650. Gaurav Bhosle, Master the Consulting Journey: break-in, build & thrive

Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to Unleashed. I'm your host, Will Bachman, and I'm delighted to be here today with Gaurav Bosley. Gaurav, welcome to the show.

Speaker B: Thanks a lot for having me, Will. It's so nice to be with you.

Speaker A: So, Gaurav, I was really interested to hear about your practice. I understand that, uh, your work breaks down about 50, 50 between coaching people who want to get into a consulting firm, who want to get hired by a consulting firm, and you've been doing that for a dozen years. And you also coach consultants who are currently at consulting firms about just how to improve their performance, their professional trajectory. So let's talk about each of those aspects of your practice in turn. Maybe tell us a little bit about how you got started coaching people on how to get hired by consulting firms and about that trajectory.

Speaker B: M. That's an interesting start. And probably for that, I need to go back to how I prepared. Uh, so, uh, just to kind of take a. Take a step back. So I'm also an ex McKinsey consultant. Um, just like you. I did my MBA from HEC Paris, and what we are talking about is 2006, 7. And there was absolutely no preparation structure at that point of time to prepare for McKinsey, BCG or any of these consulting firms. But at the same time, there was one gentleman who, who had passed out like, two, three years back from, uh, from hec. And he was kind enough to come on Saturday, Sunday. And, uh, he used to give us mock cases, give us some feedback, etcetera, uh, you know, just. Just pro bono, uh, just as a alum to alum, uh, help. Right? And that absolutely helped me crack and, uh, really break into, uh, multiple firms. McKinsey, BCG, Bain, etc, uh, ultimately, I ended up joining McKinsey in Frankfurt. My family was in, uh, was in India. I was alone in Frankfurt. So a lot of time over Saturday and Sunday, when I used to have time, was part of, uh, Frankfurt Cricket Club. But the matches used to be like, a little bit, like once in a month. But over the other weekends, whenever I used to get time, I used to go back to HEC or some of these different B schools at NCR LBs. And I used to do the same that the gentleman did it for us. And, uh, so my mother is a teacher, so probably a lot of people say that I have a DNA of a teacher. Uh, not just, of course, in a literal sense, but also in this particular sense. So I enjoyed it. Uh, and a lot of people taking help from me, taking coaching from Me got into uh, some of these firms. Um, so yeah, I think the feedback was good. I was enjoying it. And I always believe that if you want to do something, do something which is on the intersection of skill and will. Right. So that was bang on the middle of my skill and will. So when I was leaving uh, McKinsey and was trying to understand what is it that I should be doing now, I thought, uh, why don't I bring together the two things that I know, which is strategy and career. And can I work on the intersection of that and a career strategy? Where do I start? From the domain that I am most familiar with, which is consulting. So that is where I started. Well, uh, started doing it professionally. And this is where uh, this entire journey began. You touched upon the other part, uh, which is coaching consultants. So as I started helping people to get into consulting, one thing that I realized is that breaking into consulting, right. Uh, which, which is kind of a. Considered as like a gold medal achievement or a uh, reaching an Everest. Right. Is not the, the real goal. The real goal should be thriving in consulting or why consulting any job, it's not about getting into the job, it's about really thriving into it. And slowly I realized that career happiness is something that I should have as a goal. And what I realized it that I'm um, helping people get in and my skill is probably to get them there. But I need a little bit upskilling to do little bit deeper kind of a career coaching. So I, I upskilled myself. Right. So I'm an ICF certified PCC level coach. ICF is International Coaching Federation. I got myself certified on lot of psychometric tools, uh, neuro, linguistic programming, TA and um, I mean a lot of different modalities. Right. So that I can go a little bit deeper. I can really just like a sports coach or just like a uh, life coach. I can, can really use your strength to make you the best version of yourself. Right. Uh, so with that and having been there and done that in McKinsey, right. I started applying that to people who are in consulting who uh, are struggling or who want to go fast, want to plan their career, want to shape their career strategies. And that is where um, the other half of my uh, coaching practice which is coaching current consultant and ex consultant. That is where it, it started.

