Why an MBA for Consultants?
If you’ve had management consulting experience within the last five years, an MBA is a great next step in your career. In fact, historically, management consulting has been considered the perfect pre-MBA training ground for recent college graduates.
Working in management consulting provides you the opportunity to spend a couple of years gaining exposure to various industries and clients, to manage and work with a diverse cross-functional team of like-minded professionals, and to receive formal training, mentorship, and networking tips from MBA graduates who could be recommenders for your business school applications. This makes management consulting the perfect place to start your post-undergraduate career.
Twenty years ago, the average pre-MBA work experience was 2.7 years, and now it is almost 5.5 years. Although some professionals do spend three to four years in consulting before going to business school—developing expertise in an industry or specializing in areas such as change management or digital transformation—many are tacking on “line experience” working in the industry or a firm-sponsored externship on top of their consulting experience before attending business school. During my time at a tech firm, we hired analysts from McKinsey and Bain who spent one to two years with us before heading off to business school. Similarly, many consulting firms are bringing in experienced hires from other industries, who then spend another two years being trained in consulting before applying to graduate school.
Therefore, management consultants are now even more experienced and are well trained in the fundamentals that most top MBA programs are seeking in their applicants. Business schools know your diverse projects have acted like real live case studies that will add context to classroom discussions. Additionally, these programs are well prepared to work with you and help you reach your career goals.
The process of deciding whether a management consultant needs an MBA involves a major question that everyone sees on an MBA application: What are your short-term and long-term career goals? Do you want to stay in consulting? Launch your own business? Change industries? Focus on a specialty? All are good reasons to attend business school. So, unless you are looking to pivot and become a doctor or a lawyer, an MBA is a natural next step—and a JD/MBA or MD/MBA dual program might even be the answer.
Still unsure? In speaking with more than two dozen current associate and manager-level consultants last year at such major firms as McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Deloitte, Accenture, PwC, and EY, over 70% said that an MBA was likely part of their future, and more than 60% said they had already taken or were preparing for their GMAT exam (in anticipation of the change to the new GMAT Focus format). Although the career paths for management consultants are more varied than ever, most consulting professionals that are in their first to fourth years out of undergrad are still keeping their options open and are taking the GMAT or GRE when they have the time.
So, whether you want to remain a consultant or move on from that world, there are many reasons why an MBA will benefit you in the long run. You are ahead of the game and ready for the environment. Of the six undergraduates I worked with as an MBA hire at my consulting firm, all six went to get their MBA (two at Stanford GSB, two at Harvard, one at Chicago Booth, and one at Wharton), two returned to management consulting, and the other four earned their MBAs to work for tech firms. The two management consultants who returned to consulting now run their own businesses.
Why an MBA for Non-Business Undergrad Consultants?
If you are a management consultant with a non-quantitative degree in such subjects as psychology or law, then accounting, finance, statistics, and marketing courses might not have been part of your undergraduate curriculum. Getting an MBA will give you a chance to prove your analytical chops and familiarize you with the basic analytical/quantitative frameworks that will be necessary in order for you to speak the language of business.
I remember being a freshly minted MBA and hearing a manager tell a new graduate/hire without an MBA to put together a five-year pro forma for a client in Excel. That person came sheepishly over and asked for help. Nowadays, someone might ask you if you are familiar or have experience with Python. Knowledge of basic and current practices will be helpful whether you want to pivot into investment banking, build your own business, or move into an executive leadership position at a corporate entity. If you’re building a new business, your business plan had better have a pretty solid cap table and realistic financial projections to share with potential investors. In business school, you will have ample opportunity to improve and to learn from experienced professors and classmates in these areas.
Five Tips for Today’s MBA Application Environment
Management consultants still constitute a disproportionate percentage of applicants at top business schools each year. Consider that McKinsey, Bain, and BCG (MBB) hire approximately 800–1,000 undergrads a year globally. And if even just 50% are applying to the top business schools in the country, they will be a pretty well-known commodity and attractive to those same firms that hire the most MBAs every year. Although many consulting firms might no longer financially support their more junior employees in getting their MBAs, they do still expect their junior employees to remain interested in pursuing an MBA after working for several years—before progressing within their firms or eventually becoming a client.
Applying to MBA programs with a traditional management consulting background and a solid GMAT on your resume comes with fewer qualification questions regarding academic eligibility, but it does allow the admissions teams to focus more on some of the other parts of your application.
That said, MBA admissions officers know that as a management consultant, you may have had more opportunity than other applicants to interact directly with senior executives; work with and perhaps even manage large cross-functional teams; work in a variety of industries; and work in various geographies (although during the pandemic, there were considerably fewer opportunities for travel). Business schools strive to bring in students with a variety of experiences to enrich classroom discussions, club activities, and other interactions. As a consultant, you may bring a wider breadth of experience across different industries compared to most other non–management consulting applicants.
Additionally, remember that while top business schools have strong relationships with consulting firms as hiring pools for their graduates, they also have strong knowledge of how these firms train and nurture their young consultants who apply for acceptance. With firms like McKinsey spending upward of nearly $800 million annually on capability development and training for their employees, they know you are well prepared to enforce and engage in the rigors of a “think tank” academic business environment.
So, how will you stand out on your MBA applications among your management consultant peers who are also applying? Here are five tips to follow:
1. Take the GMAT Focus/GRE.
Take the GMAT or GRE soon—and take it ASAP if you haven’t already. One thing has not changed (yet): management consultants ARE expected to score well. If you have the time, take the test sooner rather than later. When a consultant tells me they didn’t score well, it usually is because they waited a long time to take their test and must re-engage to get back in the academic critical-thinking environment. You don’t need a perfect score to get in the top business schools, but a good above-average score will be helpful along with a stellar work background. Others might disagree, but anything higher than a 655 on the GMAT Focus (700 on old GMAT) or at least a 320 on the GRE (with at least a 160 on the Quant portion) would be fine—and you’ll never have to talk about it again.
