LBS MiM to Consulting Offers: Andrew on London Business School

Updated 2026/10/16

My guest today is Andrew, an LBS MiM graduate. With no full-time work experience, he collected several consulting offers before he graduated, including Arthur D Little in the UK and Roland Berger in Dubai. Here is how he did it.

About the LBS MiM (London Business School Masters in Management)

First, a quick look at Andrew’s school: the MiM (Masters in Management) at LBS (London Business School). LBS has a big name in Europe. It has long been considered the top business school on the continent and one of the 10 strongest business schools in the world, and the LBS MiM has sat in the top three of the QS Masters in Management rankings for years.

Job hunting is a big part of life in the LBS MiM, and employment results are strong every year, with plenty of offers in consulting and in other industries such as finance. LBS has a lot of career resources. The careers office is well regarded and runs mock interviews and alumni networking, and classmates stick together, often forming groups to run mocks and swap interview stories. “Work hard, play hard!” sums up the culture well: people take their careers seriously and also know how to have fun.

Job hunting as an international student

What can you do during your studies to improve your chances of staying in the UK to work?

Start early. That matters most. In the UK job market, the biggest factor is how you write your CV (how you describe your experience), and cover letters carry real weight too. A master’s from overseas lasts only one year, which makes early preparation even more important. If you can get most of your application materials ready two to four months before you arrive in the UK, you can start networking, doing coffee chats, and preparing for interviews as soon as you land.

The key to UK job hunting: coffee chats, connections and networking

Coffee chats, connections and networking mean roughly the same thing. They raise the odds that someone sees your profile, and they also help you understand the company, so you can tailor your application materials and interview answers.

A coffee chat tells you whether your personality and background fit the company’s culture and needs. In the interview, you can then bring out your strengths and show why the company should want you. And don’t forget to push for an internal referral!

When should you start planning?

Take a one-year UK master’s as an example (you arrive in August or September and graduate between June and September of the following year):

June to July

• Phase 1: Learn about consulting and what a case interview is
• Phase 2: Research firms (who they are and what each specializes in), build up connections, and start practicing cases

July to August

• Phase 3: Tailor your application materials (resume and cover letter), and keep practicing case interviews and networking

September onward

The first round of applications each year opens around September, and consulting firms open their applications one after another. Many large firms do most of their hiring between September and December, so don’t miss that window. Some firms recruit only once a year, so have your company list ready before September!

Right after you apply, you’ll get all kinds of online tests or video interviews. First-round interview invitations arrive in early to mid October, and final rounds happen in November and December.

Many consulting firms hire on a rolling basis, so you can apply as soon as you’re ready (some firms are still recruiting in January, February and March of the following year). Some firms start by hiring through referrals or internal application and referral channels, which is another reason networking matters!

Once interview invitations arrive…

• Phase 4: Keep practicing your fit questions, do mock interviews with experienced people, and finish your case preparation

How do you choose the right consulting firm?

• Phase 5: Once the offers come in, you can start choosing the firm that suits you!

I personally care most about three things:

1. Culture fit: The interviews show you whether you’d get along with the people in that office and whether what they care about matches what you care about. Each consulting firm has its own priorities around work-life balance and professional development, for example where they go on company trips, what learning opportunities they offer, whether people leave early on Fridays, and how often colleagues go out for drinks or dinner.
2. Long-term development: Each firm has its own office locations and geographic focus. I care a lot about chances to relocate and work on international projects, and coffee chats are where you learn how often people travel and what kinds of clients they serve.
3. The firm’s specialization: Every consulting firm has its own strengths. Learn them before you apply, and once you have an offer, make sure that’s the work you want to do. The projects you do in consulting shape the direction and industry of your exit, so if you already have an industry or location you want to exit into, work backward from it to decide what opportunities you want from your consulting years.

What challenges did you face in the job search, and how did you overcome them?

My biggest challenge, and the area where I improved most, was expressing my thinking concisely and precisely. This matters a lot in consulting interviews. In both fit questions and cases, make sure you answer the question the interviewer actually asked. A method that works well: always give your answer first, then explain your reasoning. This only comes with constant practice and real interviews, and every time you review a session you can ask yourself whether you got your ideas across accurately and effectively.

Reviewing: I pay close attention to the feedback people give me. That’s also why a mock case interview partner needs to know how to do a case and be able to give you useful feedback. Find several partners so you hear different opinions.

My biggest takeaway: for your first 20 cases, you only need about two coaches who really understand cases. They can teach you how it’s done efficiently. From case 20 onward, gradually bring in more case partners, maybe 5 to 7 experienced ones (practice only with MBAs or people who have already worked in consulting).

(There’s no fixed number of cases you have to practice. Knowing your own pace and how comfortable you are matters most.)

Questions about management consulting

What traits do consulting firms look for?

Most entry-level roles don’t require a particular background or experience, which means you have to show the traits they want.

