By Zhe (Hardy) Huang T'16
Hardy was born, raised and educated in China. Prior to Tuck, he worked with the management consulting arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, based out of Shanghai. Since coming to Tuck, he has fallen in love with skiing and thinks Tuck is a great place to be.
*Note: Tuck will be hosting a live "Ask Me Anything" chat with Tuck Career Development Office Director Jonathan Masland on Wednesday, March 4, from 12-1 p.m. EST on Facebook. Bring your career-related questions!
During the past recruiting season, I was humbled to receive offers from both McKinsey and BCG Shanghai, and decided to accept McKinsey’s offer for my summer internship. I know this wouldn’t have been possible without Tuck.
You can prepare for your consulting interviews anytime.
I received this great advice from a second-year student. Consulting interviews, to a large extent, are a chance to demonstrate how you think about business problems. You can practice your technical skills through lots of casing, but you should leverage opportunities in class and in real life.
Take the AGM (Analysis for General Managers, our Fall core class) for example. Every time I analyze a case, I try to put myself in the shoes of a general manager, pushing for more possibilities, and testing my thoughts with my study group members. I found the training from our AGM class extremely helpful during the interview process. In almost every class at Tuck, you can always ask yourself “what else?” when the professor raises a question. You practice to speak concisely and logically, and learn different perspectives from your classmates.
This may sound nerdy but you can also practice while you are travelling. I visited Cuba during the winter break and had an amazing time there. Cuba has two different currencies. I found that interesting and learned more about its monetary system while talking with taxi drivers. I came to understand that it’s very similar to China when it was still in the planned economy stage despite that “coupons” are used to purchase everyday goods. You always get a chance to ask “why?” when you are in a different country or experiencing something new. Follow your curiosity and you will find it extremely rewarding!
The CDO is a great resource to turn to for a consulting interview.
Tuck’s Career Development Office (CDO) was a huge help throughout the process. I turned to Stephen Pidgeon—associate director of the CDO and a former McKinsey consultant—for resume and cover letter advice, office selection strategy, interview preparation tips, alumni who I could reach out to, and of course, lots of casing!
Arrange your appointments early and try to make your mistakes before the real interviews. I once wrote 1,100 as 1,000,100 during a mock case with Stephen because I pushed myself too hard to do well in mock interviews. Relax and enjoy the process of casing. Make it conversational. Ask for advice. Mark your improvements. You may be surprised to see how you progress.
Never panic during the interview and always ask for help.
During my interview with BCG, I had a graph with two hand drawn lines in front of me: an upward investment curve, and a downward ROI curve. This was what happened to the petrochemical industry in China in the past five years. My case prompt was to analyze why this happened and predict what the trend of these curves would look like in the future.
This is the most ambiguous case I have ever encountered! I tried to do some “standard stuff” at first, but was cut off by the interviewer. I knew frameworks and calculations wouldn’t help me this time. I listed out my hypotheses and tested my thoughts with him. We were literally discussing the case. When I finished the case, he told me that I did a pretty good job. That was NOT AT ALL how I felt during the process.
Getting a job in consulting isn’t easy, but it is also not really hard. Practice whenever you can, leverage resources such as the CDO, and be confident in the interviews. You will get what you want!
Photo above by Laura DeCapua.