Monday, September 15, 2008

BCG CV and Case Interview Workshop | 13th September 2008

The following Alums from BCG came down to ISB to share some gyan on Resume writing and how to approach Case Interviews.

Varun Gupta, Consultant, ISB Co2007
Yashraj Erande, Consultant, ISB Co2006
Akshit Shah, Sr. Associate, ISB Co2007
Shiva Agarwal, Sr. Associate, ISB Co2008
Jitesh Shah, Sr. Associate, ISB Co2008

The workshop started with some fundamentals about Resume writing. The gist of the workshop was “Get the story right”; the CV should bring out a story about the candidate. The recruiter wants to understand the personality so we should think about the points/themes that we want to highlight in the CV. The CV should highlight the special attributes of the candidate. Therefore if the strengths are some specific expertise then a function or skill based resume is suitable. If the aspirant has undergone rapid growth in his career then a chronological resume makes more sense.

There are three main sections in the CV. All the bullet point in each section should be interlinked to the bullet points in the other sections. The CV should highlight the following themes/points:

- Analytical
- Problem solving horsepower/ fire in the belly (different from analytics)
- Communication
- Leadership
- Client management
- Business/commercial Knowledge
- People Skills
- Creativity

This is merely a representative list of attributes. Therefore, please think about your special set of attributes and represent them in the CV. E.g. “ability to take end-to-end responsibility / reliability” is not mentioned in this list but could be the key strength of an individual.

Fundamentally, a CV should be a portfolio of some of the above points. Think about each and every point that is written in the CV. Try to make an excel sheet out of the above written points and map your achievements along-with. The Alums also stressed on the fact that everybody has to be honest while writing the CV.

In an interview the first few minutes are critical to make an impact on the interviewer, this could even be a make or break phase. If there is a theme in the CV, it helps in giving consistent answers in the Personal Interview. Working hard at writing your CV helps you build a mental image of yourself which ensures the consistency in PI answers. Each statement should ideally begin with a strong action verb. Weak words make for uninteresting resumes. Replace “Statement of facts” with actions and results. Don’t write points in paragraphs, break them in bullet points (and sub bullet points) and don’t have more than two indentations. Yash was of the view that different roles require different CVs. Consulting CV and GM CV could be similar but Marketing and IT CVs have to be different.

Case Interview

There are two main types of case interviews: Brain Teasers and Business Problems.
Brain Teasers: How many pencils are sold annually in India. Brain teasers and such questions are usually not asked by BCG in ISB campus.

Business Problem Case: usually snippets from a case done by BCG earlier. “A pharma company has a product which is superior to its competitors. Its sales are declining, what can you do?”

Why are case interviews given?
The case interviews are conducted to judge how much does a candidate like a consulting job? It exposes the candidates to case situations and the kind of work consultants do.

Firms generally do not expect an extensive business background. Most companies try to give cases just to judge general knowledge and knowledge about the prior industry. Candidates are not expected to know about all the jargons pertaining to an industry. Thus, it does not make sense to get a deep insight into each and every industry.

What do Companies Look for?
- Creativity
- Poise
- Analytics

How do I prepare?
- Prepare mentally
o View the interview as an opportunity, not a hurdle.
o Remember, most questions have no right answer
- Practice
o With friends, batch-mates, alum
o Look at the web for firm provided practice questions
o Read consulting case books (give precedence to ISB case books over US school case books)
- Read, read, read and think
o Pink papers
o Have a general awareness of happenings around the world
o Run through the papers on the interview day

Yash highlighted that applicants should think very hard about the company, job profile and role before applying to any company. A candidate should also evaluate the company and actively seek out information from alums, friends and ex-colleagues about the different roles and profiles offered by companies.

Akshit laid out the approach for taking the case interview. However, he was of the opinion that candidates should not make it a mechanical process. Interviewer is looking for creative approach. Typical steps to solving a case are:
- Understanding the problem
o Interviewer will give a problem statement
o Ask questions to gain a detailed understanding of the problem
o Identify the issue
- Problem definition
o Define the problem, say it aloud
o Get the buy-in of the interviewer on the problem definition
o Lay down your approach to solving the problem
o Occasionally, cases may end at this point
- Problem solving
o Solve the problem based on the laid out structure
o Deep dive into areas where issues persist
o Get creative in identifying potential solutions
o Lead the interviewer through your thoughts
- Synthesis and conclusion
o Synthesize your discussion into conclusions
o Conduct a sanity check to ensure solution is practical.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Alum Shadow Initiative

Alexey Rogozinskiy (AT Kearney Mumbai)

Challenge
One should not expect to be just an observer at the Shadowing Program, surely not with a consulting company. First, the host team was eager to know who we are, what our background is and what we’re going to learn from this visit. My purpose to this effect was to spot the difference between management consulting and IT consulting (which I was a part to for the last several years), and to distinguish AT Kearney’s unique traits from those of other top-tier consultancies. Second, the most inspiring thing was a case solving session based on real-life cases our alumni worked upon (of course, all sensitive details kept confidential). To our joy it turned out that almost all key elements to the solutions we suggested had been deployed in the firm’s recommendations to its clients.

