How To Add Consulting To Your Resume

How To Add Metrics To Your Resume

When adding metrics to your resume, you want to provide context that explains why the metric is particularly relevant and impressive.

To provide context, youll want to answer the following questions for your readers:

• When ?
• How ?
• Why ?

As Kelly Garland, Principal of Garland source, said, Your resume that you are an impact player, able to drive change and make improvements, solve pain. Make that clear and visible.

Below, we provide examples of how you can add context to your metrics by asking yourself these questions.

When?

• Before: Increased sales by 10%
• After: Increased sales by 10% in the first two months of entering the role

• Before: Signed 4 new hotel development deals
• After: Signed 4 new hotel development deals in 2020, which are scheduled to open by Q4 2021

How?

• Before: Decreased project completion time by 25%
• After: Decreased project completion time by 25%

• Before: Reduced cost of goods sold by 12%
• After: Reduced cost of goods sold by 12% via contract renegotiations with 4 major suppliers and employee training to reduce waste

Why?

• Before: Wrote 15 blog posts
• After: Wrote 15 blog posts to improve website traffic via SEO optimization strategies

• Before: Developed and rolled out 4 new Excel forecasting models
• After: Developed and rolled out 4 new Excel forecasting models that reduced month-end reporting time by 30%

What Do Consulting Firms Look For

Consulting firms look for the following 3 ATTRIBUTES in their candidates:

• Leadership skills: The ability to influence other people, communicate ideas, and synergize with team members effectively.
• Problem-solving ability: The ability to effectively solve problems with a structured, top-down approach.
• Achieving mindset: The willingness to go beyond the call of duty to learn from experience and strive for the best results.

Every assessment system needs a set of standards to base the scoring on. Management consulting is a very unique field and therefore requires somewhat unconventional grading criteria. That is why the very first step to beginning writing your consulting resume is to understand the values that consulting firms cherish and to make sure that every inch of your resume reflects those values.

So why are the 3 aforementioned attributes, or values, so demanded?

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Here are our top 10 tips to improve your management consulting resume.

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What Makes A Great Consultant Resume: Key Takeaways

• Choose a resume layout that sends the right message across and fits your current career situation
• Create a resume header that shows your desired job title, and easy to find contact numbers
• Be specific about your experience, accomplishments and future goals in your summary
• Feature detailed metrics and specific examples that show the impact you made in your previous roles when describing your experience
• List soft skills backed by examples
• Add all of your technical skills and certifications that you have and match the job description
• Show off a dash of personality in your resume that will demonstrate your culture fit and the right mix of hard and soft skills.

Nd We Screen Your Education

The next thing we look at is the school you went to. If you went to Stanford, for example, the interviewer knows Stanford is a great school. So you could be a good candidate. But if you didnt go to a good school, it doesnt necessarily mean its bad. It just means that you have to convince the interviewer that youre a good candidate.

People seem to assume that everyone who joins McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Deloitte etc. must have gone to the Ivy League schools. Its not always the case, especially when it comes to undergraduate degrees because there are many graduates who get in from many outstanding schools out there that many people have never heard of. Ten to twenty years ago it was different, but today the recruiting is much more diverse.

We will look at your school first, then your grades or GPA. Good school, good grades, obviously thumbs up. We also look if you were a club president or part of any honor society? Did you win any awards or scholarships?

We look at postgraduate, then undergraduate. Postgraduate carries more weight than an undergraduate. If you dont have a postgraduate school, then your undergraduate school carries a lot of weight.

However, undergraduate GPA is very important, and unless you did something exceptional in your graduate studies and are truly articulate, the undergraduate GPA is going to be the deciding factor.

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Tailor The Visual Format Of The Resume

Consulting is a field where creativity is extremely valued, for without it one cannot hope to solve unfamiliar problems day in day out. That said, reserve that creativity for when you get the job, do not show it on your resume. For this part, stick with a conservative look, just like how you would dress on your first day of work.

Other than that, you also need your resume to have a professional font and is skimmable. That said, this is such an important pillar in writing a consulting resume that it deserves its own big point, which we will get to later.

Bcg Resume Mistakes To Avoid

Your BCG resume is going to arrive in a pile with hundreds of others. The person screening it will be looking for any reason to cast your resume aside. Its crucial that you not make any needless mistakes when it comes to your BCG resume format.

Stick to a single page, no exceptions. No bullet point should be more than two lines long being a clear and concise communicator is an essential skill for prospective consultants to demonstrate.

When you catch yourself describing your own skills and virtues, remind yourself to make your resume action oriented. Be wary of long lists or overly descriptive sections. Try to remember that theres a difference between telling and showingyou dont just want to tell BCG youll be a great consultant, you want to show the firm why thats true.

