Resume guide

Guidance on how to build a consulting resume from scratch.

Includes templates, common mistakes, free resources, and pro tips.

What recruiters look for

Ten seconds is a pretty short time. Yet, that is the time a recruiter spends on average scanning your resume. This is assuming +a human being is reading; most consulting firms do a first filter using Applicant Tracking Systems (i.e. bots that scan resumes).

Resumes do not get you a job, but they are the first entry point to the recruitment process. For the initial screening, it is important to have a top-notch resume.

What they want to see

• You got good grades

• You have relevant skills that are transferable to the position (this depends on the specific job)

• You achieved significant impact and are able to quantify it

• There are some brand names (ideally)

• You make the resume easy to scan to find all these things (above)

• You are structured and have attention-to-detail

Most of the recommendations below are relevant regardless of what consulting company you are targeting. This is because they are focused on how to write a resume in a way that is structured, clean, and easy to understand. That said, we always recommend that you spend some time researching and networking to ensure you understand the specifics, especially if you are targeting a specific industry (e.g. financial services) or a capability (e.g. operations or digital). Finally, keep in mind that country-specific variations may exist (e.g. in some European countries, you may be expected to include your picture).

Where to start

Writing a good resume takes time and it is an iterative process. Most of the points below are critical regardless of whether you already have a draft resume or not.

#1 Define your target

• Take time to reflect on your career and what sort of consulting companies and roles you want to target. This is important because having a clear target makes your resume more focused and convincing. For example, imagine you felt energized and accomplished after completing a challenging technical endeavor related to data automation. However, you found leading two data science analysts to be boring. You may want to consider roles as an individual contributor rather than pursuing a job that involves working with a team.

  
  

  #2 Create a Master History List

• Write an unedited, full list detailing your complete history (work, education, extracurricular, etc.). The goal is to be exhaustive. Detailing all your experiences will help you not to forget anything relevant and also gain clarity on your unique value — your skills, experiences, knowledge areas, accomplishments, values, passions, and interests

  
  

  #3 Understand the role you are applying to

• Figure out if you are applying for a general consultant role or an industry consultant role. Some job posts will have a general ‘consultant’ opening. This means you don’t have to start with a specific expertise and are expected to develop one on the job. Others are highly targeted and will have a specific industry that they’re building teams for, such as finance, healthcare, technology, and others. 

  
  

  #4 Draft your master resume

• Write a master resume for a consulting role (general or targeted) to use as a base (more on this below). Think about which past experience, skills, and expertise are most relevant for consulting. Look into the keywords of the job description and use them as much as possible where they’re applicable.

  
  

  #5 Prepare your customization

• Prepare to customize your resume to the jobs you are applying to. Do not forget to keep track of resume versions. A simple Excel file can be enough. It is important that you know which resume you submitted to which firm, so you have it at hand before the interviews.

  
  

  #6 Seek feedback

• Ask for feedback about your master resume. Ideally, reach out to someone in your network who is a consultant. If you don´t know anyone, you can reach out to people online. Here you can read more on how to network.

There is a trade-off between breadth and depth - that is, how many applications you submit and the quality of these. Our recommendation is to send fewer applications and invest more time in customization. In the section "Resume customization" below, we give you tips to do it in approximately 1 hour per resume.

Structure

The general structure of a resume is very simple:

Contact info/ personal details

Full name and last name, email, phone number (with country prefix), and LinkedIn link

Summary (optional)

An introductory paragraph

Work experience

List of all the companies/ positions (from latest to earliest), with two to four bullet points for each position

Education

Bachelor´s degree, advanced degrees (specializations), GPA or grades cut-offs (e.g. top 5%), trainings, courses, and certifications

Other Skills

Technical skills, languages, other info

Extracurricular (optional)

Volunteering and interests

The order of these sections above is the general recommendation but is flexible. Think about what suits you best. If you have relevant work experience and/or well-known company brands, you should place Work Experience section before Education. If you are planning to change your career completely and recently completed an MBA to transition into consulting, Education should probably go first.

