Your Consulting Resume (McKinsey examples, Bain, BCG)

So how do you do it? How do you craft a management consultant resume that gets you interviews at McKinsey, BCG, and Bain?

Because here is the thing. Consultant resumes are actually VERY different to CVs for other professions.

So, let's step through the consulting resume basics and writing tips you should be aware of. Plus, review real CV examples that landed candidates interviews and jobs with McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.

1.  What do top management consulting firms look for?
2.  Consulting resume tips
3. How to write a consulting resume (step-by-step)
4. McKinsey resume example
5. BCG resume example
6. Bain resume example
7. Consulting resume checklist

Ready? Let's go.

Click here for a resume review with an ex-MBB consultant

Part 1: What do top management consulting firms look for?

The first step towards crafting a consulting resume that will get you multiple interviews is to understand what top consulting firms are actually looking for. 

There are two versions of the truth when it comes to this topic: the official version on every firm's website, and the unofficial one that they are less willing to talk about.

We'll cover both here as well as how resume screening is done in practice.

1.1 The official version 

As we have already mentioned in our case interview guide, all top consulting firms broadly look for the same skills. This is particularly apparent when comparing McKinsey's and Bain's descriptions of the skills they look for.

Top consulting firms tend to all be interested in candidates who exhibit the following four abilities:

1. Problem solving. This means you need to have shown strong intellectual abilities to solve problems at university and during your work experiences.
2. Personal impact. This means you've shown a dedication to achieving great things in most projects you undertook in the past. You've got a strong personal impact on most projects you are part of.
3. Entrepreneurial drive. This means you should have a track record of launching new initiatives. You are not satisfied with doing things the traditional way and like innovating.
4. Leadership abilities. This means you've shown you can lead groups of people in the past either in a professional context or at university.

The first objective of your resume should therefore be to highlight relevant parts of your experience that clearly demonstrate you possess these skills. Each bullet point in your resume should specifically target one of these skills. And overall, your bullet points should be balanced across these four categories.

For instance, let's assume that there are 20 bullet points in your resume. Broadly speaking, 5 of your bullet points should show that you are a strong problem solver. 5 should show that you deliver impact when you are part of teams. Another 5 should show that you are used to taking the initiative. And yet another 5 should show that you can lead teams.

Doing this will take you a long way in crafting a successful application. Trust us, it works both for entry-level and experienced hire resumes. But unfortunately, there are also untold truths about consulting CVs that you need to be aware of.

1.2 The unofficial version

Let's step through the top 3 untold truths about consulting firms that you should keep in mind as you put your resume together.

Big brand names

First, your resume screener will be looking for big brand names when going through your CV. If you went to a target school (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, etc.) that will definitely help.

If you did not attend a target school then your best chance of getting noticed is to have worked for companies that are big and well-known.

You might be wondering why consulting firms value big-brand universities and employers so much. To be frank, top consulting firms are snobs when it comes to academic and professional pedigree. This is obviously slightly unfair, but there are a couple of reasons things work that way.

First, it's easier to sell Junior consultants to clients if they have an impressive background. When a client asks "Who will be on the team?" Partners like to be able to answer "Melissa just joined us with a bachelor's from Oxford and an MBA from Harvard" or "Bukayo joins us after 3 years leading a team at Google." That makes it easier to justify the high salaries consulting staff get paid.

Second, consulting firms receive a LOT of applications every year. McKinsey for instance received about ~200,000 resumes in 2017. They can't interview everyone and need a pretty efficient way to get to a manageable number of candidates they can interview. Big brand names are a shortcut. They want to hire high-achievers and assume that if you went to a top school or worked for a top employer you are a high-achiever.

This can feel very frustrating and unfair if you don't have these brand names on your resume. In these situations, it does not mean you won't be able to make it into consulting. It just means that unfortunately it will likely be more work for you than for other people. You will have to network more, consider working/doing an internship at big brand names first, and maybe apply to consulting firms multiple times. But you can still do it.

GPA / Grades cut-offs

One of the questions we often get about consulting resumes is: "I have a 3.X GPA from University Y. Will I make the cut-off?" To be clear, there's no official GPA cut-off in the US, or grades cut-off in other countries.

Your resume will usually be reviewed by a recent graduate from your university who works at the firm. They will score your resume on a number of dimensions one of which will be your grades. But your grades are only ONE of the factors that contribute to the final score your CV will get.

