The Perfect Consulting CV: What McKinsey, BCG & Bain are looking for
Your CV is the most crucial component for your successful application – no matter if you apply at the MBB firms the Big 4 or at Boutiques. If you don't pass the initial CV screening you will not even get the chance to show your brilliant case skills. But don't worry – in this section we explain the following topics related to CVs:
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Why is a good CV important?​
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CV structure​
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Sell yourself​
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LinkedIn​
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Putting it all together
If you have a good profile, then follow our guide and you will have an excellent CV so that getting invited to the case interview is only a formality.
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If you are not sure whether you want to join the consulting industry, click here.
Why is a good CV important?
The case interview is the cornerstone of the consulting interview. But it doesn't help if you are the best at case interviews if you cannot make it past the initial CV screening of the consultancies and thus, are not even invited to do a case interview. For that, having a top notch CV is extremely important. McKinsey, for example, doesn't even require a cover letter — all they focus on is your CV. You can hand in a cover letter but it will not save you if your CV does not stand out.
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Your CV is also your calling card. It's your very first and most important work sample. Great storytelling and packaging information in a visually appealing way is the livelihood of a consultant. If you don't put any effort into this one document that is most personal to you, how much effort will you put into a presentation to the client CEO? The CV is more than just a document. It's a statement about you and your work ethic. And it's a statement about your prioritization skills. You've been spending literally thousands of hours on a degree, on internships, and on extracurriculars — but you can't spend 10 or 20 hours creating a killer CV?
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Some candidates believe that just having good grades and great internships is enough to get invited to an interview and they don't worry too much about the wording and structuring of their CV. But this is the wrong mindset. More mediocre candidates that put a lot of effort into refining their CV and selling themselves can still make themselves stand out and trump the candidate with an objectively stronger profile.
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If you have the chance, make use of the career hub at your university. But be very careful and take their advice with a grain of salt. Oftentimes the advice is very outdated and many academics have never applied for highly competitive jobs outside of academia.
You need structure
Being structured is not only important in case interviews but also when it comes to your CV. The recruiter should immediately know where to look for information on your CV.
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A CV in consulting is always structured as follows:
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Introduction​
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Education​
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Work experience​
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Extracurricular activities/additional information
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You'll find plenty of resources online that suggest some fancy formatting, fictitious scales for your skills, colored highlights, and so on. All these tips might be relevant for other industries or jobs but they are definitely not for consulting CVs — so please be careful when following such advice. Keep your CV simple and clean.
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We see many candidates that think having a 3-page CV including everything they ever did in their life will help them secure an interview invite. The exact opposite is the case. McKinsey receives around 1m applications globally each year - so you can imagine at how many CVs recruiters have to look at each day. Make their life as simple as possible and keep your CV to 1 page. If you are applying for a senior role (e.g., engagement manager or partner) things change. But for all experience levels below that 1 page is more than enough.
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Keeping it short also allows you to focus on your strongest experiences. If you did 5 things in your most recent internship, 3 of which were super interesting and 2 were simply regular intern tasks, then only list the 3 super interesting things. The 2 boring tasks will only serve to water down the entire internship. Having a concise but strong profile is better than having a complete but up-and-down profile. People, including recruiters, tend to extrapolate. Listing a only few, but very strong experiences will make the recruiter go "Wow, every single thing this guy did is impressive! I'm sure there's more where that came from". If instead you're listing every single unimpressive detail, the recruiter will go "Yeah, he's got some highlights, but also lot's of boring stuff. Seems like he's reaching, just to fill the page". If your first internship was as an accountant at a local pet food store, you don't need to list that forever. It may have been an important stepping stone to your subsequent career moves, but once you completed that Goldman Sachs internship, it just looks strange even mentioning it.
Sell yourself – others do it as well
We see many candidates with very impressive accomplishments – but then we see their CV and immediately understand why they didn't get invited to an interview. Selling yourself on your CV is part of the game. You might not like it (we do not either) but it's essential to stand out from the crowd. And to be 100% clear: selling does not mean lying. It means phrasing your CV actively and highlighting your accomplishments, linking them to the concrete job you are applying for.