Advice for Candidates Just Starting Out

• You can consider including Education first

• Make an effort to include all relevant extracurricular activities, personal projects you’ve worked on, volunteering, trainings and courses (even if there is no certification or diploma) and whatever else you can come up with that is relevant.

  
  

Don’t have much of that? Proactively work towards getting skills and experiences that are going to be useful for your future job.

Content & Style

Personal Info

• Use a larger font for your name to make it stand out

• Do not insert your headshot, age or date of birth, marital status or gender unless explicitly requested by the firm

• Use a neutral, professional email address

• Do not include your home address; this may cause data privacy issues. Your general region or country is sufficient

• No need to label each item (e.g “email:”, “tel:”, etc.) since these are obvious

Summary (optional) 

Most people do not need a summary on their resume if their qualifying experience is clearly presented and easily understood. It should be a ‘no-brainer’ within seconds of reviewing a resume that the person is qualified for the role.

Usually, it is a good idea to include a summary if:

1. You are a career changer and want to highlight transferable skills that are relevant for consulting

2. The role highlights a specific area of your expertise that sets you apart from other applicants (industry or capability specific roles)

3. You have many years of experience aligned with leadership levels (10-15+ years)

4. You have very limited experience (less than 1-2 years) and want to explain why consulting motivates you and what your goal is

Generally, there are two types of summaries. One type is focused on synthesizing the content of the resume, and the other is focused on your career objectives. Both are acceptable options, although the latter is more used for career/ scope changes, or when the applicant has limited work experience (e.g. a recent high school or college graduate).

If you include a summary, keep in mind:

• Think about what you're looking for in your next role before writing your summary section on your resume. This helps you focus on key skills and expertise for the job you want.

• Research the consulting firm, the industry, and key trends to understand what employers value in their team members. Consider reading job descriptions for related positions to see what skills, experiences, and characteristics are helpful for roles in the industry

• Write your summary concisely (3-5 sentences) and avoid generic terms

• Show you have the skills and knowledge, don't just include adjectives such as “critical thinker” or “good communicator”. They can sound cliché and give no context or details

Summary Type	Bad Sample	Better Sample
Resume Summary	Computer programmer with solid technical knowledge and experience.	Computer programmer with over 10 years of experience. Proficient in JavaScript, HTML, and CSS with a focus on single-page applications.
Resume Objective	Professional with a strong background in operations. Proactive, problem-solver and good at leading teams. Looking for new opportunities.	Sr. Operations Manager with 15+ years of experience leading cross-functional teams, with 150+ app features implementations in X and Y. Looking to grow responsibilities by [Quantified Goal].

Work experience

This is a critical part of the resume. List all the jobs and companies that are relevant to consulting. There is no need to include irrelevant past roles (e.g. summer camp teacher five years ago). Place in reverse chronological order, with the most recent employment at the top.

Other important considerations:

• When allocating resume space to each role, proportion it roughly by how long you held that job. You may also want to expand on the details of your latest job if it is highly relevant to the position you are applying to

• If you only had one employer, but worked there for a long period of time, it may be helpful to separate the roles or projects into separate entries. This makes the structure clearer and shows you had diverse experiences within the same organization

• Include the position name, em ployer, location (city, state, and country) and dates in the headline (ideally in bold or a larger size to stand out)

• Unless your company is very recognizable, you may want to include a little blurb about what they do (e.g. "Premier professional development association for engineers") (optional)

How to write strong job descriptions

Writing a resume is not about listing everything you did and numerating many important tasks. Strive to show impact rather than responsibilities and tasks. Recruiters want to see evidence of how your work has made an impact, so keep bullets tight and focused on data-driven results as much as possible.

Some important considerations:

• Before writing, think what expertise and skills you want to highlight and how you want to portray yourself, zooming in on the most important based on the job description. Key skills in consulting include hard skills, such as analyzing data and solving problems, and soft skills, such as leading teams, managing projects or being proactive

• If your previous jobs or internships are not directly consulting-related, phrase your descriptions to highlight transferible consulting skills such as leadership, project management, problem-solving, etc.

