MBA Tips: How to Prepare for Networking Events

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Attending networking events is one of the most demoralizing aspects of getting your MBA.  You’ll find yourself standing in a circle sucking up to employees from the company you want to work for.  You’ll ask flattering questions and beg people for their business cards.  And after the event, you’ll write several emails thanking Continue Reading >>

Top Five Consulting Case Interview Traps

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One of the most daunting aspects of the MBA experience is sitting though a case interview.  Anyone in business school recruiting for a consulting or strategy role must go through this rite of passage before getting one of these coveted positions.  The case interviewers have full control in this setting: while some may choose to go ...

MBA Tips: How to Prepare Harvard Business School Cases

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While reading and preparing cases is a significant part of any business school experience, there isn’t always a concrete result to your work.  You could easily invest hours preparing a case and have nothing to say about it during the class discussion.  It’s because of this ambiguous return on investment that many people choose Continue Reading >>

How to Use VLOOKUP

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For most Excel users, VLOOKUP is the first complex formula they learn.  Performing a lookup is an extremely valuable function for any situation where you’re dealing with large data sets.  While the VLOOKUP function itself has become somewhat dated, as there are other better alternatives such as INDEX MATCH, it is still important to learn ...

Funny Consulting Videos

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This first video is an old Deloitte ad.  The kid is definitely partner material.  And the questions he gives are only slightly worse than Deloitte's actual interview process.  😉 This next video was sent to me by one of my banking friends a few years ago.  I have to say, having been in consulting for several ... Continue Reading >>

Excel Template: MBA Excel Homework Tracker

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Free Excel Template Download When I started as an MBA student at UCLA Anderson, I was surprised and eventually overwhelmed by the number of responsibilities I had to manage.  Multi-tasking was something I had always considered a skill of mine, but I soon realized that I couldn’t track all of my tasks just by memory. For this ...

MBA Course Grading Curve at UCLA Anderson

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One of the least pleasant aspects of going back to get your MBA is being graded on your work again.  While we’ve all received feedback in the workplace already, it’s still a bit unsettling to be evaluated in an academic environment.  The rules are sometimes opaque, you don’t know how tough your competition will be, ...

Tutorial: How to Decide Which Excel Lookup Formula to Use

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The Complete Guide to Excel Lookup Formulas One of the most common tasks in Excel is the process of looking up specific values within a data set.  In a simple database, this process would be completed by writing a “query” for a specified “table.”  For Excel, you complete this task by using a “formula,” with specific ...

How Smaller Consulting Firms Foster Talent

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When people think about consulting as a career and are deciding between which firms to pursue, they typically prioritize a consulting firm's brand.  Similar to the process of applying to business school, candidates want a company that will look great on their resume and support their careers long term.  While brand is obviously an important ...