I would like to share one of my stories when I was offered a job on site without a resume and a cover letter. In addition, I did not have any business skills from previous work experience and there was not a single network.
Before I talk in detail about my method, I would like to highlight 2 links that support my approach and make it relevant. This means that if I get job offers without any special skills using this method, you also have everything you need to apply it, and be successful with it in consultations.
Reference 1
When I approached companies, I applied principles that I learned from the work of Jay Abraham. This also includes the Jay method to contact companies for advice. This means that I did not do it by chance, and it didn’t happen that I received job offers. So the approach that I am telling you has a very solid foundation in Jay’s 30 years of work, and I myself applied it.
Jay Abraham is the leading authority in the business world and has influenced people like Tony Robbins, Ramit Sethi, Stephen Covey, Brian Tracy, Almaz John, and these are just a few of them. In addition, he developed thousands of companies based on the principles that shaped my thinking, since I decided to become a business developer.
Reference 2
There is a book written by a former McKinsey consultant that describes in detail the interview process and the selection criteria.
Victor Cheng is called “Interview Secrets”. This should be useful if you manage to get an interview. The book focuses on interviews, not how to be selected for one.
To get an interview, Victor Cheng has a networking product. I did not buy it, so I can not give you my opinion about it.
If you still want to go with the traditional application, Victor Cheng will provide free resources on his website to improve your resume and cover letter.
Interviews conducted by consulting companies are based on case studies that mimic work experience in the workplace. This means that during the interview you will have to solve some business tasks in the setup, which is similar to consulting with a real client.
Some of the selection criteria from Victor Cheng’s book and what consulting companies use are:
- Independent problem solver. Here are some questions that the interviewers themselves ask when they make a choice:
Can I let you go with a division of 500 Fortune companies FOR YOURSELF, without any control?
Can you deal with the client, solve his problems and make the company look good in the process?
Will you be an independent problem solver fast enough, or will I have to look after you for the next two years of your career?
- Be accurate enough. This means that you should be able to make estimates based on assumptions and hypotheses.
- Back up your statements with actual arguments. You should always explain WHY you offer a specific answer, result, action, advice.
- Prove your systematic, analytical thinking.
My approach is similar to the interview with the interview, it proves the criteria that consulting companies are looking for and received job offers. But since consulting companies want to check you for consistency as well as speed, they can still evaluate you through several surveys before offering you a job offer.
This is because they want to see if you regularly apply systematic thinking, and not only at moments of inspiration.
My approach :
- Select the company (small or large) that you would like to analyze and see as an example.
- Explore the business: become your customer, follow the service process and their products. Research the company for facts regarding their business model, strategy and operations.
- Make assumptions about your business model or strategy based on your observations and research that you just learned.
For example, I usually ordered over the phone food from a raw vegan restaurant because its location was too far from my place. However, I could get an order with free shipping only if I bought the whole menu and only if I placed the order from 10 to 12 o'clock.
Thus, these were restrictions on consumption freely, whenever and how much I wanted. So I supposed to that I was not the only person in the area who loves their food, manages their places and feels disappointed because of the lack of flexibility in consumption.
- Identify a possible and actual problem or opportunity that they have and do not know or that they have not found a solution.
For example, based on the assumption that I was not the only person who usually ordered food from them, I realized that in a restaurant I have a market with an inadequate level of service that can bring more benefits from their products. It was an opportunity for the restaurant to sell more and buy more and more from their customers.
- Create a minimally viable solution. That means your decision reasonably accurate because you will support it with your mind and systematic thinking, facts and assumptions from your research and from being a client.
In my case, I suggested that the restaurant set up a joint venture with a social center from my neighborhood to sell their products daily on a daily basis 12 hours a day. This meant easy access for customers and no restrictions on consumption and not for a while. In addition, the restaurant did not need to make any additional investments in infrastructure, did not have to pay rent and not pay for employees. Everything was already in place.
- Contact the decision makers and get an appointment by telling them that you are a customer, you have identified a problem or opportunity that you are overlooking, and that you have a solution for it.
Depending on the company you want to work with, you can adapt this approach and tell decision makers that you have identified a promising company / client that is important to their business. This company has a lost opportunity or challenge, and you want to show them a solution that can win it as a client for a consulting company. This may be one way to customize the script.
So this method is similar to using interview interviews to get an interview, and you will certainly stand out as independent problem solver ,
Victor Cheng says in his book that out of 400 candidates at Stanford, only 6 are hired. This is an adoption rate of 1.5%. ,
Therefore, given the high competition, just to get an interview, it is worth trying alternatives, as I just suggested.
This is because, in any case, you will have to work very hard to prepare for the interview if you want to convey it. If you think you must be reasonable for this, the intellect develops by being consistent. In this way, you can use this alternative to also practice your ability to resolve case studies.