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Selling also means putting your CV into perspective. If you're studying at a relatively unknown university with a GPA of 3.4 it might seem that you are a mediocre student. But if you highlight in your CV that you're in the top 3% of your class it puts things into perspective – you're just studying in a very competitive program. The same applies to how you describe your job activities. Probably >80% of consulting applicants have built an Excel model – but what was the outcome of that model?
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Consider the following two statements:​
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Built an Excel model for internal analyses​
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Created an analytical model to evaluate and optimize investment decisions in small and mid caps in emerging markets
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It's quite obvious that the second statements is much more concrete and a better sell. But the candidate behind statement one could have actually done the exact same task – we just don't know because the statement is so vague. And this example is not out of the blue. We've seen many candidates that were severely understating their accomplishments.
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Depending on the role you're applying for, you can go much deeper in certain task descriptions. If you were to apply specifically for the Strategy & Corporate Finance practice of a consulting firm, then provide more detail that is related to this line of business. Let's say you created models for company valuation. Then you might want to specify which valuation approaches you took and explain the models you built in more detail. Always tailor your CV to the role you're applying for – to the degree possible – and highlight relevant details.
LinkedIn — the CV of the modern age?
A question we often get is how important a LinkedIn profile is. Put briefly, a LinkedIn profile is important, especially later on in your career. But a LinkedIn profile is no substitute for a good CV.
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We recommend that you create a LinkedIn profile as soon as you start your university studies. Not only is it good to connect with your classmates and professors, but it also gives you the chance to play around with LinkedIn a bit. If you have an up-to-date LinkedIn profile, feel free to share the link during the application in the provided form. You can also include the link to your LinkedIn profile on your CV. It won't change the outcome of your application but nevertheless, it will leave a good impression on the recruiter.
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Once you've been in the consulting game for a while, a LinkedIn profile comes in even more handy. Headhunters will reach out to you constantly regarding potential exit opportunities and it's always a good idea to let them know about your plans so that you can reach out later once you're looking for your exit. During your career as a consultant, it's a good idea to keep your CV and LinkedIn up-to-date. It might be a hassle but it's useful for the time you are looking for an exit opportunity.
Putting it all together - the final touches
After you've finally created the first version of your CV, you might just want to send it and be done with it. However, be mindful! Following our advice is generally useful, but even consulting CVs vary from country to country. So, adjust your CV where necessary. E.g., if it's common practice to have a portrait photo on your CV in your country or region, please do so. If you're in the US, for example, you must not. In any case, don't just blindly follow a CV template without customizing it.
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After completing your CV, it's a good idea to discuss it with friends or people you are very close with in your network. Oftentimes, points on CVs are not clear because the reader doesn't have enough context. Asking others to read through your CV and share comments is always insightful and helps to refine the wording so that you can sell yourself even better and with clearer wording. Of course, it's much more impactful if the person you're discussing this with has consulting or equivalent experience.
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Once you implemented the feedback, make sure to take enough time to quality check your CV. The following list is a good starting point for an initial quality check:
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​Is all the information correct? (e.g., GPA, dates)​
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Are there any typos?​
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Are the fonts consistent?​
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Are the font sizes consistent?​
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Is the formatting consistent? (e.g., a consistent logic for what is bold, what is italic, what is both; a consistent logic for the bullets used at different levels of text)​
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Are margins consistent?​
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Are the right parts highlighted? (e.g., GPA, Percentile of class)​
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Are tasks in the work experience section worded in an active way? (e.g., "Analyzed", "Created", "Launched", "Initiated")​
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Are tasks in the work experience section worded in a consistent way? (e.g., "Analyzed vs. Analyzing", "Created vs. Creating")​
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Are the hobbies specific to make them sound interesting and unique? (e.g., just "reading" is not an insightful hobby)​
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Once you've done all that, you can do some more feedback loops with people you trust and who are knowledgeable. You can then further refine it. You can then quality check it again. You can even try and reach out to a junior consultant on LinkedIn to see if they'd review your CV. If you have anything in common, even if it's just the same university, there's a good chance you get a response. People are generally nice (and maybe even feel flattered) if you're asking for guidance.
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You see that there's quite a bit more to it than just scribbling down your education and employment history the night before the application deadline. It actually requires effort to create an impressive CV that you're proud of. And once you've arrived at this point, you are good to submit your application.
