Management Consulting

Chartered Accountant struggling into McKinsey / BCG / Bain

This is a common scenario to British, South African and Australian candidates, and to some extent Canadian Chartered Accountants as well. This posting was prompted by a British graduate who immigrated to the US and is trying to join a consulting firm. We have been asked this question a few times before so it is worth answering it here for all our readers. "Will my Chartered Accountant background give me an advantage in management consulting?" Upfront, I must state that I have close personal experience with Chartered Accountants and the field. I was offered an Ernest & Young full scholarship to study accounting and pursue a Chartered Accountancy path which I ended up not undertaking since that particular scholarship arrived in the mail about 2 weeks after another scholarship which I ended up pursuing to study the sciences. Moreover, my first appointed mentor at the firm was a Chartered Accountant and a great guy. Really smart and friendly and I also worked with a few younger Chartered Accountants who were associates and consultants. Like all affiliations they were a mixed bag with a few exceptional, most average and a few who were struggling. This is like all degrees and the same…