If your grades are on the lower end (GPA < 3.5 in the US, 2:1 or less in the UK), you will obviously get fewer points than if they were higher. As a consequence, you will need to compensate for this with very strong achievements in other areas of your resume. For instance, this could be an extracurricular activity where you showed strong leadership and entrepreneurship skills. 

Languages

Finally, one important aspect of consulting resumes that's not very often discussed is languages. Speaking multiple languages fluently will be a big help to get you a consulting interview.

Indeed, most consulting firms operate a global staffing model. If you are based in the London office but speak French and Spanish, that means your firm will be able to send you on projects in the UK, France, Spain, but also North and South America and many countries in Africa. Your value to the firm will therefore be much higher than if you only spoke English.

Part 2: Top 10 consulting resume tips

Now that you know what consulting firms look for, let's turn our attention to how you should package that information in your consultant resume. We've reviewed hundreds of CVs over the past few years and have summarised the top 10 things we have learned below.

Tip #1: Keep it to one page

We know this is challenging. But that's one of the unwritten rules of consulting resumes. You should keep it to one page. Condensing your entire lifetime's achievements in ~500 words is difficult. The key is to select the right achievements and to describe them in a way that makes it clear you would make a great consultant. It takes time and a few iterations to get it right, so start earlier rather than later.

Tip #2: Use a standard format and standard font

Using a special format with a slightly funky font is tempting. You might think it could help you stand out. But it's not. You won't get extra points for it. At best, your CV screener will think: "Okay, I've never seen this format, but why not?" At worst, they will think: "Who is this person? They don't get it!"

The content of your resume should stand out, not its format.

Tip #3:  Use 5 sections

All consulting resumes should have 5 sections: Personal information, Education, Work experience, Extracurricular achievements, and Additional skills. One of the most common mistakes we see in CVs is to not have an "Extracurricular achievements" section. This is a BIG mistake as this is a section you can use to showcase some of the skills that consulting firms look for such as leadership and entrepreneurship.

Tip #4: Dumb things down

This is particularly important if you have written a Ph.D. or Master's thesis. Your resume screener won't be familiar with your field. And they won't take the time to Google anything they don't understand. It is YOUR responsibility to dumb things down sufficiently for them to be understandable.

A good test for this is to ask a friend or sibling to highlight anything that they don't EASILY understand in your resume. If they're having to scratch their head to make sense of a sentence, it is too complicated. Simplifying things is hard work, so you should start this process early.

Tip #5: Show your soft skills

As mentioned in the first section of this guide, McKinsey, Bain and other firms are looking for skills which are very specific to consulting. A lot of those skills are actually SOFT skills such as leadership, personal impact, entrepreneurial drive, etc. If you have a standard resume that you use for other jobs you will most likely have to adapt it to showcase the specific soft skills consulting firms look for. If you don't do this you run the risk of your CV being overlooked as it's not tailored enough to consulting.

Tip #6: Use action verbs

Your resume screener won't read your resume. They will SCAN it. You literally have 10 seconds to make a good first impression. And the right way to do this is to use keywords that resume screeners are either consciously or sub-consciously looking for. A great place to start with is action verbs. ALL your sentences should start with an action verb that highlights one of the soft skills the firms are looking for.

For instance, you should have bullet points on leadership which start with: "Led a team of 10 people..." And bullet points on problem solving which start with: "Solved one of the toughest engineering problems..." These action verbs are extremely important because they are at the beginning of sentences. If you use the right ones you resume screener will immediately think: "Okay, this person has the right skills. Let me look at their CV in more detail."

Tip #7: Quantify everything

Consultants are obsessed with quantifying things. A big part of their job is to crunch numbers to back up ideas they present to clients. If your idea is not backed up by numbers it's just a point of view. If it is backed up by numbers it becomes an argument and has more gravitas. You should use this to your advantage in your resume and quantify your achievements as much as possible.

For instance, if you were awarded a scholarship to study abroad you should write something like: "Awarded Entente Cordiale Scholarship to study in the UK (2 scholarships for 1,000+ applicants)" This will make you stand out much more than if you had just written: "Awarded a competitive scholarship to study in the UK."

Tip #8: Be unique

Your resume screener will literally have looked at hundreds of CVs before they look at yours. The reality is a lot of these resumes are quite similar. So, if there's something a little bit unique that you have done, you should not hesitate to say so. For instance, you might have worked for 6 months in a surf shop in Australia, or you might have done a 6-month unpaid internship for charity. Everything that differentiates you in a positive way should be clearly mentioned on your resume.