Speaker A: All right, so walk me through your approach. I imagine that when with. With students who are trying to get into consulting, I imagine that you may have some standardized process or framework that would be of course adapted to unique needs. But I imagine you have a kind of a typical process of maybe an assessment and then work on specific things. Explain to us what that process looks like for you. The student comes in and they engage your services. They, they want to work at McKinsey, Bain or BCG. They're, I don't know, a sophomore in college. They want to be a business analyst. What, what, what are you going to do the first session and what, what does that engagement look like?

Speaker B: I think, uh, first session, uh, is also quite kind of distant. Uh, the first conversation I typically like to have with anybody who is trying to hire me is that of a career clarity. Because if, uh, you go to any career transition, right. Career transition has three elements. Clarity, the readiness or the preparation part, and then acceleration. Yeah. If you directly jump into preparation without knowing why you actually want to get into consulting, you are like you are preparing to fail. Right. So as a result I actually talk about career clarity. I have few assessments that I get them done or sometimes it can be done verbally to understand whether the person's reason to get into consulting is right or not right, which is little bit at a, at a clarity at a strategic level. Another thing that I always talk about, uh, to everyone and now it's a, uh, information flood these days. Consulting preparation is one area where you will never have a dearth of information. You Google it, you chatgpt, you will get all the material. So there is a huge risk of people preparing in a suboptimal way. So uh, as we talk about in consulting, right. Even before we get into process, the first thing that needs to be fixed is mindset. Yeah. I always say mindset, skill set and tool set. Right. This is the hierarchy. The topmost is always mindset. Because if you don't miss the mindset, then it's the skill set or process is of no use. The mindset that I always want all my clients to adopt is don't prepare to crack the case or crack the interview. Prepare to be a good consultant. Right. Tips and tricks. You can get a plenty. Yeah, you can, you can probably cross the first round because of that. Yeah. But when you talk to a partner or a principal at that in the second round, they see through it. With this kind of tactical preparation, even if you get a job, then at least in McKinsey BCG, I know you will be get fired in the first year. Right. Because you have only work at a tactical level. The three pillars of consulting, talent, problem structuring, analytical decision making, and top down communication. If you don't master it. Yeah. Then Just a case studying preparation or uh, tell me about yourself being very polished answer. It's not going to help you. So I first ensure that they are on the same page and they are here to work on the skill. Yeah. So that's the mindset that I start with. And then you know, there is a, as you rightly pointed out, there is a way in which people should prepare. Right. And if somebody is starting the preparation, I talk about a uh, three step process. One is uh, the foundation. Second is a, uh, parallel two tracks networking and practice. And third is polishing. It's modular for various reasons. One of the reason being tactical because in not everyone who starts preparing in consulting get an interview call these days. It's super competitive. Right. So what I always talk about is start with foundation. In foundation I get three things done. One, uh, extremely basic but thorough way of preparing how to actually crack a case. Second top, uh, 10 most frequently asked fit questions. And by fit questions, I mean questions like why should we hire you? Tell me an instance when you demonstrated problem solving, those kind of things. Uh, and third is I actually polish their cv. We get the consulting CV done. This is the first foundation phase. And then I tell them now open two threads. One with the given learning. Now start practicing. Now practice with AI. Practice with your classmates. Intermittently practice with me. But now with my, the knowledge that you have, start applying it one and parallelly now start networking. Don't network before foundation because these days coffee conversation to generate leads also are like half the interviews. Right. So you don't want to burn the, your contacts. So parallelly as you are practicing and networking, you are generating the interview calls. And the moment you start generating the interview call, we start a third phase which we call polishing. And in the polishing then now I start like advanced preparation.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: So very uh, firm specific uh, cases. So they said if you are applying for BCG Middle east, then we'll do BCG Middle east cases. Then partner cases. Um, we do double objective case, a typical case, conversational cases. All the curveballs that you can face. Right. Is something that we get done um, in the policy. Yeah. Even before the first round, a lot of people ask, aren't they only for second round? So first, second round boundary these days have blurred. So when we interviewed Bill, you and me probably right. At that point of time, first round used to be taken by senior consultant managers and second round used to be principal and then partner. So hierarchically it used to get like senior, senior, senior, senior. Right. With every. Now that's not the Case. Now a partner can interview in the first round, first interview as well. It's all over the place, especially in some geographical offices. The entire, this, this order has gone. So, so uh, there's no point preparing for first round or preparing for last round. You prepare for a full battle right before the first interview. As simple as that. So we prepare like that. Yeah. And again I always tell people that and then you get an offer, of course. And I uh, always say this is not where you should stop your preparation. So I have a coaching called first 100 days in consulting role. And I literally tell my candidates, please do it. Yeah. If you want to take it for free, take it for free, but do it because I know first hundred days how difficult and how, how you know, uh, defining they uh, are in any consultant's career. Right. Especially people who are not coming from MBA background. Especially people who are lateral joineries. Right. It's a cultural shock. Literally. Yeah. So uh, though at a polishing level, the preparation should stop. I will add one more, one more phase over there which is the preparing to join consulting. And that is where your preparation should stop. Then you enjoy, then you party till your joining day. But don't start partying uh, before you are prepared.

