Once you've decided that you definitely want to be a management consultant and have researched what you'll be paid and the hours you'll be working, you need to figure out which firms to apply to.

I divide consulting firms into 4 groups:

• Top-tier: These are the 3 highest profile 'pure' consulting firms- McKinsey & Company, the Boston Consulting Group and Bain & Company (often abbreviated to MBB). These firms are considered toughest to get into and, in general, work on the very high profile issues with prominent clients. In most consultants' perception, there's a clear divide between these firms and the rest but in reality, many other consulting firms are also very difficult to get into and will also work on very high profile projects

Once you've made it through the CV screen and aptitude tests, the next step in the consulting recruitment process is case interviews. To pass a case interview, you’ll need to demonstrate four key abilities that a management consultant needs (you'll also need to demonstrate 4 key 'softer' skills). These are:

• Structuring problems: Consultants are hired to solve a complex problem. The first step towards doing this is to dissociate or structure it into manageable pieces. The most impressive candidates will make sure that the structure they use to address a case study is 'mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive'- meaning that there will be no overlap between pieces and that when taken together, the structure addresses all possible parts of a problem
  

You'll need to pass a CV (or resume) screen to land a consulting interview. My top 3 tips for building a CV that will do this:

• Keep it short: Your CV should be 1 page of A4. If you have more than 5 years of relevant work experience 2 pages is acceptable, but 1 page is still better. Anything longer is inexcusable. Someone once sent me a 17 page CV- I used it for years as an example of how not to write a CV

• Give context for your achievements: When mentioning an award, help the person reviewing your CV by explaining why it's an achievement. For example, if your CV mentions a university prize you won, briefly explain the selection criteria, how many people received the prize and how many were eligible