These days, the government 💼 is like the high roller (highest paying clients) in India and other hot 🔥 emerging markets! 🌟 So, guess what's booming? Government consulting verticals in big-name consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain! 🚀 They're on fire 🔥 and they're not holding back on those sweet 💰 salaries and bonuses for folks diving into these verticals. 💸💼
Specialised Govt. Consulting organisations : Samagra and Foundation for Economic Development
A-Listers : McKinsey&Company, BCG and Bain
A-List companies that occasionally work with government : Dalberg and Bridgespan
Tier 1 : Accenture, EY Parthenon and Deloitte
Tier 2 : PwC, KPMG, EY and Sattava
In government consulting projects, problem statements often start out quite open-ended. Typically, it's over the course of the project that both the client and the consulting organization collaboratively determine the scope of the engagement.
Project 1: Creating a strategy guide to boost SME exports from India
Project 2: Helping a state government design strategy to become a Trillion Dollar economy in a few years time
Project 3: Developing a business strategy to boost tourism in a state
For more information on the kind of projects done by strategy consulting organisations visit - Samagra: Our Work
The designation growth in the focused government consulting organisations looks like the following:
Associate (UG Freshers/ 1-year experience post-UG)
Manager (MBA/Masters/ 2 years of relevant experience)
Team Lead
Director
CEO/ Partner
Except A-listed organizations, performance reviews are conducted once a year, and typically most people receive a promotion in every two year (in case of good performance).
In A-listed organizations, performance reviews are conducted twice a year, and typically, up until the Manager level, most people receive a promotion each year.
Problem-Solving skills: Ability to create an issue tree, hypothesis-driven thinking, ability to validate the hypothesis by conducting desk research and stakeholder interviews and ability to see the big picture and plan strategically, considering long-term implications and various scenarios
Analytical skills: Comfortable with numbers, ability to conduct quantitative analysis, knowledge of basic statistical concepts (UG-level), good at creating effective visualisations (graphs and charts) and some knowledge of R is beneficial.
Familiarity with concepts of economics, legal and govt. structure: Some level of familiarity with economics, legal concepts and government structure is an added bonus.
Technical skills: MS Powerpoint (Intermediate), MS Excel (Intermediate), MS Word, and R/Python (good to have)
If you come from the following background feel free to apply -
UG from top colleges of India - DU/ Kolkata colleges/ Mumbai colleges, IITs or UG from top international colleges
MBA from an Indian B-shool or international B-school
Masters in relevant subjects like economics, law and politics or MPA/MPP from international colleges
Experience working in a consulting organisations at least for 1 year
As an entry-level employee (Associate/Analyst), your usual assignment will involve one project at a time, offering you the chance to dive deep into the task at hand. This means that a significant portion of your time will be dedicated to conducting secondary research, crafting supporting analyses, and ideally, presenting this analysis either on a presentation deck or directly to senior leadership.
Given the relatively small team sizes, it's common for analysts and associates to handle a fair share of ad-hoc tasks. However, this situation also implies a high level of ownership over your workstreams. Additionally, there is an occasional travel element to the job (<5% of the time).
Now, if you're stepping into a government consulting role as a Project Manager (a step up from entry-level), brace yourself for a significantly greater project ownership. In many cases, you become the Point of Contact (PoC) for the specific project within the respective government department. Ideally, you'd be stationed right at that government office (so expect some out-of-station travel in the mix). Essentially, your gig involves working hand in hand with government officials and the project team, often taking the lead and having a team of analysts to back you up.
Most firms in the impact space respect your personal time and place great emphasis on work-life balance. Weekends remain yours, free from work obligations, and strive to maintain manageable workdays. You can expect the workload to be lighter at the beginning of a project, gradually becoming more intense as the project approaches completion. Daily work hours range from 6 to 12 hours.
The day usually starts with a team check-in where tasks/deliverables for the day are defined
Most part of the day goes into conducting either desk research or primary research i.e. interview
Summarising your finding towards the second half of the day in a slide/ reporting to senior management
Except for an A-list organisation, an entry-level analyst/associate receives a fixed component of 10 LPA (Lakhs per annum) and an additional ~10% of their fixed pay as a performance bonus.
A Project Manager receives approximately 16 LPA as a fixed pay and an extra 10% of their fixed pay as a performance bonus.
Consulting organizations indeed have a rigorous and highly selective recruitment process, and it's important to be well-prepared to increase your chances of success. Here's an overview of what you can expect during the selection procedure:
Resume and Cover Letter Screening: Your application will go through an initial screening process. Make sure your resume highlights relevant experiences, achievements, and educational background that align with the consulting industry's expectations. Your cover letter should showcase your passion for problem-solving and strategic thinking.
Multiple Rounds of Case-Based Interviews: Be prepared for 3 to 5 interviews, each lasting around an hour. The majority of the interview time will be spent discussing case studies. The interviewers' hierarchy typically starts with someone one level senior to the position you are applying for and goes up to partners. Case interviews evaluate your problem-solving skills, logical thinking, ability to structure complex problems, and communication skills.
If you join as an Analyst, after two years working in a strategy consulting organisation can easily got for an MBA.
Ronak Pol - Team Lead at Foundation for Economic Development