1. Interpersonal skills: leadership and teamwork experience, whether you communicate effectively and articulate clearly, and your presentation skills (how you get your ideas across)
2. Problem-solving skills: whether you can break a problem down, understand how to prioritize the possible approaches, and correctly identify which one gets at the core of the problem
3. Asking good questions: in the case and throughout the interview, can you ask questions that help solve the problem and show you understand the situation? For example, when I ask the interviewer questions at the end, I never open with the question itself. I say something like: “I understand our firm has XXX in this market. Within your plans, I’d like to ask…” Asking this way shows I understand the issue and lets them know I thought before asking.

What does the consulting interview process look like?

Beyond networking to keep learning about firms, applying on time, and tailoring your materials, what matters most is interview preparation. Consulting interviews have two focus areas: fit questions and the case interview.

Most consulting interviews have three parts:

• Fit questions (behavioral questions): Why London? Why consulting? CV questions? Experience-based questions?
• Case interview
• 5 to 10 minutes for your questions to the interviewer

Did you consider any industries besides consulting?

I applied to many strategy graduate programs across different industries. What I learned is that preparing for consulting interviews (behavioral and case) made it much easier to handle the interview stages at multinationals in all kinds of industries. Consulting prep pairs well with applications to these companies’ graduate programs!

Life abroad and fitting in

How did you fit in and build connections with local students?

Join different groups and organizations. Once you settle on a career direction, there are lots of groups you can join where people share your interests, and you’ll meet many like-minded friends.

Try different interests: there are plenty of extracurricular clubs, and as long as you’re open to new things you can join any of them, whether it’s ball sports, cultural clubs (a Taiwanese student can join the Korean or Japanese club, for example) or quieter hobbies. If you stay curious, you’ll find your place.

What matters is whether you’re open to taking these opportunities.

How did you improve for interviews in English, and what strategies and resources did you use?

I did mock interview after mock interview to strengthen what I said in interviews, and practicing cases also improved my spoken English a lot. After every session I reviewed the feedback to see what I hadn’t done well before and still hadn’t fixed, and what I used to do badly but had improved.

Studying in the LBS MiM (academics, resources, classmates)

Which LBS resources helped your career most?

1. The alumni network and chances to connect with MBA students: school life overlaps a lot with the MBAs, so there are many ways (clubs, classes, trips) to get to know them. Through these I learned about their backgrounds, how they reached their goals, and what advice they had for people like us just starting our careers.
2. Career Centre: the Career Centre is split into specialist teams, such as Banking, Consulting and Corporate, each with its own professionals giving guidance. What stands out is that we can book time with alumni or MBA students on the portal to get CV edits, learn about their companies, do mock interviews, or even talk through offer decisions. Within a single week I could connect with many different people through the portal. The school also regularly invites companies to run seasonal recruiting events, where you can connect with company staff and learn their hiring timeline, process and requirements. It also holds themed career fairs, each with a dozen or more companies, so you can meet people from many firms at once. All of this helps a lot, both for getting to know a company and for landing interviews.
3. The LBS networking culture: my biggest takeaway is how much networking and connections matter. Day to day, or when I’m job hunting, the LBS background gives me something to talk about with all kinds of people and opens doors to coffee chats.

Academics in the LBS MiM

What’s distinctive about LBS is that almost every course is case based and built around discussing real cases. There’s a lot of group work, so I got to know many people. In electives, many classmates come from other programs, including experienced EMBA and MBA students. That’s a lot like the workplace, where you work with people from different backgrounds, and it’s what makes the academic experience at LBS special.

LBS classes are also very interactive. As at American business schools, everyone has a name card in front of them. Professors enjoy interacting with students and value their views, so in class we hear how people from different backgrounds think.

The LBS MiM has about 270 students split into three sections. You take core courses with your own section, so you get to know them better.

Advice for younger students

What was the best decision you made in college?

Putting real effort into my LinkedIn profile. It helped me get into my master’s program and also helped me join different student organizations.

LinkedIn helped me more than anything else in college. It helped me network and reach out to different people, and it let me see the backgrounds and past experience of people who had already reached the goals I had, which made it clearer where I should put my effort.

It let me build a professional profile and a wide range of connections, and in the end it showed me the different paths that could get me to my goal.

I wrote a LinkedIn guide you can read here 👉🏻 6 steps to a professional LinkedIn profile that gets HR to reach out to you

Takeaways for anyone about to start grad school

An MBA student once told me: “Everyone has their own priorities in life, but if you understand yours before you enter a new environment, you’ll spend less time and effort figuring things out by trial and error.”

Looking back on LBS, that advice helped me a great deal. Business school throws so many opportunities at you, and your time gets cut into separate blocks. If you know how you rank your time, you can face each challenge calmly and be ready before the opportunity arrives.

So my takeaway is this: know your priorities clearly. That lets you prepare without rushing and leave yourself enough time.

Final thoughts

Andrew was a speaker at an online talk I hosted on UK MiM programs in business (Masters in Management, LSE and LBS). Watch the YouTube recording of the talk (in Chinese) for more perspectives!

Finally, if you’d like more tailored advice, feel free to reach out to Andrew directly. You can find him on LinkedIn and Instagram!