Skills Series
The PhD Plus Consulting skills series, offered through Fall and Spring, is designed to help PhD students and Postdocs gain the knowledge, skills, and confidence needed for a consulting job. This series is offered in partnership with Dr. Brendan Boler. During this series, trainees will learn a hypothesis-driven structured problem-solving approach used by many top strategy consulting firms and apply this approach to help improve their own skills in case interviewing. Students will also gain valuable experience with two important skills: data analytics for consulting using Excel, and storytelling for consulting using PowerPoint. Both of these skills are often tested as part of second-round job interviews and are key skills for success on the job. While case interviews were once strictly a practice of management consulting firms, in recent years, case interviews have been more broadly used at firms like 3M, Google, Chevron, Microsoft, T-Rowe Price and Proctor & Gamble.
Training Objectives
- Familiarize trainees with what consultants do in practice
- Demystify the networking and case interview process and help trainees gain confidence for both interview season and summer internships
- Give trainees experience with hypothesis-driven problem-solving approaches
- Provide trainees with the tactical skills necessary for consulting success
- Help trainees avoid the most common pitfalls of new consultants
- Improve trainees’ core skills in data analytics using Excel and data-driven storytelling using PowerPoint and storyboarding for consulting
- Give trainees a sense of the roles and responsibilities of members of a consulting team
- Have fun and take chances in a risk-free environment
Module Description
PhD Plus Consulting Skills series is offered through 8 Sessions over the course of the academic year, 6 sessions in the fall semester and 2 sessions in the spring semester.
- Each session runs 90 minutes
- Trainees will walk through 8 interactive case interviews
- Sessions will also cover: an intro to consulting, communicating like a consultant (the pyramid principle), tips for networking, tips for “telling your story”, data analytics for consulting using excel, and data-driven storytelling for consulting using storyboarding and PowerPoint
- 1-2 hours of voluntary drills and homework provided in between sessions
- Two required deliverables (an Excel model and PowerPoint presentation), due by the 7th and 8th sessions. Students will have the time to complete the assignments during winter break. The assignments will each take about 6 hours of time, 12 hours total and are prerequisites for the PhD+ consulting credential.
- Upon successful completion (75% participation and assignment completion) of this series, PhD students are eligible for a non-credit credential (PhDP 9410) in their academic transcript