Speaker A: I'd love to hear very specifically how you work with students on each of those three pieces that you talked about. I think I captured. There's the problem solving skills, there's the data analytics skills, and then there's the top down communication skills. Could you walk through like, let's say that a student listening to this right now wants to do it on their own. You know, they can't afford a coach or they don't have one yet. What are some things that people can do at home, you know, on each of those three aspects to develop those skills?

Speaker B: Okay. So um, see for any skill, be it cycling, swimming, uh, any, any skill. Right. Has an element of learning. Yeah. And then practicing. Yeah. Uh, before you can master it. So. And of course everybody learns in a different way. Some people might learn it from a coach. Someone might learn with a uh, ChatGPT or a YouTube video. So I'm not going to dictate people, you know, how they want to learn. But the first thing is to you know, kind of learn the nitty gritties. For example, if, let's take an example of problem structuring. Right. So uh, whenever a uh, problem is thrown at us. Yeah. Generally those who are not, who have not trained in this. Yeah. Our uh, first uh, you know, kind of reaction is to directly jump to the conclusion, right. Or jump to the answer. Right. The issue tree based approach or problem structuring, uh, structured problem solving which is uh, dividing the problem into its pieces till we have a manageable analysis. Yeah. Doing that, yeah. It's uh, a, it's a habit. You really need to learn it. Right? So if I tell, if I, if my friend tells me that I run a cafeteria and I'm going down in profitability, if, if I'm not practiced enough and I come from a marketing domain, I can say, you know what, you are probably not doing your marketing correctly. Right? But with, in consulting you, you cannot jump to the conclusion you talk about, okay? If your profitability is down, either your revenue is a problem or a cost is a problem. If your revenue is a problem, then either you are not selling enough or you are pricing as some, some. Something bad has happened over there. So, so dividing it into its pieces. Right. Um one, I just give an example of one small part. So this is something that needs to be learned and then practiced. So what we do in a coaching session is actually we, we, we teach them some of these basic techniques, right. For uh, diagnostic problem, for strategic initiatives, etc, taking one or two examples, right. And then in the practice phase that is where they need to apply those in, on, on different industry problems and different functional problem. Right? So um, that is how it goes. Same thing with uh, analytical decision making as well, right. If I give you a chart to read in the sense I'm referring to a graph, right. Or a data table. Right. So how do you start interpreting that? So all these are skills that needs to be uh, um, developed over time. And this is, we do the basic, the foundation part and then in, in the practice people do it and uh, what happens Generally practice phase can be a small or a big uh, phase depending on when people start. There are people who start 15 days before the interview and there are people who start six months before even they think about applying. Right. So uh, practice phase can be smaller, uh, or long period. Yeah. So generally people who have planned their consulting interview preparation properly, what they do is they, they do practice with, with their friends, etc, their peers, sometimes with AI, um, and then intermittently with the doubts and the areas on which they are not improving, they come back to us as a coach, right? And then we, we identify okay, what's happening exactly? Why are you not able to do it? Let's, let's replay that. If this kind of a question answer how do you think? Right. And we try to get that mental block down or if there Is a skill needs to be uh, you know, kind of developed. We develop that this is what happens in the preparation or a practice phase in the second phase.

Speaker A: So if someone wants to practice that data analytics piece at home, a listener, you know, they want to practice looking at a chart and how to interpret it, how to think about it, what are the questions or tips that you have for someone to improve on that skill.