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How A Management Consultant Resume Is Screened At Mckinsey Etc

Today were going to discuss how a management consultant resume is screened at a major consulting firm like McKinsey, BCG, Deloitte etc. In other words, Im going to talk you through what generally goes through the mind of a screening officer when they receive a management consultant resume. I will talk about some tricks and techniques that you could use to improve your management consultant resume.

Before we go any further, it is important to point out that the format and style of the resume we teach are also very effective for banking, industry, technology companies and even start-up jobs. The content also will look great on your LinkedIn profile. So even if you will not end up in management consulting, investing in putting together a resume in the style and in a format we teach is a great investment to help you have a successful career.

Now, lets assume you sent through your resume to McKinsey, Bain, BCG or Deloitte and they are looking at your consulting resume. Im going to look at your resume independent of GMAT scores, cover letter, essays, testimonials and anything else that you may have supplied.

Tip #3 Fill Up 1 Entire Page

Your management consulting resume should demonstrate that you know how to prioritize the right information and concisely communicate it.

Choose your most important experiences, communicate them in a relevant way, and stick to one page.

At the same time, fill up the full page. If your resume doesnt reach to the bottom of the page, it just communicates you dont have enough relevant experience for the role.

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Target Your Management Consultant Job Description And Skills Section

Youre a shark when it comes to business, and you know it like your own church.

How to show that on paper?

Expert Hint: If you want to list promotions within the same company on your resume, describe each position separately by starting with the most recent position.

The ResumeLab builder is more than looks. Get specific content to boost your chances of getting the job. Add job descriptions, bullet points, and skills. Easy. Improve your CV in our CV builder now.

Nail it all with a splash of color, choose a clean font, highlight your skills in just a few clicks. Youre the perfect candidate and well prove it. Use the ResumeLab builder now.

Focus On Skills Learned

Consulting positions are much more than an opportunity to bring in some income while you are waiting to find a full-time position. They are also a great way to pick up a wide range of industry skills, many of which will serve you long after the position has ended. Always remember to highlight the skills you learned at each of those positions on your resume.

Your potential employers should be interested in finding out what you have learned and what skills you can bring to their companies the fact that it was a contract position does not negate your skills and knowledge acquired.

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Why Are Consulting Resumes Important

Consulting resumes are your opportunity to showcase your experience, skills, expertise and certifications that make you an ideal candidate for a consulting role. Recruiters are looking for candidates who can clearly detail their excellence and quantify their experiences and skills.

Tailoring your resume to which type of firm you want to apply to can help recruiters in your ideal company find you. Here are the three main types of consulting firms you can choose from:

• Mega-firms: Mega firms offer their clients support across a wide variety of industries and platforms. Consultants working for these firms have access to corporate training, and they connect with a vast network of consulting professionals and clients. They are also likely to get assignments in a variety of areas before finding their primary niche.

• MBB firms: MBB is an acronym representing three of the most prestigious consulting firms in business todayMcKinsey & Co., Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Co. A job at an MMB firm boasts access to high-level trainers, extremely competitive salaries and growth opportunities.

• Boutique firms: Boutique firms specialize in specific services according to industry. These companies can vary in size but are typically much smaller than a mega-firm. This type of consulting group seeks individuals with a unique skill-set in a niche area.

Related: How to Become a Consultant

Add Notary To Work Experience Section

Have you ever worked as a notary public? If the answer is yes, they how to say you are a notary on resume is not going to be a big problem. Simply put it in the work experience section like in the example that we shared above.

As a rule of thumb, people primarily highlight the place where they worked and how long they worked as notary public. After that, it is recommendable that you use a bullet list to highlight the main responsibilities that you had back then. If you manage to do this part of the job right, then you can be sure notary public in resume will certainly raise your chances of getting a job!

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It Consultant Resume Examples

Here are two IT consultant resume examples.

We want you to observe them closely and tell us what the better pick is:

IT Consultant Resume Example 1: Using Paragraphs

“As an IT Consultant at Company X, I was responsible for a number of functions such as consulting top clients and resolving their IT disputed. I was also responsible for executing important functions such as project management, generating reports, reducing IT & operation costs, and optimizing the overall IT process of the company. What I really liked about my job was diagnosing & resolving system errors and processes. I also developed new systems and software to reduce overall IT costs”.

