Consulting Club

“Tell Me About Yourself”

Alumni Advise Business Students

Written by Breana Noble

“Tell me about yourself.”

“What are your strengths? Your weaknesses?”

“Why are you the best candidate for this position?”

“How would you calculate the annual carbon emission from electric versus gas vehicles in the EU?”

Uh…. Wasn’t expecting that in the interview.

That last question is an actual case posed to an interviewee looking for a job at McKinsey & Company, one of the three largest business consulting firms in the country, according to jobs and recruiting website Glassdoor. It is for questions like that that the Management and Consulting Club is looking to train students interested in consulting and critical thinking. And a large component of this is working with Hillsdale College alumni who are already in the field.

“We’ve had six alumni that have reached out and have offered their own services to help develop current students with these skills,” club president and senior Mark LaPrairie said. “Hillsdale has a lot of good thinkers.”

Scott Keenan, ’07, a consultant for Boston Consulting Group, originally brought the idea for the new club to Career Services. It was approved by the Student Federation in March.

Consultants advise businesses and organizations on their decisions, providing an independent perspective on the situation. Vice president of operations and senior Kevin Ambrose trained with Keenan and Career Services while interviewing with McKinsey & Company. He’ll be working there after graduation.

“If you don’t have the support network, it’s very difficult to get a job in this business,” Ambrose said.

Consulting firms normally visit and recruit from Ivy League institutions, but Hillsdale has garnered some attention as well. Representatives from McKinsey have come to campus and spoken with students like Ambrose.

“Students at Hillsdale are gifted, extremely bright, and have learned how to think,” Keenan said. “The long-term goal here is to develop relationships that will lead to opportunities for students.”

The consulting club’s leadership team said the alumni have already provided invaluable advice on the construction of the organization as well as on pursuing the executive team members’ own career paths.

“Hillsdale alums want to help out and give back,” said junior Peter Staab, vice president of relations for the club. “This is an area alumni in consulting know a lot about and know well, so this is a way they can be a great value to students.”

Keenan said he also hopes that connecting with various consulting firms will allow the club to take trips and tour the businesses. This would give members a better grasp of the consulting field, a better understanding of the differences between the companies, and help members develop relationships with those in the field.

Of course, the club is not just for business majors or those interested in consulting. Keenan himself was a chemistry major and economics minor who liked consulting because it combined his niche for attention to detail in his chemistry major with the big-picture ideas of macroeconomics. Likewise, Staab is a biology major.

“I like biology, but I don’t want to be a doctor,” Staab said. “That’s an analytical field, and consulting is a way you can apply that education.”

The business includes all sorts of interests, from environmental to political consulting. However, LaPrairie, who doesn’t plan to go into business consulting at all, commented on the value of training to think through questions and problems regardless of one’s career path.

“I’ve been asked case-study like questions or questions that are very broad [where] they ask you to give a numerical estimate,” LaPrairie said. “They’re looking at the way you think, the way you approach the problems.”

Keenan agreed: “Doing this practice of solving a business case is really just problem solving. I can’t think of a class you can do this type of brain work, which is really valuable for any life decision.


Breana NobleBreana Noble, ’18, is a student from Michigan studying American studies and journalism. She is a member of the Dow Journalism Program; is an assistant news editor for Hillsdale’s school newspaper, the Collegian, and has interned at Newsmax Media in Washington, D.C. through the National Journalism Center.