Electives and Case interview preparation
As was testified by the alumni the approach to solving real-life business problems is not different from that used in case interviews. So case method is in a good proximity to what we’ll be doing as consultants. Moreover, with a consulting firm like AT Kearney one is able to reach out to a vast network of experts with deep industry and functional knowledge pool. In fact, before deep industry (as a rule) specialization a newbie has to gain a generalist experience in solving different kind of functional problems from strategy development to designing solutions for operational issues to helping a client with implementation to advising top executives on a diverse set of problems. It incurs that the area of specialization at ISB is not quite important for aspiring consultants. What’s more important is the aptitude for adding convincing logic to the clients’ unstructured problems and delivering tangible results at the bottom line. So the recommendation was threefold: practice, practice, and practice cases covering broad range of business situations until you feel comfortable with this specific way of thinking.

Lifestyle
It’s amazing how diverse a consultant’s lifestyle could be . You may routinely find yourself in an airplane at 6.30am, Monday by Monday, month by month, going to a client’s site. The other way round, you may find yourself in Africa today, in China tomorrow, and in a small town in Gujarat another day. So everyday work may seem to be routine and a new country may bring not only pleasant feelings. Then what drives satisfaction in consulting work? One answer is client’s agreement to act upon your recommendations. Another one may be the caliber of client’s people you are exposed to, or just support and collaboration you find with your fellow colleagues. During the visit our alumni gave us a sense of it all.

This is by no means a comprehensive report and I’m sure my group mates will complement it with new features. And I’d like to take this chance to say ‘thank you’ to Ranjan, Jagan and Vignesh who played host for us, and to Mr. Himanshu and Mr. Hemant who also spent their precious time to give us the flavor of the profession.
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Vinay Shenoy - Deloitte Consulting Strategy &Operations, Hyderabad

At the onset we would like to thank our Alums Anand (C0 06), Abhishek, Vikas (C0 07) and senior manager Shashi Yadavalli and other senior executives at Deloitte Consulting for their time, providing us insights into Consulting, culture at Deloitte and also for patiently answering all our queries. The icing on the cake however was the real life cases and assignments that the alums took us through.

What does it mean to be a Consultant?
Our hosts started off by sharing with us their consulting experiences.
Definition of Consulting – ‘Helping Clients solve problems and executing change’

Role of a Consultant is akin to that of a Business advisor who figures out ways to address client problems and how this is mostly, the game of ‘connecting the dots’.

Consulting experience - ‘Art and Science, roller coaster ride, learning, learning, learning!’

Consulting at Deloitte – ‘Best-in-class peers and leveraging the learning experiences across the clients’.

Most crucial aspect of Consulting is about asking the right questions to address the problem! Once you have these questions in place, you use a structured framework to address these problems and have to drive stakeholder alignment to enact upon the recommendations / findings. Implementation of these findings is also the most critical aspect of any consulting assignment.

Introduction to Deloitte Consulting

Deloitte offers a broad and diverse range of end to end services -
Audit
Consulting
Enterprise Risk Services
Financial Advisory
Merger & Acquisition Services
We will restrict our Focus to Consulting arm of Deloitte. Deloitte Consulting is a subsidiary of Deloitte & Touche USA, the American member firm of DTT. However, Deloitte member firms around the world offer their own brand of consulting services, and Deloitte's Asia Pacific presence includes Australia and New Zealand, China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Industries covered can vary from country to country, but most of Deloitte's consulting services focus on human resources, strategy, information technology, enterprise applications or outsourcing services.

Deloitte is ranked 7th on Vault 2009 Rankings of the top Consulting Firms. Deloitte believes in a sustained long term partnership with its clients. It provides a collegial environment with the ‘hourglass’ model for career growth. Promotions are competency based rather than spending a certain number of years in a given role. Deloitte values professionals, who can manage ambiguity, take charge in high stakes situations and are energized by working with colleagues and clients across borders and who believe in reinventing themselves periodically. Deloitte believes that the best flavour of consulting can be acquired by working as ‘generalists’ for sometime and then later on working in a specific domain and function.

