- Consulting firms use in-house recruiters to help them find college and MBA students for jobs.
- But they also rely on external recruiters to fill entry-level and senior roles.
- Business Insider spoke with 10 independent consulting recruiters and career coaches on the advice they’d give to candidates who are interested in consulting roles, or how they can develop transferable skills.
- Mark Rich, a consulting headhunter at Whitehouse Pimms, said getting your name in a recruiter’s exclusive database and establishing a personal connection with the interviewer are some ways to increase your chances of landing a consulting job.
- Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.
If you want to work at a big consulting firm like McKinsey or PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), knowing recruiters is key to getting your foot in the door.
Firms like McKinsey, Bain & Co., and Deloitte use internal recruiters to find MBA and bachelor’s candidates on college campuses.
But leading consulting firms also work with external recruiters to hire entry-level or poach experienced, senior-level hires. There are also online platforms including Management Consulted, My Consulting Offer, and MyConsultingCoach that connect job seekers with career coaches who help candidates perfect their résumés, cover letters, and interview responses. Many of these coaches have previously worked at big firms, and they offer an inside scoop to what it takes to land a role.
There are niche areas within consulting, such as turnaround, bankruptcy, and digital transformation, that are usually filled by recruiters of more experienced consultants. Firms also work with external recruiters to shuttle talent to and from the “Big Three” (McKinsey, Bain, and BCG) and the “Big Four” (PwC, KPMG, EY, and Deloitte) to other opportunities in the industry.
Read more: Meet the recruiters hiring for 6-figure jobs at consulting firms like Bain, McKinsey, PwC, and KPMG
Entry-level consultants with MBAs can make up to a $170,000 base salary, which doesn’t include performance or signing bonuses. An advisory principal, for instance, can make $230,000 at Bain, $804,751 at PwC, or $950,000 at KPMG.
Business Insider spoke with 6 external recruiters and 4 career coaches about how they work with leading consultancies to find talent, and how you can stand out in the applicant pool.
Here’s what they said about how candidates can increase their chances of landing six-figure consulting jobs.
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