• Incorporate job posting keywords into your resume to increase the chances of passing the Applicant Tracking Systems

• Try to use three to four bullet points for each job, with each bullet point of approximately two to three lines long

• Show you have the skills and knowledge, don't just include adjectives such as “Critical thinker” or “good communicator”. They can sound cliché and give no context or details

• Balance the skills you demonstrate; avoid writing three bullet points that focus on the same skill (e.g. project management) within the same job

• Be specific about your personal contribution - not what your team was doing. It’s great that your team created a full-stack application with Vue.js, but if you didn’t touch any of that code, it’s going to come out in your interview

• Focus on the results of what you did and quantify them to highlight the tangible contributions you have made (ideally all bullet points should include quantified impact). This is an example of how to be specific:

  
  

Example	Bad Statement	Good Statement
Quantified Impact	Responsible for organizing events and panels.	Planned and coordinated panels on public health for audiences of 25–50 undergraduates on a bi-monthly basis.

• Start each bullet point with an action verb that matches the sort of skills a company looks for. "Led", "Designed" or "Presented" are good examples of such verbs (here you have more examples). Use past tense for previous positions and present tense for your current position

• Order bullet points by priority since recruiters do not always read all the content

• Avoid the use of first-person pronouns, i.e. I, me, mine, myself

• Ensure your resume bullets are simple, non-technical and exclude acronyms that are only known by people in your company (e.g. write "Engagement manager" instead of "EM", and "North America" instead of "NAM".

Using the STAR Method for Bullet Points

You can use the STAR Method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to structure the content of your bullet points. This framework is also used in behavioral questions. Read here.

Here is an example:

Skill/expertise you want to show: Problem solving / operational efficiency

You don`t need to write it down.

Situation: Trainees were learning too slowly and were not ready to use the data tracking system until four weeks into the job.

Task: Help trainees learn the system faster.

Action: Initiated, wrote, and edited the first training manual for the company’s data tracking system. Revised the training curriculum to utilize the new manual and presented to senior management.

Result: At the end of the training period, trainees were ready to use the data tracking system two weeks earlier than expected; the training manual was adopted across the company and is still in use

Now, you are ready to write down the bullet point:

FINAL STATEMENT FOR RESUME: Proactively developed the first training manual for the company's data tracking system, which cut the training period by 50% (two weeks); the manual was adopted across the company and is still in use today.

Education

This section should be relatively short, especially if you have extensive work experience. However. don´t just include the degree and university names. That suggests you have little else to say about four to five years of your life.

• If you have multiple degrees (e.g. a BA and an MBA), write a subsection for each degree, starting with your highest level of education first

• For each degree, include the name of the degree, university, and dates in the headline (full names). Describe relevant course content briefly if they are relevant (no more than one line). For example, if you studied Engineering, you may want to mention "Specialization: Computer Sciences and Cybersecurity"

• If you have written a thesis/dissertation, summarize the topic (in one to two lines)

• List your grades if good (e.g. GPA) as well as results on other standardized tests you have taken (e.g. SAT, GMAT, etc.)

• Detail all the awards and scholarships you have received, and how competitive they were ("Awarded 1 of 2 scholarships available to 1,000 students")

• List all the relevant courses and trainings with the year and a short description, even if they were given by your employer and you have no diploma/ certificate. If your list is too long, select the ones that are most important for consulting

  
  

Other Skills

This section is focused on technical skills that are not covered in Education. Make sure you group skills by category:

Category	Examples
Languages	Be specific about your knowledge level and do not lie.
Project Management	PMI, Scrum, etc.
Product Management	Product roadmap, UX design, product life cycle management, etc.
Programming/Coding	C/C++, Python, etc.
Software Development	Algorithms, coding, data science, etc.
Design Software	HTML, Photoshop, color theory, etc.
Marketing	Social media management, copywriting, Google Analytics, SEO, etc.
Information Technology	Cloud platforms (AWS, Azure), system & server administration.
Big Data	Data mining/analysis, ETL processes, NoSQL databases (MongoDB, Cassandra), etc.

For each language, you should specify your level of proficiency. For the technical skills, specify your level when possible (e.g. experienced or expert).

Avoid including productivity software such as Salesforce, Google Workspace, or Teams since most people know them and they aren´t a differentiator.

Read a more detailed list of skills here.