At all levels the employee has access to mentors, diverse range of projects from different industries and interaction with colleagues hailing from diverse backgrounds.

Culture at Deloitte

Deloitte Consulting's big strength is its culture - very collegial, collaborative, embraces diversity. There are weekly social networking events, in and outside the office, enabling employees the option to network into groups that they would like to work with. Working hours and project durations vary quite a lot with an assignment lasting around 6 months. For most consultants, engagements generally "range from a few weeks, to three to eight months."

Consulting service offering at Deloitte
Deloitte addresses the consulting requirements of its clients via 5 services.

Enterprise Applications
Extended Business Services
Human Capital
Strategy and Operations
Technology Integration

On the ‘Advise , Execute , Implement and Operations ‘ Service Offering Canvas Deloitte offers one of the most comprehensive range of services vis-à-vis competition.
Shashi brought out some interesting aspects of work at S&O.

S&O in India was started in 2006 and seeks to leverage the talent pool in India the primarily services the clients across Northern America (comprising of US and Canada), Western Europe, South East Asia. Currently S&O has offices in Hyderabad and Mumbai

At this point of time the Alums walked us through their current assignments (sensitive info kept confidential).Shashi and Anand took us through industries they executed projects in and Anand walked us through a case where they exceeded client expectations via innovative ‘Job based “approach, how they generated market leads for a client and how they handled the challenging deadlines to ensure that the client needs were met.

Abhishek and Vikas spoke about the M&A function and how the assignments they undertook were industry agnostic versus the specialised industry specific projects that Anand executed upon. Abhishek and Vikas took us through a specific M & A case where during the first one week – they built a structure and framework to address the buy side opportunities, establish a list of firms by size (market capitalization), and identify possible synergies and the complexities of integration. They also addressed the ethical aspects should both the potential acquisition target and acquirer approach the same consulting firm with contradictory interests (inform and decline one of the two clients in this case). They also touched in brief the methodology and the leverage of internal teams and tools during these assignments.

These sessions were followed by a general Q & A and lunch with the alums and the other senior executives. In all this was an eye-opener for all of us and we are grateful to our alums and their seniors for having provided us a very well thought of , detailed overview into the Strategy and Operations division of Deloitte.
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Anurag Krishan – AT Kearney Delhi

As part of the shadow alum initiative of the Alumni Affairs Council of the Graduate Students Club, a group of 9 students visited the Delhi office of A.T. Kearney on 29th August. The students were hosted by Ankur Warikoo, Class of 2006, Anshu Gupta, Class of 2006 and Sharad Mittal Class of 2007.

The day’s proceedings started with a round of introductions following which Vikas Kaushal, Vice – President, A.T. Kearney addressed the group.

Vikas heads the campus recruitment effort of A.T. Kearney in India. Reflecting on his association with the firm, Vikas talked about how he had joined the firm 5 years after passing out from IIM Ahmadabad. He was amongst the first group of 15 consultants who joined A.T. Kearney’s newly set up office in Delhi in 2000. Since then the firm’s India operations have grown and the firm now has close to 110 consultants between its Gurgaon and Mumbai offices.

He explained in brief about A.T. Kearney’s core strength areas – energy, oil & gas, Automotive, retail and telecom sector, in addition to niche areas such as Real Estate and Media and Entertainment. Vikas also delved on the current scenario in the consulting profession, with clients looking for engagement which go beyond mere recommendations to actual implementation of those recommendations. He pointed out that this feature played to the strengths of the firm, which has always prided itself on following an end to end approach. Vikas also talked a little about the consulting landscape within India and how it differed from the landscape abroad, with clients’ expectations differing. He emphasized that this is a scenario to which all firms need to adapt while in India.

In response to a question, Vikas also explained the change in trend with respect to strategy consulting – specifically corporate strategy. He explained that while in the past, especially in the hey days of consulting in India, clients tended to look to consultants to work on complete corporate strategy redesigns, the trend had changed off late. He said that now clients generally have their own dedicated departments that work on corporate strategy. Consulting firms come in on very specific assignments that offer a specific insight and / or fit into the client’s overall strategy, but the final corporate strategy is with the client itself.

Following the above interaction with Vikas, the team of Sarovar, Faiz and Anshu gave a brief recapitulation of a current live project that they were working on. Sarovar is a Manager with the firm, while Faiz and Anshu are Associates. The trio is currently working on a fast track roll out strategy for a new GSM player in the Indian market. They explained how the work was split up between the various team members and also the challenges faced – the time pressure as well as the challenge of differentiating a new GSM player in a market that already has a large number of players.

