Questions to Ask Consultants When Networking

The questions

Open any question to see why it works.

1. 1

   How did you end up at your firm?

   An easy opener that also tells you which entry routes exist: campus, experienced hire, an internal transfer, or an acquisition. If they came in a way you cannot copy, the rest of their advice needs translating before you use it.

2. 2

   What did last week actually look like for you?

   Asking about a typical week gets an averaged answer. Asking about last week gets Tuesday's client workshop, the model that broke, and the flight they nearly missed. The details are what you will later use to decide whether you want this.

3. 3

   What kinds of projects have you been staffed on this year?

   Reveals whether the office really does the work advertised. Many people spend a first year on cost programmes and diligence regardless of what drew them in, and the gap between the brochure and the staffing list is worth knowing about early.

4. 4

   How does staffing work: do you choose, or are you assigned?

   The honest answer is usually a mix of a staffing manager, your availability, and who already knows you. Ask what someone in their first year can realistically influence, because that is the difference between building a specialism and taking whatever is open.

5. 5

   How much are you travelling now, and how has that changed since you joined?

   Travel norms have shifted a great deal and vary by office and practice, so old assumptions mislead. Ask about nights away in a normal month rather than a policy, and ask what happens when the client wants people on site regardless of the policy.

6. 6

   What does a first year analyst actually own on a case?

   The gap between the interview description and the real work is usually data cleaning, interview notes, and slide production. Someone who describes real ownership of a workstream is telling you something specific about the leverage model at their firm.

7. 7

   What surprised you in your first six months?

   Surprises are unrehearsed in a way that strengths and weaknesses answers are not. The common ones are how much of the job is managing the client rather than solving the problem, and how little of the analysis makes it into the deck.

8. 8

   How did you choose between the firms you had offers from?

   This gets you a real comparison rather than the marketing distinction between firms that all describe themselves similarly. Pay attention to whether they weighed the office and the people or the brand, and whether they think they chose correctly.

9. 9

   How is this office different from the firm's general reputation?

   Culture at these firms is set locally by a handful of partners and by which clients the office serves. A national reputation tells you almost nothing about the twenty people you would work with, and they know it.

10. 10

    What does the review cycle feel like from the inside?

    Ask about frequency, who writes the review, and whether ratings are forced into a distribution. Firms that stack rank produce a different day to day feeling than firms that do not, and nobody puts that in a recruiting deck.

11. 11

    Who struggles here who looked strong on paper?

    The failure modes are specific and learnable: people who cannot ask for help, people who over polish before showing work, people who go quiet on a bad week. This question also tells you how honestly your contact thinks about their colleagues.

12. 12

    What is happening at the firm right now that is not in the recruiting materials?

    Hiring slowdowns, a practice being wound down, a large client leaving, a return to office change. None of this is secret internally and all of it affects whether the offer you are chasing will still look the same in a year.

13. 13

    How do people you started with talk about leaving?

    Exits are normal in consulting, so this is a fair question rather than a rude one. Whether people leave to specific roles they wanted or simply to get out is the clearest available signal about how the job wears on people.

14. 14

    What is the path here for someone who does not want to make partner?

    Most people do not, so a firm with no honest answer is telling you it treats everyone as either a future partner or a temporary employee. Ask what the internal transfer, expert track, and secondment options really look like in practice.

15. 15

    What did your case interview preparation actually consist of, and what would you skip?

    People over prepare on frameworks and under prepare on speaking numbers out loud. Ask how many live practice cases they did and with whom, since the count and the partner matter far more than the material they read.

16. 16

    What do candidates get wrong in the case interview that is obvious from your side?

    Once someone has interviewed candidates themselves, they have a short list: not stating assumptions, not checking the maths, forcing a framework onto a question. This is more specific than anything a preparation guide will tell you.

17. 17

    If my resume crossed your desk, what would make you set it aside?

    Framing it as a rejection makes it easier for them to be blunt than asking for feedback. Expect something concrete such as no quantified results, an unexplained gap, or a story that does not add up, and fix that before you apply.

18. 18

    Is there anyone else in the firm you would suggest I speak to?

    Ask this before you ask for a referral. It is a smaller favour, it tests whether the conversation went well, and a warm introduction to a second person is often more useful than a referral from someone who has just met you.

19. 19

    Would you be comfortable referring me, and what would you need from me to do it?

    Ask directly rather than hinting, and give them an easy way to say no. Referrals at these firms usually require the referrer to answer questions about you, so offer the resume, a short summary, and the deadline in one message afterwards.

20. 20

    What part of this job would you do even if the pay were ordinary?

    A good closing question because it ends on something they enjoy talking about, and the answer is unusually revealing. If someone can only name the exit options and the money, you have learned something worth acting on.