Speaker B: So case interview overall, uh, as a full practice. No, I always prefer because as you can imagine a chart standalone has no meaning. If I give you a graph of uh, telecom companies, quarterly, uh, profits, if you don't know the context and what are you trying to solve, how are you going to interpret it? So I always tell people to do it as a part of the case. But yes, absolutely. If you're talking about the learning part of it, the way we teaches to people is that okay, chart what? Uh, I'm going little bit in detail. I hope everybody will be able to follow this. So let's say there is a chart, right? So the first step even before you enter into the chart is to get the mindset right. For example, chart is uh, uh, a data bridge that takes you from point A to point B. First of all in that case or in that problem solving, are you clear from where your A is and where your B is, from where you are starting and where you are going? That is very, that is very, very clear. That should be very clear. Think about a real life scenario. When would you ask a data to the client or any of your uh, agency partner. When you know the part, know the problem and you are asking for a specific thing to fill that gap. Same thing in case interview. If you don't know what is the gap that you are filling that then that data interpretation hasn't started on the right note. So first of all identify from A to B where you are going. Get the mindset correct. Once you do that, then we call it then there is like a three four step process. So first is we talk uh, about data sanity check. So look at the header, uh, look at the footnotes, look at X, y axis, look at the major number. Eyeball them very quickly. In 35 minutes you need to solve a case. So whatever I'm telling you in so much detail. This happens in a split second. Yeah. If there is any issue that you are facing, then ask that question to the interviewer then and there that okay, I'm not understanding this. Can you please clarify it etc. Etc. If it is everything is clear, then walk through the chart and end it with two kind of comment. We call it so what comment and what next Comment. So what comment? Uh, I mean as McKinsey we know it because we have ah, said it 100 times in a day. Right. So what is basically what does this chart mean in the entire situation? Right. So communicate that. Right. And then what next? We never stop at that. Right. As a consultant we always need to lead. Yeah. There is a capability called taking the hypothesis powered independently. Yeah. Or in uh, bcg we call it case leadership. Right. So we should always be a leader. So don't stop at that. Then you take it forward. Right. Uh, and talk about now what, what is it that you want to do next? Yeah. So right. From the mindset data sanity check, reading the chart, uh, extracting the so what, communicating the so what and communicating the what next is the entire chain, right. Or this entire uh, process that, that you need to follow. If you are looking for a chart now this is a theory. Yeah. Then you can of course you need to apply that to various charts. There are certain charts which are graphical. There are some which are only tables with numbers. Right. Uh, and whatnot. Right. So there can be an exhibit where there are multiple charts. We need to also choose which chart is meaningful. Yeah. Not uh, every data point, uh, is important at 80, 20. We need to look at what exactly to focus on. All these things come in with practice

Speaker A: and tell me about how you help folks develop their top down communication skills to lead with the answer.

Speaker B: Top down communication is like um, Achilles M heel for a lot of people, including me. I mean I, uh, first of all, top down communication is not natural to human beings. Uh, and especially if you are coming from the eastern part of the world, uh, then we are never, I mean it is almost considered rude. Right. We are taught to first beat around the bush and then communicate the, the thing. Right. Plus on top of that, uh, I was an engineer. So again, same I got re underlined that first you explain and then talk about your invention. Right. So when I came to consulting, preparation and McKinsey, in fact in McKinsey as well, first two, three months, I was not even convinced that top down is the way to go. I always used to feel it's so blunt. And on top of that I joined McKinsey Frankfurt. You can imagine the level of bluntness. Right. Uh, McKinsey Germany. Uh, there are funny videos on McKinsey Internet about uh, working in McKinsey Germany. It's that blunt. But slowly, slowly I understood the importance of top down communication. And to be Very honest. It's an acquired test. And you need to really push yourself, right. That even if the insights start coming in at a, at a how level. Right. You need to push yourself to uh, go from how to why and why. Why to what? Right. And communicate what first. Right. Um, and as you do that, uh, you know, kind of um, again and again and again. Right. Then slowly your brain starts rewiring around it and then the so what comes first and then the other layers. Yeah, of course we push people, we nudge people whenever we see that they are not uh, top down whenever. I also tell people to prepare fit answers. I always tell them that it has to be headlines first. And your star, Star everybody prepares. Star on Internet Star is uh, uh, like a rage. S. Uh, but uh, before that should headline should come. Because headline is L0 level 0 of the top down communication. It has to come.