Tip #9: Ask for feedback

Once you have put together a first version of your resume you need to ask for feedback to improve it. If you know any consultants or former consultants you should not hesitate to reach out to them to get their thoughts. But failing that, asking for feedback from peers is also helpful. They'll be able to cast a fresh eye on your resume and flag typos, inconsistencies or sentences that they find difficult to understand. 

Tip #10: Proofread - Multiple times! 

This is the last step of crafting your CV. And it is crucial. One of the tangible deliverables of consulting projects is PowerPoint decks and Word documents written during the project. These documents are proofread multiple times before being handed over to clients and so should your resume. In particular, make sure to triple-check your contact details.

Bonus Tip!: Don't get AI to write it for you

With the boom in AI technology and the likes of ChatGPT increasingly used by students and applicants, it's tempting to think you could get a bot to write your resume. And if you're finding it hard getting started, AI can be quite helpful in giving you examples of the sorts of phrases you should be writing.

However, rely too much on AI and you run the risk of your CV looking exactly like everyone else's and not truly representing who you are: a unique individual and (hopefully) a great consultant in the making!

Part 3: How to write a consulting resume (with template)

Now that you know about the 10 most important tips to craft the perfect consulting resume let's use them to build a free resume example you can reuse for your own application. Every consulting CV should be split into 5 sections:

1. Personal information
2. Education
3. Work experience
4. Extracurricular achievements
5. Additional skills

Let's step through each section one by one and highlight the important elements you need to replicate in your own resume.

But before we dive in, please note the following points about the template:

• This is an anonymised resume from a candidate who got interviews at McKinsey, BCG and Bain. You can trust this template works.
• A lot of people use this template. Get inspiration from it, but every sentence in your resume should be written from scratch.
• This resume might look impressive. It's one of the best ones we have seen. Even if you have not achieved as much as this person, you can still get an interview.

 

Click here to download the example resume

3.1 Personal information 

In this section, you should include all the basic personal details the consulting firm you are applying for is requesting. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you put this section together:

• Use a larger font for your name than for the rest of the section to make it stand out
• Don't insert your headshot, date of birth, or gender unless specifically requested by the firm
• Use a neutral/professional email address. Keep your hilarious email address for friends and family.
• Double-check all your details including address and phone number before sending your resume

3.2 Education

This section should summarise the different degrees you graduated with. It should NOT include your High School experience. If you have recently graduated and only have internship experience, this section should follow the Personal information section. But if you have already had a first job for 1+ years, you could consider swapping this section with the Work experience section. Here are a few tips on how to write this section:

• If you have multiple degrees (e.g.: a BA and an MBA), you should write a subsection like the one above for each degree, starting with your highest level of education first (e.g.: your MBA).
• For each degree, include the name of the degree, university and dates in the headline. You should also describe relevant course content briefly (no more than one line).
• List your grades (e.g.: GPA) as well as results on other standardised tests you have taken (e.g.: SAT, GMAT, etc.)
• Detail all the awards and scholarships you have received in the past, and most importantly how competitive they were (e.g.: 2 awards for 1,000 students).
• If you have written a thesis/dissertation, you should also summarise the topic in a way that's VERY easy to understand.

3.3 Work experience

The work experience section should include the previous work positions you have held as well as your main achievements in these roles. Here are some more important points to help you put this section together:

• Include the name of the position you held and the employer as well as the location and dates in the headline. The first line of the section should then describe your employer/department in one sentence. Notice that this mirrors the structure used for the Education section.
• Start each of your bullet points with an ACTION VERB that matches one of the four skills consulting firms look for (Leadership, Entrepreneurial drive, Personal impact, Problem-solving). "Led", "Analysed" or "Presented" are good examples of such verbs.
• Balance the skills you demonstrate as much as possible. For instance, notice how some of the bullet points above are about leadership while others are about problem-solving.
• Focus on the RESULTS of what you did and QUANTIFY them as much as possible to highlight the tangible contributions you have made. Ex-Google SVP Lazlo Bock talks about a common method for doing this that you might find helpful, called the “X, Y, Z” formula.

3.4 Extracurricular achievements

One of the most common mistakes we come across in resumes we receive from candidates is the absence of an extracurricular achievements section. This section is particularly important if you have limited work experience as it's a great way to show leadership, entrepreneurial drive and personal impact. It's also a great way to compensate for average university grades or a non-target school. 