2. Demonstrate your leadership skills.
Management consulting firms are great at providing leadership opportunities. Therefore, admissions committees expect to see evidence of your leadership skills in their application questions and great examples of those skills in the essays. This is usually harder for non–management consultants to demonstrate based on their work experiences.
That said, it is important to realize that leadership can take many different forms. Even if you may not have had an opportunity to manage other consultants at your company, have you led a team for a client project? Have you led a work stream? Have you mentored more junior consultants or clients? Or have you played a leadership role in specific efforts at your firm, such as undergraduate recruiting or a diversity group? How did you navigate a potentially difficult situation? These are all ways of demonstrating your leadership ability.
If you’ve not yet had formal leadership experience, proactively think about (and then practice!) your successful methods for leading laterally or from below. How do you move the conversation? How do you handle your critics? How do you co-opt support for your ideas? How does the culture at each client site influence how you lead?
Also consider that leadership does not always materialize best at work. There might be situations outside of the work environment where you took charge. This is another great way to show that you are different from your management consultant peers or that you can apply your leadership skills in multiple environments.
3. Share details on your work achievements.
Business schools would love to see specific examples of your achievements at work. But as a management consultant, you may be obligated to keep details of your project work confidential. Even within the bounds of confidentiality, it’s almost always possible to describe your accomplishments on your resume and/or applications—being as specific as you are able and quantifying results when you can, but perhaps being vague regarding the client name or even the specific sub-industry. Did your work result in the sale of more work? How much savings or how much more efficient was your solution? Did you lead a client team or group of other analysts?
4. Broaden your experience—or specialize!
Business schools have traditionally valued management consultants who have had a variety of experiences, but that has changed over the years. Business schools such as NYU Stern and Carnegie Mellon Tepper have created tech-focused MBA curriculums, and many institutions have developed industry tracks focused on certain industries such as health care. In the end, make sure your experience and direction show up in your application, especially when talking about your career goals.
As mentioned earlier, management consultants now have more varied opportunities than ever, and the decisions are up to the individual. Specializing doesn’t have to be industry specific like health care or fintech. Your expertise could be in new product launch, AI integration, or modern business process reengineering.
Last year, I spoke to two management consulting MBA applicants who told me they were going back to business school, though neither were required to do so by their firm. For one applicant, business school was going to be a time for gaining more specific expertise, working on their business plans, networking with smart individuals from various backgrounds, and speaking with academics who are knowledgeable about their specialty. The other candidate was looking to broaden her knowledge by listening to her classmates’ experiences in a team-based academic environment, as she had been stuck working with one client for more than two years at her firm.
So, depending upon your needs, there is still time to work within your firm to sharpen your expertise or broaden your experience. If you’ve not yet worked with a management team, network your way into a project that will get you in the front of the boardroom. If you have ONLY worked in the front of the boardroom, consider pursuing a project or tell your project coordinator you are looking for a project where you would be working with the client. You may have specialized experience in one industry, which is great—but if your consulting firm is industry agnostic, consider pursuing assignments in additional industries as well to further broaden your exposure. If, for example, you have worked only in the US health-care system but would like to work with socialized medicine, find out if your firm has a project in Canada.
5. Give back and engage.
As a former management consultant, I fully appreciate how the consulting lifestyle is not always conducive to volunteer work. I see many consultants who are accomplished, but everything seems so focused on their resume or themselves. Most management consultants have perfected the look of an accomplished businessperson. But as many have always said in the management consulting recruiting industry, could you work long hours, travel, and have dinners with them? The applicant is a smart individual, but could I spend long hours with them in a non-business, selfless environment? This perception can be overcome. Look for opportunities to give back or otherwise contribute your time and effort to your community. These experiences also can serve as great additional opportunities to demonstrate leadership and specific achievements.
Consider taking a role in your undergraduate alumni association, which could indicate that you would actively give back to the business school should you be accepted. You can even find opportunities within your consulting firm. For example, you might offer to create or improve the onboarding/training process within your firm, mentor others, or volunteer for a pro-bono engagement that also builds a skill you need for your long-term goals. You might even join your firm’s recruiting team and visit the business school to hear about the school, act as a resource for potential hires, and network with career placement or admissions personnel whom you might meet down the line.
It is hard to just pick up something at the last minute and make it look “authentic,” so make sure it is a true interest for you. Past management consultant clients have added to their resume after starting their applications. For example, a client who was raised by a single mother volunteered their time at a battered women’s shelter; another client who had adopted two dogs volunteered their time at a local animal shelter; and a former college acapella singer joined their church choir. Take a look at the clubs listed for your MBA institutions; they are full of more than just the Management Consulting Club. Your school will be just as interested in your side activities as they are in your GMAT score and will be happy to see that you are more than just a smart consultant; they want to know that you will help run these clubs. Recent clients of mine currently run an LGBTQIA+ club, a rugby club, an undergraduate tutoring group, the intercollegiate golf club, the investment club, and the international cooking group at their respective business schools.
As a management consultant, you’re likely well suited to business school. But to gain admission to top MBA programs, you’ll need to differentiate yourself from your consulting peers. By sharing examples of leadership, achievements, networking, broad exposure/specialized skills, and a history of empathetic, selfless behavior, you can truly stand out and demonstrate why you should be admitted.
For more guidance on preparing your MBA applications, sign up for a free 30-minute consultation with a Stratus admissions expert today!