When applying for management consultant roles, your CV needs to shine if you want to attract top level employers.
A strong CV will set you apart from all of the other candidates, and ensure you get plenty of attention from recruiters.
This guide which contains a management consultant CV example, will walk you through the process we use to create a winning CV that will land the interviews you need.
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Management consultant CV example
Above is an example CV that showcases how to structure and format your own CV, emphasising the skills and experience needed in management consultancy.
As the guide continues, we’ll talk you through each element and how to produce your own eye-catching CV.
CV structure & format
Facilitating ease of reading in your CV is key to attracting recruiters’ attention and enticing them to delve deeper into your experience.
A clear structure will enable busy recruiters to easily navigate your experience, and quickly understand your value.
The below infographic displays how to best format your CV and what sections you need to include.
CV formatting Tips
- Pick a simple font and a muted colour pallet, avoid over-complicating your CV design, to keep it clear and professional
- Avoid using company logos or profile pictures, these add no value and take up precious space within your CV
- Bullet points, headers and sections should be used to break up large blocks of text, enabling key information to be quickly pinpointed
- Your CV should be no longer than 2 sides of A4, long enough to showcase your suitability without it becoming tedious to read.
Structuring your CV
Make it straightforward for recruiters to pilot through your CV by breaking up your experience into the below sections:
- Contact details – At the top of the page should be your contact information, sticking to the essential details
- Profile – An introduction into your experience, sector specific qualifications and marketable skills that tempt recruiters to read on
- Work experience / Career history – Documenting your prior employment history, working backwards through your career
- Education – Recording any qualifications obtained, commencing with those most pertinent to management consultant roles
- Interest and hobbies – Optional section to feature any hobbies that make you more suitable for the industry – not often needed
This guide will now walk you through what to include within each of the above segments.
CV contact details
Start your CV with your contact details, making them clearly visible to recruiters.
Stick to the essentials in this section, including:
- Phone number
- Email address
- Location
- Provide a link to your LinkedIn profile if you have a good one
Don’t waste valuable space in your CV by adding irrelevant information such as your date of birth, marital status or your full address which isn’t needed by recruiters at this stage.
Top Tip – Don’t add a photograph! They don’t affect hiring decisions, and take up space that could be better used
Management consultant CV profile
At the top of your CV, you want to draw recruiters’ attention in with an introductory profile (or personal statement) that summarises your skills, experience and qualifications that make you the ideal candidate for management consultant positions.
This section should really sell you, making it clear to recruiters’ why they should continue reading… Like a blurb to a book summarising your CV.
Use the below tips to support you when producing your profile:
- Work to a paragraph length of 5-10 lines – you’ll be able to add more in depth later on in your CV
- Research your chosen sector before completing your profile, review key requirements in the industry, adding sector specific skills and keywords, making your CV custom fit to management consultancy roles
- Be unique in your descriptions, avoid over-used and cliché phrases that add no worth to your CV (e.g. hardworking team player) and stick only to details that are significant to recruiters.
What to include in your CV profile?
- Previous companies worked for – Working for a large generalist firm, smaller practices or working on a consultancy or freelance basis
- Level of experience – Have you recently entered the industry or are you more experienced with a portfolio of work you’re able to showcase
- Qualifications – Record any qualifications you’ve gained that are pertinent to the industry such as degrees in economics, business or finance
- Industry specialism – Do you specialise in banking? Retail? Pharma? Etc.
- Project skills – Project management, business analysis, risk management, stakeholder management etc.
- Types of projects you work on – IT, HR change, Finance, Supply chain etc
Quick tip: If you struggle with written English, try using our quick-and-easy CV Builder to eliminate the risk of making mistakes.
Core skills section
Directly beneath your CV profile, add a core skills section made up of two to three columns of bullet points.
These points should be heavily tailored to the requirements of your target jobs, to create maximum impact on recruiters when the CV is opened.
Work experience/Career history
Document your work experience, beginning with your most recent or current position then working backwards through your career history.
Reserve more space for your most recent or relevant roles, shorten the description for older positions or those in alternative sectors – this gives recruiters more detail in the areas they will be interested in.
Structuring your roles
Break up the information within each of your role descriptions, enabling recruiters to pinpoint key areas of your experience and the accomplishments you’ve achieved within your previous roles.
Work to the three below sections within each of your role descriptions:
Outline
Give an overview of your role, providing insight to recruiters about the company you worked for, the role you undertook or the department you were part of.
E.g.
“A Management Consultant to Financial Advisors and external third parties, servicing the needs of institutional retirement plan clients.”
Key responsibilities
List your key responsibilities in bullet point form, including any specific projects or additional duties taken on.
E.g.
- Reviewing portfolio allocations and withdrawals of funds for clients with discretionary managed assets
- Provide individual investment advice and guidance to retirement plan participants
Key achievements
Showcase the impact you had within each company by adding any achievements, adding facts and figures to qualify your examples.
E.g.
- Representing over 67 clients and over £5 Billion in assets.
- Delivering £100k of cost savings across 3 projects
Education
Underneath your work experience include a section documenting the qualifications you have secured.
Commence with those relevant to management consultant roles such as a degree or master’s in business, economics or finance.
Look to include any applicable memberships for bodies such as Institute of Consulting (CMI) or the Management Consultancies Association (MCA).
If you have room spare also include qualifications such as GCSE’s, A-levels, additional degrees and any vocational qualifications.
Interests and hobbies
This is an optional section and should only be included if your hobbies can add depth to your CV.
This section can be useful to display your soft skills, especially if you have limited work experience in the sector.
Consider adding hobbies that demonstrate skills such as the ability to be innovative, creative, a strong problem solver or the capacity to work under pressure or in challenging situations.
For example, extreme sports, writing a blog or involvement within charity events.
Essential skills for Management Consultant CV
Whilst each company and role may look for a slightly different corporate skill set – there are a few skills that are very likely to appear within your management consultant CV.
Project Management – Managing projects and teams working in line with given budgets and time lines
Process Optimisation – The ability to be innovative to create solutions to optimise performance, using systems and processes to measure performance.
Negotiation/Sales – The ability to sell not only yourself but your organisation to prospects clients as well as to be able to negotiate on behalf of existing clients.
Data Analysis – Being able to read data to support clients in finding areas of risk and providing potential solutions.
Stakeholder management – Managing expectations to senior staff and project sponsors
Writing your management consultant CV
When producing a management consultant CV it’s equally as important to consider the structure and format as well as your applicable experience and skills.
Make it easy for recruiters to pinpoint your relevancy for management consultant roles by highlighting key information, facilitating ease of reading and grabbing recruiters’ attention at the top of the page.
By using this guide to produce your own engaging CV, you’ll be one step closer to your dream career.
Good luck with your job search!