What is the major difference between consultant and investor

Question

Dear all

I am Jessica Huang, an ex-Kearney consultant. Recently, I‘ve undergone an interview with the middle manager of a leading Asia RE asset management company.

The interview process is to debrief one of the consulting projects that participated in the past. I showed a typical strategic project with some sample slides. During my presentation, I rather focused on approaches and structure. While I definitely felt that the GM of the investment department was not interested in that. And he kept questioning those, from a consultant point of view, insignificant numbers, many of which are fact-based figures.

I've also noticed that the GM is impatient throughout the interview. It seems he has been distracted by many things and is always in a hurry to reach a conclusion. But in consulting, conclusion won't come out of a second. It should start with a hypothesis, collect evidence, and then reach a final conclusion. The process can be reiterate several times until can be called a final conclusion.

Here, I'd double check with the coach and candidate who have experienced both sides to see whether my feeling is a general truth or a specific case (maybe we simply do not have chemistry with each other).

Two weeks have passed, and the HR response is that they have more candidates in their pipeline and would like to compare them periodically until all interviews are done. I regard it as a negative sign and resume case-preparing sessions with peers. For the investment role, I have pushed a consulting interview far away from the previous set date.

Last but not least, is the gap between consulting and investment too wide to bridge?

Answer 1

Hi Jessica (again),

I would be happy to share my thoughts on your situation:

First of all, your experience highlights a common challenge when transitioning from consulting to non-consulting roles: aligning communication styles and expectations.
Moreover, that being said, I would highly advise you not to read anything into the recruiter's reply. It is quite common in other industries to interview all candidates first before making a decision.

You can find more on this topic here: How to deal with a rejection from a consulting company.

If you would like a more detailed discussion on how to best prepare for your upcoming interviews, please don't hesitate to contact me directly.

Best,

Hagen

Answer 2

Hi there,

In these presentations, you need to focus on a top-down presentation of your findings, not a bottom-up presentation of the process.

This is a key difference.

The way all C-level presentations are structured is top-down as C-level execs have little time (and patience) and want to know what they need to do and why. They mostly do not care about what you did to reach your conclusions.

You lost the audience in this meeting and this is the reason why the GM seemed impatient. It's not what they wanted to hear.

Another tip for these situations: If you see that the audience becomes impatient, you need to read the room and react, not continue with your current plan.

All the best,

Florian

Answer 3

With clients / decision makers, you start with the answer and then explain why.

It's like the end part of the interview where you are given 60 seconds to explain the recommendation to the CEO. That's how you have to approach these interviews (and client meetings)