Ankur also talked about his own engagement with a major real estate player in Dubai, and how the particular account has carried on for a long time with the client still employing the services of A.T. Kearney. He also used the example to illustrate the fact that A.T. Kearney did not just stop at providing recommendations to the client, but instead worked with them during the implementation phase too. In this particular case, the client had in fact continued to engage the firm’s services on recurring projects.

After a brief break out session for tea, Ankur then showed the group around the office. He explained that the office also houses the Global Research Center of the firm, which provides back office support to AT Kearney’s offices worldwide.
The tour was followed by a brief interactive session with Ankur, where he explained the future activities that ATK had planned vis-a vis the recruitment season at ISB.

This was followed by lunch, where the group was joined by Vikas alongwith Kaustav Mukherjee (Vice-President) and Abhishek Poddar (Principal). It was an extremely interactive and engaging session, where they talked about their experiences and interests beyond the profession.
After lunch, the group bade goodbye to the host team at A. T. Kearney before leaving for the day.

All in all, this was a very interesting and engaging half day session which saw the group exposed to a premier consulting firm and its practices. Thanks to the efforts of our ever ready to help alums, the session was made extremely special.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

The Parthenon Group - Alum Session | 7th September 2008

Viren Periera (Co2008) and Abhinav Mital (Co2008) were present in the morning session on The Parthenon Group. They gave a brief introduction to the firm and addressed questions posed by the audience.

Viren did his bachelors in business from Mumbai University and worked with E&Y for 4 years in financial consulting space.

Abhinav did his engineering from IIT Delhi and worked with a textile company in Bangalore. He helped his company in setting up a textile plant and assisted them in some takeovers.

The Parthenon Group started its operations in 1991 at its Boston office. Currently it has offices in four locations at Boston, London, Mumbai and San Francisco.

Parthenon works in the following practice areas:
- Corporate Advisory
- PE strategic due diligence - Market scan, analyze various players, Post Investment valuations, strategic roadmap
- Education

Verticals include healthcare, retail, financial services, consumer goods, hospitality, industrial products, education, etc. Parthenon does case work for Not-For–Profit organizations as well as pro-bono consulting work. They have worked for organizations such as Gates foundation and Michael and Susan Dell foundation.

Mumbai office was started in Jan 2008 and has around 15 consultants. Mumbai office is the only office in Asia and is in charge of the projects being undertaken in Asia, because of this the case work spans around different countries in the continent.

There are three major rungs in Parthenon Associate, Principals and Partners. Senior principal takes on the mantle of an engagement partner. The career track is around 5-7 years. India office has 1 Partner, 2 Senior Principals, 3 Principals, 2 Senior Associates and 4 Associates.

The firm has around 200 consultants in all the global offices. The benefit of working in a smaller firm is that you get greater responsibilities very early in your career. Learning curve is steeper and accessibility to the senior consultants is easier. The consultants are expected to take on diverse and different roles. Since the Mumbai office was started in Jan ’08, it provides a startup environment, which is very enriching and challenging

MBA graduates come in at Principal level. Usually they work on two cases simultaneously. That means the learning curve is quite steep. Since cases go through crests and troughs on an average the work pressure does not build up because the timelines and the pace of the projects is different and one can do a balancing act between the two. Time management skills and quality management is crucial. Working on two projects does not mean that the quality can be compromised. Principals have associates reporting to them and it is their responsibility to guide them. Apart from that Abhinav and Viren also work on Client development work. Typical team size consists of 2 principals and 2 associates led by a senior principal and a partner. Size can vary depending on the project. Typical project duration is 6- 8 weeks. PE projects last for about 3 weeks whereas strategy projects can go up to 10 weeks.

Abhinav recently worked on a market entry case for a chain of international schools that wanted to enter Vietnam. The team did a competitive analysis of Vietnam’s market. They used primary research to estimate the demand, price points, competitors, availability of resources etc. The regulatory framework in the country was studied as well. The team finally built a demographic model to forecast demand for international school in the country. The client wanted to take the acquisition route so they explored that opportunity as well.

Placement Process: These were the stages in the placement process for Co2008.
1) A Case Analysis on profit improvement strategy of a company.
2) Personal Interview to assess the cultural fit with the company
3) Day 1 had a case which had concepts from different areas. Candidate was expected to explain the approach that he will take to crack the case. It was a strategy case on advising the CEO of the company on how to take up future action. They were given 30 minutes to read the case and present the solution to the interviewer. Abhinav was of the view that structure is very critical while solving the cases.
4) Final Interview (PI) with a Senior Principal.

