If there was a day in my non professional career which deserved to be termed as the Consulting Day, it was definitely today. The day
started with a lot of action, a lot of adrenalin rush and too much excitement.
One of the biggest HR consulting firms “Mercer Consulting” was in our campus,
providing us an opportunity of a lifetime by giving us an opportunity to work
with them. Along with that, we had a full day class of Consulting Skills by Mr.
Anil Sachdev and finally at the end of the day I had to go through a Mckinsey screening
process. I knew it is going to be a long and a demanding day but I was up for
it.
After the morning circle, Mr. Nishchae Suri , the MD of
Mercer Consulting, with his subordinates interacted with us for a while and
gave us instructions to approach the first round of the interview. We were told
to get in our respective class and we’ll be called as per our turn. With lots
of excitement we entered our class, where guru of Consulting Mr. Anil Sachdev
awaited us. Though I tried hard to concentrate but was quite difficult to do so
with so much action going on in the college.
Finally, I was asked to face my first round of interview
which I though went fairly well. And then came the next round which was a group
activity which stretched up till lunch. Finally, after lunch we entered our
classroom again, feeling much at ease. I would have hardly spent five minutes
in class after lunch when I got a call from my friend suggesting that Amber and
I have been shortlisted for the third round of interview from BLP. Within 5
minutes we had to make a presentation on “Global Business Strategy” of about 3
minutes.
My heart started pounding again as the time was less I
needed to rewind all the concepts of that subject in my brain. I quickly scrambled
to get my older notes and quickly swept through them. We ran up to the third
floor and again awaited our turn. There were seven other students who had been
shortlisted from HRLP too. Finally, I was invited inside to start my
presentation. I started off fairly well but could not finish talking within the
stipulated amount of time. After coming out of the board room I did a small assessment
of my presentation and thought I could have certainly done a better job but I
guess that’s the game of time pressure that they were trying to test.
Once I was done I returned back to my Consulting Skills
class where we were about to taste the real consulting world. We were presented
with the actual finance plan that SOIL was about to present to Axis Bank and
were asked to find out loop holes in it. It was a wonderful session where we
learning the art of asking the right set of questions which will reveal the
maximum amount of information. Though this session was for everyone but Anil
sir made this assignment an interview round for all the students who had to be
screened for Mckinsey & Co. This was a round where we had to make an impact
through the quality of question that we ask and how can we make the proposal to
be sent to Axis Bank full proof. I thought
we all as group did a fairly decent job.
Finally, the day was coming to an end and I was asked to
describe my day at Soil in three minutes. While I was talking I realized that I
could have learnt more about Consulting in one day. It was indeed a tiring day
but cannot be anymore exhilarating. The biggest takeaways that I have from my
day were that as a consultant I should always know what to ask to get closure
to my solution and life of a consultant is full of uncertainties and
ambiguities. One must get comfortable with both of them to have a successful
career in Consulting.
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