Additional Information

Keep this section short, include items that are directly or indirectly relevant to consulting, and emphasize depth over breadth (e.g., it’s better to include one leadership role in an NGO than being a member of three clubs).

Here are a few examples of things you could include:

• Side businesses: Do not mention only the business type; include quantifiable achievements (e.g. sales, customers, etc.)

• Volunteering: For example, student mentor on Y topic

• Personal projects: For example, your own website or blog about industry trends or, for early-career tech profiles, GitHub repositories, open-source contributions, or freelance work

• Student Clubs

• Writing awards

• Sports achievements

• Interests (optional)

Including Interests

There are mixed feelings about including interests:

The positive: It helps the recruiter remember you and it gives them something to connect with you on, and it makes you more than just a faceless resume. Cool samples include, for example, having a Christmas socks company, 10 years of experience in rock climbing, a track of 15 marathons in 5 cities or experience travelling across all five continents.

The risk: Human beings are prejudiced, and it is difficult to anticipate what they will read between lines. For example, think about including "Reggaeton band member" in your resume. One recruiter may be excited about it because they consider it to be cool, while another recruiter may associate it with lack of professionalism, leaving them unimpressed. Be careful not to include controversial interest (use your common sense). Also, avoid including generic interests such as sports, book reading and nature because they do not add much.

Design & last details

How polished should a resume look?

Generally, it isn´t recommended to use overly fancy or visually complex templates. What "nice-looking" means is subjective, and content often becomes more superficial to fit these templates. Ensure you never sacrifice content for format. Also, many companies use Applications Tracking Systems that automatically scan and extract content, and a complex or unconventional design can interfere with this process.

Consider using a more visually appealing template when you have the opportunity to send the PDF directly to a human recruiter and use a standard format when applying through an online system or job portal.

Even when using a standard format, you can still find small ways to personalize it if this is important to you. For example, you may include a small logo image of the company next to its name, highlight section headings with a single, subtle color (not loud or difficult to read) or include small icons next to each section (e.g. a book next to the education section). While some coaching platforms discourage this, it´s important that the resume feels authentic to you (always following common sense and maintaining professionalism).

General Style and Formatting Guidelines

• Make the content concise to fit into one page. If you have more than 10- 15 years of experience, you may want to use two pages

• Use action-driven bullet points rather than paragraphs in the resume; avoid using full sentences and a narrative style

• Remove industry jargon that are likely to not be known by the recruiter

• Avoid contractions, abbreviations, and slang

• Use action verbs rather than passive language

• Avoid making it visually cluttered: make it concise and quickly readable

• Choose a professional-looking font: Size 10-12, black and white. Arial, Calibri, and other plain Sans serif or Serif fonts are fine

• Use clear headings and subheadings, bolding the headings. Include relevant section dividers or lines to make it more visual

• Use margins of 0.5 to 1 inches

• Use bold, italics, and bullets in moderation; if everything is bold, nothing stands out

Review and Submission

• Scan your resume in 10 seconds. What parts stand out? You may want to ask someone else to do the same exercise. If the answer isn't the right one, you need to keep working on your resume

• Read the resume aloud and review for clarity and conciseness; this will help you realize when sentences are too long or use unnecessary words

• Include your full name and date in your resume file name

• Submit your resume as a PDF file; Word files can be displayed differently depending on the processor.

  
  

Resume customization

The job market is becoming increasingly competitive and fast-paced. Applying to a job in LinkedIn just takes a few seconds. That means that employers are receiving significantly more applications today than in the past.

Successful job seekers are those who take the time to understand the company, the role, and are able to customize the application to the specific position. While this may sound like a lot of work, it´s actually not that time consuming. The most time-consuming part is developing the master resume for the first time.

Step #1: Create a master version

• When developing your master resume, think about your ideal consulting job to ensure it has a clear target

• Write unlimited bullet points (in order of priority) covering all relevant accomplishments under a job. This will help you with customization later, as you can select only the bullets most relevant to the job you are applying for.

  
  

  Example of Prioritization:

  
  

  If you are applying for a job focused on project management, you'd prioritize Bullet 1. If the job focuses on product management, you'd prioritize Bullet 2.

