At least once a month someone asks us if we can help them with presentations and PowerPoint for Consulting, asking:
- If we can teach them how to develop slides and stories ahead of an interview
- If we can show them how to structure a presentation
- If we can help them learn the essentials of a PowerPoint presentation, as opposed to a generic presentation
We understand why the questions are asked.
At our on-site Bootcamps, we ask everyone to rate themselves on their PowerPoint skills. Every single time we do this, everyone in the room rates themselves at 4 or 5 out of 5.
At first, that was music to our ears, because we thought we were dealing with room after room of well equipped students! How wrong we were...
It turns out, people saying they're at a 4 or 5 out of 5 means, "I know how to make slides on PowerPoint" or more generally "I know where the PowerPoint icon is on my computer." We admit that knowing how to make slides is more than most of the general population can do, but it's not going to cut it in consulting.
Knowing how to rock a generic PowerPoint is one thing, but rocking a presentation the right way is something else altogether.
In consulting, PowerPoint is your bread and butter. It's day in, day out, sun up until sun down. While the people who rated themselves highly probably had to make 1 or 2 presentations a semester at college, consultants are using PowerPoint every single day.
They're using it to present invaluable data, drive key insights and make high level recommendations to business leaders around the world. Knowing how to put a slide together may have been good enough for you in your college days, but it's not enough in consulting, where your recommendations can mean millions earned or lost for your clients.
Because of this, the consulting stakes have never been higher. Top firms are now demanding more than ever from applicants and new starts.
[globalcta id="CTA-PPExcel-v1"]
As you embark on your consulting career, you may get asked to create a solo or group presentation during your interview. In fact, it's not uncommon for firms to tell group interviewees to work on a presentation together - and, to add to the pressure, that only one person from the group will be hired.
Even though that's really mean and usually not true, if you found yourself in this situation, wouldn't you like to know exactly how to stand out among your peers?
That's why we created PowerPoint for Consulting. A lot of people have generic PowerPoint knowledge, but it's incredibly rare for us to meet someone who could rock a McKinsey quality PowerPoint without hours and hours of babysitting.
Why is that?
What makes consulting presentations so different?
To put it simply, everything.
From the way consultants structure their slides, present data, build their stories and more, PowerPoint for Consulting is totally different to anything you've done before.
As opposed to to Sociology 301 or that group assignment you had to do for your MBA, consulting firms won't be happy with a well-organized data dump with some nice slides and a few cool sound effects. Instead, there are certain traits consulting firms look for. There's an ebb and flow to consulting presentations that all good consultants reproduce in their decks.
Communicating insights? Building a story? Best practices for PowerPoint? Solo vs. group presentations?
We have all those areas and more covered, but without PowerPoint for Consulting, you'll be walking into your interview ready to get blindsided when they ask you to make a presentation.
Even more, it's one thing to have a general idea about consulting PowerPoint presentations, but what if you're interviewing at multiple firms?
A McKinsey presentation is unique in its own way, in the same way that Bain, BCG, Deloitte, Oliver Wyman, Booz & Co and KPMG etc. presentations are all unique.
What if there was a way to ensure you knew how to craft firm-specific presentations for any interview you walked into?
In PowerPoint for Consulting, we dedicated an entire module to firm specific presentation styles, looking at a variety of firms and what makes their presentations tick.
This is what PowerPoint for Consulting is all about. We've been working on it for months, looking at PowerPoint from every angle imaginable and making sure we have everything covered.
Knowing the PowerPoint basics is one thing, but creating a presentation that will impress the CEO of a Fortune 500 company is something else altogether.
In consulting, the presentation is usually the culmination of hours upon hours of research and analysis. It's where your client, usually a world leader in business, hears the insights you've derived in response to the business problem they were faced with - and it's where they decide whether or not you and your firm was worth all the money you charged them.
With all that on the line, no firm with any sense wants to dedicate excessive amounts of staff power to coddling you as you compile PowerPoint presentations. Instead, they want you to hit the ground running and start earning your paycheck right away.
Wouldn't it be great if you could ensure you had the skills they're looking for? That's why we made PowerPoint for Consulting:
- 30 lessons
- 6 modules
- 6 expert videos
- Over 7 and a half hours of video teaching
- Homework
- A DIY written case
- And more!
As a special bonus for you, as part of the expert video series, we film Jenny Rae as she builds a PowerPoint presentation on paper, showing you that you can build a presentation in around an hour.
As you go through each of the lessons in PowerPoint for Consulting, you'll watch as the entire process is broken down into easy and manageable portions. Not only is PowerPoint for Consulting incredibly educational, it also removes a ton of insecurity and anxiety from the application and new hire process.
If you're a serious consulting candidate, you already have a stellar background, demonstrated leadership potential, unbelievable quant skills and a stack of other things in your favor. In fact, you're probably naturally talented at a lot of things most people find really difficult. The fact is, PowerPoint skills shouldn't hold you back. Unfortunately, more people than we'd like get tripped up by PowerPoint every single year.
This is why we created PowerPoint for Consulting. Once you complete it, you'll be ready to to tackle any consulting presentation head on.
Available for just 1 week, it closes this Friday at 11:59 PM PST. You don't have a lot of time, so get PowerPoint for Consulting today!