IT Consultant Resume Example 2: Using One-Liner Points and Grouping & Highlighting

Project Management & Report Generation

• Collaborated with clients to define the scope of 5+ priority projects
• Provided IT consulting to 10+ premium clients leading to 100% customer satisfaction
• Prepared weekly reports on the efficacy & performance of our in-house IT solutions

Process Optimization & Cost Reduction

• Trained & managed 10+ IT consultants to optimize the process by 50%
• Reduced IT costs by 35% by developing & implementing highly efficient systems
• Saved $500K in annual operating costs by troubleshooting the company’s IT software
• Diagnosed & resolved 5+ premium client’s system problems and bugs with 100% accuracy

IT Consultant Resume Examples: Analysis

About The Authormatt Glodz

Matt Glodz is the Founder and Managing Partner of Resume Pilots and a Certified Professional Resume Writer.

After studying business communication at Cornell University, Matt worked within Fortune 500 companies, where he noted that qualified candidates were frequently denied interview opportunities due to poorly written documents.

At Resume Pilots, Matt combines his business and writing background – which includes prior work for a Chicago Tribune publication – to craft resumes that give his clients the best chance of landing interviews. He works with clients ranging from CEOs to recent graduates and has been writing resumes for over eight years.

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Trim The Resume Into One A4 Page

After having listed all the crucial bullet points, it is time to do some magic to make everything fit into one A4 page. You can either omit content or write more, or tweak the format of your resume, e.g. adjust the page margin or font size.

Whatever you do, make sure everything fits into one page. It is challenging, but one page only! If your resume needs to reach a second page, it is too long and if it is only 0.7 pages long, it is too short. Everything must fit roughly into one page.

Does Github Look Good On A Resume

Does hackathon look good on resume? Well, that depends on a wide range of factors described in one of our previous articles. However, the point is the same the answer to the question from the subtitle depends only on you. If you respect the structure and standards that we described, then it will certainly look nice.

Dont forget that adding only an URL to your profile wont be effective as you would want to. Instead of that, make a good structure, provide all the project details, and talk about the tools you worked on. In that way, the resume with GitHub link will be more eye-pleasing and effective.

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Writing Tip #: What If I Dont Have The Results Or If I Cant Quantify The Results

These are very common questions among job seekers.

Lets see how to answer those questions based on 3x different situations.

First situation: your contribution can be quantified but you dont have the number.

Unless you were actively keeping track of your results at your job, you probably dont know how much impact, exactly, did your work have.

A first solution is to reach out to your previous employers and ask for the data. They should be more than happy to send it over!

Another solution is to estimate the results by yourself . And thats ok to put a rough estimate in your resume.

For instance, if you dont remember by how much you managed to increase sales on your previous job, but you know that the order of magnitude was between $1m and $5m. Then put $3m! Its fine Dont put a range of numbers. Instead, put one number. It shows that you are comfortable with numbers, and thats great for consulting jobs!

But never lie in your resume or during job interviews. Dont say I increased sales by $15m if you know that the order of magnitude is not true.

Second situation: your contribution cant be quantified, but the resources used to solve the problem can be.

If you cant quantify the result, give a perspective on the scale of the problem by quantifying the resources involved.

For instance:

What was the budget? E.g. Successfully carried out X marketing campaign, going under the designated budget of Y USD.

For instance:

Common Resume Mistakes To Avoid

Weve told you what you should do while working on your management consulting resume. Now, here is a list of what you should NOT do.

• Copy an online template verbatim
• Make your resume over 1 page long
• Use small font or small margins to fit everything on 1 page
• Have any typos or grammatical errors
• Use different fonts on the same document
• Lack specific details in your bullet points
• Rely on yourself send your resume to others and receive suggestions
• Include high school information
• Have conspicuous gaps in your education and work timeline
• Over exaggerate and make up lies eventually it will catch up to you!

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Are Local Nuances Really Applied To Consulting

The other thing you need to consider is local nuances. A local trait or nuance is something that occurs in just one part of the world. For example, German candidates like to put their photos on their resumes. Im OK with that if its a local trait. When I was in consulting, we even interviewed German candidates and it wasnt such a big issue. Or some candidates like a 2-page management consultant resume.

But if youre applying to consulting firms you must ask yourself, Is that local trait for a general a resume also applicable for a management consultant resume? Because many international consulting firms like McKinsey operate on a global model, which means the way they review resumes in Switzerland is the way they review resumes in the United States, or in Australia, etc. If youre applying to the New York office, for example, and sending in a 2-pages consulting resume with a photo youre automatically telling the recruiter in New York that you dont understand the New York office, you dont understand the culture in the United States, which is a big deal and mostly it will get you dinged.

You wont even get a call for an interview. So make sure that whenever you want to build any local nuances into your management consultant resume, ask yourself, Is this nuance also applicable for a consulting resume?

I always encourage people to write a 1-page management consultant resume following the format we teach in The Consulting Offer . Even in Europe and Australia.