The Alums stressed upon the fact that Personal Interview is a very critical aspect of the placement process. Students should start the preparation for the PI ASAP. This preparation takes a longer time. Before applying to Parthenon, candidates should prepare the cover letter seriously after reading up about the firm. Cover letter can add a personal touch to the resume and hence should be used wisely. Alums further informed the batch that the Parthenon Group will be visiting the campus regularly. The schedule of their visits will be updated by the Consulting Club.

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

McKinsey & Co.- Resume Workshop

ISB Alums working in McKinsey came down to ISB to undertake a Resume workshop. The key takeaways from the workshops have been divided into "Structuring", " Content" and "Formatting"
Structuring
  1. You can structure your resume based on skills, functional expertise or chronology (time) depending upon how best you feel you can position your resume and the intended recipient.
  2. Bucket the work-experience into different roles/profiles
  3. If you are applying to the same industry but want to move up in terms of roles, then it makes sense to highlight the work experience in a chronological order.
  4. In case you are switching industries then highlight the critical skills that are transferable to the job that you are applying to.
  5. Try to be specific and avoid vague points
  6. Make a list of the skills that you want to showcase to the recruiter.
  7. Make different buckets of skills that you want to convey to the recruiter. Include relevant work-ex/project-work under the different heads.
  8. Recruiter takes a holistic view of the resume and does not give any disproportionate weight to any particular section.
  9. Usually there is a standard EOI format which is circulated by CAS. If the recruiter has asked for the cover letter then change the format. Don’t waste too much time on EOI. EOI could be used to explain career gaps, role changes etc.
  10. Try and bring out a problem solving capability through the bullet points that talk about work
  11. You can make a segway into a section by introducing some unique characteristic about it – Could be academic or work related – For eg. “Worked across 5 diverse roles in 3 years” – This helps set the context for what the recruiter will expect through the resume
  12. For extra-curriculars, use a role-based approach. Explain what you did more than talking about the post you held
  13. You can always flip the order of the resume elements (eg. You can start with extra-curricular section and then move to work section)

Content

  1. Make a list of things that you have done in life (including things done at high school etc.)
    Then shortlist the points that you want to tell to the recruiter
  2. Keep it simple so that the person reading the CV could understand it. Hence remove the technical terms. The resume should be understood by a layman.
  3. Highlight the impact of the things that you have done.
  4. Prioritize and retain only the points that have the greatest impact. Those points should cover the work experience, academics, extra-curricular and co-curricular.
  5. Even if you have a draft of resume, still you should start from scratch and make a laundry list of all the activities and achievements.
  6. The resume should reflect the strength of the person. If the person is strong in extra-curricular, then his resume should give more space to that.
  7. Show it to a lot of people and ask them to review it.
  8. The bullet points in the resume should tackle the following three points:
    a. The resume point should highlight the complexity of the situation
    b. What did you actually do (your contribution)
    c. Does the point highlight the impact (contribution v/s complexity).
  9. Highlight both the external (company) impact and internal impact (yourself).
  10. Extra-curricular portion of the resume is important as a story can be built around it.
  11. If you are applying in the same industry then you can use jargon/technical words. Incase you are applying to a different industry then shelve all jargon and technical words
  12. Non-disclosure of grades is not a good idea even if the grades are low. Non-disclosure of grades is assumed that the grades are abysmally low.
  13. Please explain significant gaps in career.
  14. If there is something that you have designed but not implemented use the word “potential”
  15. Always exhibit consistency of a select set of strengths
  16. CA articleship experience can either be placed in the work experience column or under the academic section depending upon what you did and how important you feel your contribution during the 3 years was i.e. do you have a story to tell?
  17. The articleship experience will not be counted as full work experience


Formatting

  1. Try to be specific and avoid vague points
  2. There should be no full stops
  3. Change the mobile number to landline in case you are applying to international recruiters ‘coz landline is clearer.
  4. Take a printout after converting into a pdf and go through the content again
  5. People with higher years of work experience should put the years upfront in the resume. Usually it is difficult for the recruiter to estimate the experience from the dates which are written.
  6. Highlight courses in case you want to apply to a specific domain for ex: finance, marketing etc.
  7. Use simple language
  8. Short forms that are commonly understood like “mgmt” for management are permitted
  9. White space optimization is very important – Change the font size of the white spaces between lines, use the horizontal as well as the vertical white spaces effectively to pack in text
  10. Margins – Keep them no more than 0.25”
  11. Always start with an action verb – “Designed”, “Conceptualized” etc. and maintain consistency in the usage i.e. always use verbs. A list of usable verbs are available on the internet and the 2007 consulting club handover booklet