Sharvari Kumbhar - BCG

Hi people! I'm Sharvari Kumbhar, a to-be fourthie in the Chemical Engineering Department. I love reading and I also manage to dance fairly well. I used to play fencing, but I'm out of practice currently. I interned at BCG this summer and it was definitely one of the most fulfilling and rich (both literally and figuratively xD) experiences I have had. I will be sharing my intern experience through this blog. I hope you find this blog helpful and hopeful at the same time.

Preparations

As the intern season was nearing, I was confused about what profile I should be preparing for. After giving it a good thought, analyzing my options and capabilities, I decided to go for consulting and FMCG and kept Core as a backup. To initiate the consult prep, I started with Victor Cheng's videos. I was a part of a short case group where we would practice cases from CIC, which is super helpful. We would also solve different guesstimates and discuss our approach later.

But I started full-fledged consult prep only after the Day 1 shortlist was out. Fortunately and unfortunately both, I was shortlisted only in one consulting firm and that was BCG. That meant it would be a make-it-or-break-it situation, as I had only one option. But that also meant that I would get to focus on one firm entirely and save the slotting hassle on interview day (Optimism at its best :P )

Shortlisted candidates are assigned buddies with whom you can do mock cases, get valuable feedback on your performance in mock cases and get insights about consulting in general. The first case with buddies may not go very well and that's fine, understand your strengths and weaknesses and make sure you work on the feedback you receive from your buddy. Try to show improvements in suggested areas while doing further cases with them. Also, knowing about the company and the values it operates on is crucial. Prepare for questions like "Why consulting", "Why XYZ firm", etc. To answer these questions, you must have clarity on why the field interests you and what makes you choose that specific firm. Attend company PPTs and go through the company website to get help in answering questions like these.

Intern Experience

As the joining day was approaching, I was getting nervous about the uncertainties and the pressure of keeping up with the consulting culture. Talking to seniors made me feel at ease and excited to face the uncertainties. Have faith in yourselves, give your best in whatever you do and everything will be fine at the end of the day. We had a three-day orientation program to introduce us to the tools and resources that could be leveraged to make our life at BCG easier.

After staffing on a case, almost every intern is allotted a "cover" - a consultant/ senior associate with whom you work directly and give work updates to. My cover was super helpful and fun; he would step in whenever I needed help or guidance. My home office location was Mumbai, but I had to work in the client office for the entire internship duration. I was staffed on a banking case and with no prior experience in finance, I took the first few days to go through all the work done on the case till date and got introduced to fancy finance terms. After my module was defined, my cover helped me make an overall work plan and we went according to that.

The best thing about my internship was the diverse nature of work experience I got over the course of two months. I handled huge data and performed extensive analysis on excel, worked on content creation and came up with a strategy from scratch and also implemented it with the help of my cover.

The working hours are indeed long but you won't get bored as the work is quite exciting and you will see people around you work with insane dedication and passion. I gained valuable insights from these professionals, and the team was also fun to work with. They were all very supportive and kept me going even during the exhaustive hours.

Overall, working at BCG was a great professional experience and provided me with an invaluable learning opportunity.

Concluding Remarks:

Mentioning this again, but do have faith in yourselves and give your best in whatever you decide to take up. Also, remember that in the long run, it's just a two-month internship at a company and is not the sole determinant of your entire career. Things may seem intimidating at first but focus on improving yourself, make the most of opportunities you get, face whatever may come with confidence and you will sail through :)