
2003 - 2005 Master of Science in Computer Science, Leiden University, The Netherlands
Working Experience:
2002 - 2003 Beijing Gentian Software, a small IT-startup

My interest in management consulting started about one year ago. After talking to consultants from McKinsey and BCG at a job orientation day at my university, I decided to prepare myself for such a career.

So what I did:
Followed in a three-month fulltime course "Science Based Business". The main topics covered include marketing, finance, and project management.
Followed a Dutch language course for six months. Dutch is the official language here.
Started my own business, an import company. It brings me a profit of a few hundred euros per months.
Worked as teaching assistant, giving lessons to 3rd-year Dutch students. The teaching language is English.

Then I applied for McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Booz Allen, Monitor, A. T. Kearney, Roland Berger, OC&C and some other Dutch consulting companies.

Here I learned two lessons.
1. Extra-curricular activities are extremely important to students without much working experience. My grades were among top 2%. But At first, no one invited me for interviews. The feedback was "You don‘t have competitive enough extra-curricular activities."
2. Companies differ. After changing my resume to its best form, there are still firms inviting me and firms refusing to do so.
3. Networking works. If you can find an alumus of your university working at the company, call him. It‘s much better if your resume is handed to the HR through someone already working there.

Finally I got interviews from McKinsey, Monitor, A.T. Kearney and Roland Berger. My situation with BCG was sort of strange. They didn‘t want to invite me but because my resume was from someone working there (networking), they invited me for a pre-interview.

McKinsey was the first company I interviewed with. I passed the first round but didn‘t go further. They gave me valuable advice however.

As soon as I talked to my interviewer at BCG, I got some bad feeling. You can sometimes feel they are not really eager to know you. The outcome was negative.

At Monitor, I was declined because of their special interviewing form. They had written cases instead of oral ones. During the discussion, it was often that I looked at the data sheets instead of my interviewer‘s eyes. That‘s the reason they decided not to go on.

At A. T. Kearney, My luck got better.

There were three rounds. The first consisted of two interviews, both of which are essentially market-sizing cases.

The second round was a whole day, from 9 AM to 4 PM. First two short business case interviews. Then a long case interview, in which I was first asked to read some information for half an hour, interview a mock client for half an hour, prepare my presentation for one hour and finally give the presentation and discuss the case with my interviewer for half an hour. After that was a group discussion, in which three candidates, including me, discuss a topic not really related to business. Two consultants observed silently. Finally I made a short presentation on the conclusion we reached.

In the evening, I was called and told that it was positive. They also told me the third round would almost always result in an offer.

The third round was with the managing director. It was just one hour. He asked questions on my motivation, my career plan, etc. and then gave me some time to ask questions. I was informed the same day that they offered me a position.

At Roland Berger, the first interview was resume interview. I am going to have my second this Friday. It will be a case interview. If there is a third one, it will also be a case interview.

My advice:
Read the following books:
Wetfeet - Ace your case (1 - 5)
Wetfeet - Killer consulting resumes
Vault Guide to the Case Interview
These books can be finished within a month. After reading them, you should be a very good case cracker.

Remain eye contact and stay calm. Smile. Be confident but not arrogant. Talk slowly and firmly. Good poise is very important.

Answer the question they ask. Be as concrete as possible. You will be asked to give real examples.

Show you‘re not afraid of challenges. You‘re persistent. You are not to be bullied. You are the one who take the initiatives. You are not a follower. (They were almost always very interested in how I started my own company)

The last one might be not applicable to China. I am not sure. They love to know how you behave in situations of conflicts. You should never say that you try to avoid them. Instead, you should take conflicts above the table and try to solve it in an open way. The companies are also happy to see that you‘re not afraid of confronting authorities, although sometimes tactically.

I hope my experience helps. If you have more specific questions, I will also be happy to answer.

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发送者: Yan Gao
Email: ygao@gmx.net