Speaker A: Uh, what does star stand for?

Speaker B: Star is situation, task, action and result. So any story that you are communicating. I mean in McKinsey, if you remember we used to use SCP situation complication proposition. Right. Uh, Star or soar is what in interview. Uh, it's not just consulting everywhere. In any interview people, if you have to tell a story in order to be, to be missing or exhaustive. Right. This format is used star format. But again star is a, is a longer format. I always feel that headline should come first so that it is top down. Um, and um. So one, uh, kind of a mantra uh, that I give to my candidate is like talk about what, Sprinkle some why if it is necessary to explain the story, but keep all the hows in the pocket. The moment you start talking about hows your story, your answer becomes like bedtime story, right? Uh, and anything more than three minutes of monologue in an interview, you lose the interviewer. You have to communicate it in a very crisp fashion. Consulting is collaborative problem solving. You talk one version, one layer of your story. Let the interviewer show interest and probe and then go to level. Don't tell me the entire chapter. Right. So um, those things of course in coaching session, uh, we chisel, chisel, chisel, give feedback, tell them to record it and send it to me. I want to listen. So all these things that we do, right. Um, to ensure that they are at that level. And I feel these are not just interview skills. I think these guys, these things also help uh, people uh, in also be successful in consulting. If it is done in this way. Yeah, if it is. Again as I said now you will appreciate what I said at the Start of the interaction. If you do it very tactically, uh then uh, you don't appreciate this. And then you suddenly you join where these things are done at a very, very advanced level. Right. Then you find yourself like where am I? Right. So uh, this is not something that I was expecting.

Speaker A: Tell me about that very first piece that you work on that you explained. Is first try to get clarity on why someone is interested in consulting. What are some of the questions that you ask or the techniques that you found to help dig down to the more root level reason of what, what's driving people and what their goals are.

Speaker B: So um, there are m. Multiple things Will. And it depends on the background of a person as well. Right. Or whether we are talking to a uh, fresher or whether we are talking to somebody who is like 15, 20 years of experience. I was just coaching somebody who was almost uh, like a 18 year old, 18 year experience, um person. And uh, he wanted to get into consulting. So for that's the gamut. Right. And the funny thing is consulting is one career where background doesn't matter. So I have coached US Marines, I've coached um, you uh, know, public servants. I've uh, coached doctors to get into McKinsey, BCG. Uh two years back I pushed on opera singer, uh to join BCG. So uh, my own uh, very good friend from McKinsey was a rowing gold medalist from Scandinavia, only worked in sports university. So uh, any background is, is good which is a good thing about consulting. But, but because of that a uh problem for a coach like me is now these guys are approaching it from very different angle. Right. So the first thing that we need to look at is you know, first of all whether they'll be able to sustain this because achievement orientation is very important. It's not. It doesn't matter whether you are a U.S. marine or whether you are Olympic, um, gold medalist or you are uh, a technology consultant, whatever. But point is whether you have showcased the, the, the career highlights which tell me that you have that tenacity to sustain consulting. Right. Which is a kind of a quasi of skill part. Another thing is will, right, so this is where we are talking about, you know, why understanding the reason, right. Is it very superficial, they want to be CEO in three years or uh, they like a uh lot of people say I like to travel and uh, consultants always travel in business class. And uh, your CV says you have worked in 25 countries. So we want to be like you. So not that great reasons. Right. So we really want to know what exactly we want to do. And then there are a lot of tools, right? So I have myself uh developed uh psychometric assessment called WiredU and we are revamping it, we launching it in uh, next month, again relaunching it. So we, we use psychometrics uh, for that to understand whether their personality is matching or not. One question that comes in consulting interview. I sometime ask that in a career clarity question itself because I find this question to be extremely useful. And that blunt question is why should we hire you? I asked him that in case McKinsey or KPMG or whoever, right, Ask you why should we hire you? What would be your answer? And take your time, take two days, come back to me. No problem. But I want to really know in your mind what's the value add that you are thinking about, uh, that you want to pitch to consulting. Of course I can help you sharpen that. Of course your cv I can really transform into something this thing. But there has to be some material, there has to be a right way of approaching uh, your career decision. Right? So uh, sometime this, this question also works so various um, various methodologies we can use to really understand um, uh, whether the person has clarity or not. And sometime, you know, it's all about questions more than answers. You ask them right question and they themselves realize that, that um, when they, when they sit, uh, you know, silently that it's not for me or it's for me.

