Steps Forward for a UK First Year

Ok great. I'll crack on with all of that!

I generally agree with nutmegger’s advice. My advice would be:

1. Try and get a First. For a lot of top firms, if you’re not Oxbridge then you basically need to get a First. Not a complete dealbreaker if you get a 2:1, but will be an uphill battle.
2.  Show leadership- probably by getting involved in some sort of university society. Doesn’t have to be anything to do with consulting or business, just choose something that interests you and is ideally a fairly large society. You want to get a top role that will look good on your CV. Once you’re in that role, try and be impactful and show some leadership, and then you can talk about that in interviews. As a first year, this probably looks like running for a middle/lower ranking role this year to then run for president/vice president etc. next year. Societies aren’t the only way to get some leadership roles- you could also be involved in some sort of start up or non-profit. Societies are just the most straightforward path.
3. Get some work experience, probably in the form of an internship. As mentioned, internships are often small cohorts in consulting and most hiring is at grad level meaning there’s not huge pressure to do an internship in consulting. You should just try and do something as impressive as possible- big banks, big tech, government/civil service are all good
4. Be sociable, and talk to people. As consulting is so client focused, your social skills are being tested a lot during interviews. Everyone I’ve met has tended to have good social skills and can hold a conversation well. Try not to be a hardcore-consulting bot. If you’re not already sociable and outgoing, uni is a good time to develop that.

In general, my experience with MBB interns was that they were all just impressive in some way. They all had very solid academics, but also something else that made them interesting. Some had been through the more traditional path of corporate/financial internships, but some hadn’t as much but were instead top musicians, competed in some sport at a very high level, or did something completely random like amateur film making. Ultimately, your CV should be impressive but also interesting.

Networking is not really that big of a deal in getting interviews for consulting in the UK. To boost your CV, focus on three main areas:

1. Education: Definitely aim for a first. The higher your overall grade the better, if you can quantify your performance e.g. ranked top 10% in cohort in 2nd year that would be great. Not a dealbreaker but MBB/T2 definitely place more emphasis on a first than other industries, especially if you're not from Oxbridge.

2. Experience: Aim for a 'prestigious' internship - it can literally be in any industry, consulting internships are quite rare. It could be BB IB, FAANG, Civil Service etc, as long as it is a top organisation within their industry with transferable skills to consulting (problem solving, communication etc). Alternatively, you could also do a start-up and really quantify the impact of your impact.

3. Extra-curriculars: Try and get some leadership experiences, probably would be easiest to do it through being on the committee of a society in your second year. Doesn't need to be the consulting society.

Overall, make sure your CV is centred around the impact you had, rather than the actual work you did. E.g. instead of saying 'used VBA to build macros to automate process', say 'streamlined process by X% through VBA macros'