By Steven Laird

As the consulting field has become increasingly popular among undergraduate business students, many students commonly ask themselves two important questions: how can I differentiate myself and how do I break into the consulting industry?  Are you among the many who are interested in landing that consulting job with prestigious firms such as Bain and Company, ZS Associates, Mercer, and Deloitte?  If so, the best way to get your feet wet and get one step closer to that full-time offer is to participate in a case competition.  A case competition is a competition in which contestants choose teams of three to five persons to tackle a business problem by a hosting firm.  This spring’s Strategy and Operations Case Competition was held on Saturday, April 17, and was hosted by Bruin Consulting, who gathered contestants from CAST Management Consulting, Inc.; Bain and Company; L.E.K. Consulting; Monitor; Mercer, and ZS Associates.

Continue Reading

By Christine Liu

Staff Writer

Want to get special consideration for first round interviews for Deloitte Consulting?  Well, that is what first place winners get for the Deloitte Human Capital Case Competition.  The third annual competition was held of February 19^th.  This competition is sponsored by the Human Capital sector of Deloitte Consulting.  Deloitte, one of the largest professional organizations in the world with offices located in 140 countries, delivers financial advisory, audit, tax, and consulting services.

Continue Reading

By Robert Chang

Staff Writer

In the modern corporate world where billions of dollars can ride on a single decision, one of highest demanded commodities is sound advice. The career path of a consultant requires both extensive technical knowledge and effective business strategy to succeed. Consulting, according to Tom Rodenhauser’s Inside Accounting comprises 30% of all U.S. business school graduates who are also hired for one of the 50 largest consulting firms. This puts Consulting above the investment banking and hi-tech industries as the most desirable careers.

Continue Reading

By Stephen Moock

Staff Writer

The headquarters for top strategy and management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. occupies about fifteen floors of a New York City skyscraper.  Consulting is one of the most desirable fields for business and non-business students to enter after graduation.  This means that those fifteen floors can fill up quite fast.  Therefore, it is necessary for recruits to be formidable in every aspect of the internship and hiring process to be noticed by any top consulting firm.  Recruits must first begin to attend info sessions and career fairs and interact with employees from the firms.  Since this is where first impressions are made, it is a crucial step in the hiring process.  When attending a career fair, recruits should take advantage of the opportunity to talk to employees of the firms that are in attendance.  Recruits should attempt to talk to employees of different positions in the firm, but most time should be spent with the consultants as opposed to the recruiters who most likely work in human relations.  Interested candidates should ask recruiters basic questions about firm specifics.  Develop in depth conversations with the consultants who have more to say than recruiters in who will be selected for interviews.  Also, try to find consultants who either graduated from UCLA or work at offices nearby.  This will give you more of a connection to them and allow you to seem more personable in conversation.  Make sure to get a business card from everyone talked to, but do not hand out resumes to everyone unless they ask for one as this may seem aggressive.  Within one day of the event it is important to send a follow up email thanking everyone you met and talked to.  This is both polite and will make your name more memorable for employees when they are going over applicants.

Continue Reading