Speaker A: So you also have. Part of your practice is coaching current consultants on how to improve their performance. Um, we don't have a ton of time left, but just give us one example, sanitized of course of something that one of your clients has come to you with and, and how you've worked worked with them, uh, on some aspect of how they want to improve professionally.

Speaker B: Uh, I can talk about something which is a recent uh, MBB consultant, um uh, getting promoted to engagement manager and getting a feedback that uh, case leadership is missing. Right. So um, uh, we worked on that again. I mean some lot of these things the current consultants are confidential. So I, I don't know how to sanitize it. But, but the simply uh, simply speaking, right, um, what how we uh. How we. How we start off this is uh. We go a little bit deeper in last I, I analyzed the last projects, right, Literally to the level of uh. What exactly happened, uh, what was uh. What's the incident or what's that artifact that you, you on which you got this particular feedback and trying to identify where is it coming from. Right? Because a lot of Time when people get a feedback. Right. They don't have the feedback, doesn't have legs. It is just one line that this is what you did not do. So uh, we try to understand that. Um, exactly. And then sometimes there can be a couple of skill, uh, sessions, but not many people with a lot of time. These guys are skilled. It's not about skill. It's about, uh. So I always talk about decision skills and systems. Right. So, uh, these guys have skills, but they don't have systems. Right. So we try to, you know, kind of uh, then implement lot of uh, lot of system that, that some of them, you and me have probably learned in our organization. So we talk about how do you plant uh, more feedback loops in your engagement. Right. So of course your partner will give you, uh, feedback. Yeah. But how about some senior consultant or somebody who is your peer. Yeah. Can you take also help from him? Right. So that you get more frequent feedbacks. Right. With a partner as well. Can we be, uh, next project, can we be very transparent and say this is what we are going to work on. Can you please observe me on this? Right. Then, uh, we talk about uh, 10, 30, 90. So not necessary. Every time you need to give the artifact when it is 90% ready. Yeah. Uh, once the meeting is done between a partner, can you quickly share a 10% understanding of it that this is what I plan to do. Are you fundamentally, uh, on this or not? Right. And then you develop at a 30% again, you share, get a feedback and then uh, the chances of you uh, not doing it or that that ultimate Friday morning partner tearing apart your presentation, uh, is minimized.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, so there are these systems and they are so as you go senior. Right. In coaching, the way in case interview coaching, I can talk about a process or many set pieces in a football language. Uh, as you get in. Good. Go to executive coaching in the sense the career coaching of consultants and managers and principals and partners. Very few set pieces by the way. Uh, it's extremely individual driven. So every coaching assignment is different and every person and his context is different. Uh, and apart from that, uh, there are certain things that we also use which are the psychology related techniques, the core, uh, coaching techniques to get uh, their mindset right, to get their motivation right, um, uh, etc. Some systemic things. Um, getting some of these tools built, some of the checklists built. Uh, so that thing happens with um, consultants.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Gaurav. For listeners that want to find out more about your practice and follow up with you, where would you point them online?

Speaker B: Um, of course, I think I'm active on, uh, most of the social media, but I think I'm more active on LinkedIn. So, uh, you can, you can, can write G. Bosley, uh, consultant or McKinsey or, uh, my company's naming being Consultant and you can find me on LinkedIn.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Um, and the name of, um, my, uh, coaching company is Being Consultant. B E I N G Consultant. C O N S U L T N t. So being consultant.com is where you can, you can see what kind of work, uh, we are doing. So, yeah, um, happy to, happy to respond to those approach.

Speaker A: Fantastic. Okay, we will include those links in the show notes. Gaurav, thank you for joining today.

Speaker B: Thanks a lot, Will. Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation. And, um, yeah, all the best to you as well.