Management consultancy

Our placements begin this friday. I’m hoping to get into a management consultancy firm. Applied to four of them, and all of them have shortlisted me. Hoping to do well on the D-day.

Anyways the point of the post is about the hardsell that these companies are doing prior to the placement process. They seem to be going out of their way in order to make sure all our doubts are cleared, so that we make an “informed choice”, and all that jazz.

Company Phi has allotted “buddies” to each fo the shortlisted candidates. These buddies help out in the preparation and are responsible for answering the candidate’s queries. The buddy typically happens to be a not very senior alumnus who is not a part of the recruitment team. So we can “feel free” to ask him/her anything. My buddy happened to be somene I’ve been in touch with over the last few months regarding my career, so it was all the more easy for me.

Company Chi sent a mail regarding their process and also a “podcast” with some more info on their India operations (haven’t heard it yet). They also had informal “information sessions” on campus where some consultants clarified doubts. They’ve also said that we can expect a call from one of their more junior members soon so that we can clarify our doubts.

Now, the problem here is that there are so many people who offer to help you, after a point of time you feel you don’t need any help. Still you have occasions like this afternoon when I was woken up by an abrupt call from a consultant from Company Ksi. It was an ISD call btw. It’s not a nice thing, you know, to tell someone that you don’t have any questions. So I ask him the same questions I’d asked some 10 people before this, and got the same answers!

Company Omicron, in order to “differentiate themselves”, “treated” us at the Taj West End today. We were ferried back and forth in Lancers. Booze was also served, but I didn’t want to put arbit CP so abstained. Gorged myself on orange juice. Starters were also decent. And the horrible dinner was compensated for by decent desserts.

Now, the thing is there are 35 of us “shortlists” and 5 consultants. An average of 7 of us crowd around a consultant and ask him/her “pertinent” questions. The same 20 questions which we would have asked every consultant we’ve met in the last few weeks (and we’ve met quite a few of them). And they give us “pertinent” answers. 20 practiced answers for our 20 practiced questions. Halfway through the event, we had all become consultants. Now, we can all give perfectly valid answers to each of those 20 questions, both on consulting in general and Omicron in particular.

These consultants love to talk!! And they don’t mind saying the same thing over and over again also, as long as they’re saying something.

And yeah, I still want to be a consultant! And all you consultants who are reading this, hope this won’t adversely affect my chances at this friday’s interviews!

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