The way you write about your extracurricular experiences should follow the same format and tips as for the Work experience section. Here are different types of activities you could write about (not exhaustive):

• University clubs: if you have held a position in a university club (e.g. Consulting club, Finance club, Theatre club, etc.) you should definitely mention it. The "higher" the position the better as it could highlight your ability to lead and manage others.
• Sports team: if you were part of a university sports team you should definitely highlight that along with the achievements of the team. This will highlight your ability to work with others.
• Side businesses: if you have set up a side business with friends at university you should mention it along with the number of customers/revenue you have managed to achieve. This will show your ability to take the initiative.
• Writing/arts: if you enjoy writing or any other art form and have published your work or have online followers, you should also not hesitate to mention it. This will help showcase your creativity.

3.5 Additional skills and interests

Finally, you should focus the last section of your resume on any additional skills you have. Our recommendation here is to keep things simple and to list any foreign languages and programming languages that you know. For each language, you should specify your level of proficiency.

Now you've seen how to write a resume, let's take a look at the kind of thing you should be aiming for. Below you'll find real example resumes that got candidates into MBB firms. 

4. McKinsey resume example

This resume got the candidate an interview (and later an offer) at McKinsey, which is where he's now working. (Please note, we've changed the names of the companies in order to protect the candidate's privacy).

This is a seriously high-quality resume. Here's what Jacob does particularly well:

• Quantifying achievements: Jacob uses numbers to make his achievements shine. Notice how his work achievements are full of specific sums of money or percentages. This ensures that we can clearly understand the impact he has had.
• Action verbs: Jacob starts his bullet points with verbs describing key actions for a consultant: "Developed investment case", "Solved client's concern", "Identified commercial risk".
• Skills & Interests: You can bet that Jacob had even more great work achievements that he had to leave out to fit in a strong Skills and Interests section. But it's definitely worth it - in four lines he's able to make himself stand out from the crowd with some very specific and interesting passions.
• Font trick! You almost certainly didn't notice, but the penultimate line of Jacob's resume is in font 10, rather than 10.5. This helped him squeeze it all onto one page.

Click here to book a 1-to-1 resume review session with an ex-McKinsey recruiter or interviewer

5. BCG resume example

The below resume belongs to David, a consulting interview coach on our platform (currently a hiring manager at Revolut for the Global Strategy Team). It's the resume that got him into BCG in 2020.

Here's what we found interesting about David's resume:

• Clarity: David is extremely concise. He sticks to one page and leaves plenty of white space, making it extremely easy for a recruiter to read quickly.
• Project-based approach: David has worked on a lot of different projects in a short space of time. By listing many of these projects, he demonstrates experience across different consultant skillsets.

Click here to book a resume review session with David or click here to see other BCG resume coaches.

6. Bain example resume

This resume earned the candidate, let's call him 'Suresh', a role at Bain.

Here's our feedback on this resume:

• Quantified impact: Suresh does a great job of quantifying the impact of his achievements, giving specific numbers when possible.
• Additional information: Suresh uses the last section well to demonstrate an interesting depth of personality and other skills such as writing and languages.
• Layout: Extremely simple layout is clean and very easy to digest.

We have a selection of Bain ex-interviewers and recruiters available to give you 1-to-1 feedback on your resume. Some, like Shankar, still run interviews at Bain. Click here to book a Bain resume review session.

7. Your Consulting Resume Checklist

Almost ready to send your resume? Use this checklist to make sure you’re following the best practices we’ve recommended above.

You should be answering “Yes” to every question.

Did you say “Yes” to every question in the checklist? Well done! If you’ve used all the tips in this article, then your resume should be in good condition and will give you a fighting chance of getting that interview.

8. Is your consulting resume truly outstanding?

The guide above as well as our consulting cover letter guide should go a long way in helping you craft documents that will get you interviews.

But to get your consulting resume from "fine" to "outstanding" usually requires feedback from someone who really knows their stuff - as in an ex-recruiter or manager at one of the MBB firms.

By signing up to our resume service, you can choose from a team of ex-MBB recruiters and interviewers, who will spend an hour going over your CV with you. You’ll get feedback on how to immediately improve your resume, including what experience to focus on, how to optimize your phrasing, formatting, etc.

Check it out, you'll be in good hands!

The IGotAnOffer team