Position X, Company Y

Bullet 1: Proactively designed and implemented a new automatic data tracking system using [Y tool], which led to a 20% reduction in sales review pre-work for the Sales team (12 people).

Bullet 2: Led and supervised the team (6 analysts) in charge of developing the product roadmap for the entire Latin American region; achieved 80% [Specific Result].

Step #2: Customization for the role

The recruiter will not connect the dots between your skills and experiences and what they are looking for if you don´t customize your application. You have to do the work for them.

Key Customization Actions

• Do thorough research on the company, the specific role, and the team and the job description keywords. Many people often focus too narrowly on the job title or the keywords of the job description. Recruiters can easily spot a generic resume. Don´t make the mistake of summarizing all the tasks done in all your past jobs.

• Tweak the summary to be more focused or more specific, depending on the opportunity (if you have a summary)

• Give priority to accomplishments that align with the role´s requirements

• For all sections, especially for the Work Experience section, review your master version to see if there is any other relevant accomplishment that should be in that version

Resume samples

Source: IGotAnOffer and university site

Artificial Intelligence

Generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT or Gemini, can be helpful, but they are just that - tools. You need to be the writer and owner of your resume. AI-generated files usually look and sound the same, so it is unlikely that they will help you stand out from the rest. Some companies are tossing applications that noticeably use AI.

Ways to Leverage AI Tools

Some ways in which you can leverage AI tools include:

For Your Master Resume Version:

• Proofreading - suggested prompt is "highlight any typos and grammar errors and improve the flow and clarity of the following text" (after receiving the correction, you should paste the revised text back into the tool and ask for a second review)

• Optimizing word choice and keywords

• Suggesting format improvements

For Your Customized Version:

• Suggesting how to tailor your resume to a job description (you need to do the critical thinking and ideally the writing)

• Finding gaps for a role - Ask the AI to act as a recruiter for a specific job description (paste the description) and compare your resume against the ideal candidate profile the AI generates. Note any information that is missing from your resume for the particular job and if applicable, address it before submitting.

LinkedIn

You may wonder...

"What am I supposed to do if I have different resume versions for different consulting firms, but only a single LinkedIn profile?"

The answer is simply. Resumes and LinkedIn profiles are complementary and serve different purposes.

Resumes speak directly to a position; they must be as specific as possible about your accomplishments

LinkedIn is more generic, has a more flexible structure, and helps build your personal brand (if used correctly).

Your LinkedIn profile should be generic enough to avoid any inconsistency with the different resume versions you submit to different companies. For example, for work experience, we don´t recommend using the STAR method because it creates highly specific, detailed statements. If necessary, keep your profile as general as possible to appeal to a broad audience.

It is important that you maintain consistency between your LinkedIn profile and your resumes by:

• Avoid writing a LinkedIn profile summary unless you find a good balance between not being too specific (it will not match all your applications) or too generic (it ends up sounding dull)

• Include the same job titles and dates

• Have consistent job descriptions to ensure the same high-level message (you don´t want to position yourself as having a lot of expertise in operations in your resume and product design in your LinkedIn)

• In the Skills section on LinkedIn, add a broader (more generic) range of skills that reflect your overall professional experience, and make sure these skills are aligned with the ones on your resume

• Review both your profile and your resume(s) regularly and ensure they are consistent and up to date

Networking

Now that you have put together the first version of your resume, your next step is to ask for feedback to improve it.

If you know someone (or know a person who knows someone) working in the sort of consulting roles or firms you are targeting, don’t hesitate to reach out to them to get their thoughts. If not, you can also reach out to people on LinkedIn (read here for more detail).

Asking for feedback from peers is also helpful. They'll be able to cast a fresh eye on your resume and flag typos, inconsistencies, or sentences that are difficult to understand. 

Networking is not only helpful for getting the resume reviewed. Think about it more broadly. By engaging with online tech communities, attending conferences, and connecting with other professionals, you will gain a better understanding of the dynamics of the consulting world, the latest trends, and what it takes to get in. Which companies are the pickiest? What does the culture look like inside McKinsey & Co?

The more you know about the company, the better your application will be.

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