Shawn Lankton Online

One way consultants add value by being “insightful,” but what does that really mean? What’s more, if you aren’t “insightful” already, how do you improve?

I’ve been thinking about this lately and distilled 4 ways to push your thinking and get more insightful.

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Excel is the go-to tool for business calculations. Simple or complex, weeks of work or merely minutes, you’ll use Excel eventually. As with any tool, knowing a few tricks can transform the output from a clunky mess to a useful, beautiful creation.

• Learn before you hack
• Make it pretty
• Document everything

These three hints apply to lots of life’s endeavors,
but let’s talk about how they apply to Excel.

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You’re scouring the internet for data to prove your point…
After hours of searching, you finally found it!
One problem – it’s a chart in a pdf…

Charts are better than nothing, but you really want to have the numbers in Excel or Matlab so you can do analysis and get big insights (or at least make a nicer-looking chart).

The answer is Plot Digitizer

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I spend lots of time making PowerPoint slides. To get my life back, I learned to make them very quickly.

Shortcuts, macros, and toolbars all speed up the brainless parts of slide-making. Here’s the 5 that everyone should know and use… They’ll get you 80% of the way there with minimal effort. If you want more, just ask. I’ve got a million of these!

The Tao of keyboard shortucts

Before I tell you my secrets, I want to to appreciate them! Here is the basic philosophy for getting the most out of shortcuts:

They don’t work if you don’t use them – learning them without using them is a waste!
Learning them is an investment – and it pays huge dividends in time saved later on.
Don’t touch your mouse – think as it of a game, practice makes you faster.

Bonus: on-lookers will be impressed and terrified by your skills, and you’ll and save your wrists by becoming a key-ninja (mixed metaphor with the whole Tao thing, I know)

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As I’ve transformed into a consultant over the last year I’ve started structuring everything… The trick always finding the right structure. Here’s a great one!

I recently worked with a colleague who uses a work-planning structure that breaks big, wide-open questions into actionable next-steps. The Question-Data-Action framework is thorough, thought provoking, and easy to communicate with 4 simple steps:

1. Define key questions
2. Refine to sub-questions
3. Determine what data is needed
4. Identify actions to get the data

Each step gets you closer to an actionable workplan that will make your life easier and help you communicate timing and deliverables with clients and colleagues.

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In this three-part series I’ll give you a how-to for getting an interview, preparing for it, and dazzling the interviewers once you’re across the table. These are the main topics we’ll cover:

• Part 1: Branding Yourself and Making Making a “Wow” Resume
• Part 2: Preparing for Your Case Interview to Get Bulletproof
• Part 3: Talking about Your Experience and Sounding like a Bad-ass

Leaving academia and joining consulting firms is a something many PhD students (myself included) are getting interested in. Firms like McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain & Associates once hired mostly MBAs but are now branching out to hire MDs, lawyers, and PhDs.

I wanted to make a big impact with the skill I learned during my PhD. I got excited when I heard about consulting because it promises just that. In the next three parts, I’ll take you through the big lessons I learned while preparing and interviewing: How to get an interview, how to nail the case, and how to dazzle them with your experience.

Part 1: Branding Yourself and Making Making a “Wow” Resume gives you pointers to polish that scruffy science look off your C.V. and generally control your “personal brand” so that interviewers are impressed with you long before you walk in the door.

Part 2: Preparing for Your Case Interview to Get Bulletproof talks about how to approach the case and how to practice so that you can shine while others look dull. I’ll give you some simple exercises that will improve the structure and creativity of the “case” portion of your interview.

Part 3: Talking about Your Experience and Sounding like a Bad-ass covers an important and often overlooked portion of a consulting interview… talking about yourself! I know you have some amazing stories to tell. This sections shows how to make your stories say the right things about you.

Please enjoy!

Disclaimer: I recently went through the application and interview process with a top firm, came out with an offer, and signed it! In this series, I share my experience and give some ideas for people on a similar path. However, at the time of writing (July 2009), I do not have any inside information on how any company conducts their hiring. These are just my thoughts!

This is the first part of “A PhD’s Guide to Getting a Consulting Job,” because personal branding and resume building can help you the most! Having a great resume and a powerful personal brand is necessary to get in the door, and if you do it right, you may have the job before you even start talking.

First I’ll talk about how to build your brand, then I’ll share my tips on resume writing.    Click to continue →

So far in the “PhD’s Guide to Getting a Consulting Job,” we’ve covered how to work on your personal brand and write a resume that will get you an interview. Now, it’s time to get bulletproof for the interview itself.

Case interviews are an interview tool that consulting companies use to gauge your analytical skills. Essentially, the case interview involves answering an open-ended question about a business problem. The interviewer gives some background on a (hypothetical) company that needs help. Then the candidate talks through an analysis and solution.

I’m going to show you how to rock a case interview.    Click to continue →

We have talked about how to get an interview and how to nail the case section. The last step in the “PhD’s Guide to Getting a Consulting Job” is discussing your personal experience in a way that is clear, compelling, and shows that you’ve got what it takes to be a consultant.    Click to continue →