How to Write a Resume for a Strategy Consultant

Introduction

Strategy consultants help organizations solve complex business problems, identify growth opportunities, and make high-stakes decisions. Whether you work in a top-tier consulting firm, a boutique strategy shop, or an in-house corporate strategy team, your resume must prove that you can think analytically, communicate clearly, and deliver measurable impact.

A generic business resume will not stand out in this field. Recruiters and partners scan strategy consultant resumes quickly, looking for evidence of structured thinking, strong academics, leadership, and quantifiable achievements. A tailored, strategically written resume is your first case study—demonstrating your ability to synthesize information, prioritize what matters, and present it in a clear, client-ready format.

Key Skills for a Strategy Consultant Resume

Your skills section should reinforce the capabilities that matter most in strategy consulting. Combine hard (technical) skills with soft (consulting) skills that show you can drive change with senior stakeholders.

Core Hard Skills

• Strategic analysis and planning
• Market sizing and growth forecasting
• Financial modeling (e.g., DCF, NPV, scenario analysis)
• Data analysis and visualization (Excel, Power BI, Tableau)
• Competitive and industry analysis (Porter’s Five Forces, SWOT, PESTLE)
• Business case development
• Operating model and organizational design
• Cost reduction and efficiency analysis
• Pricing strategy and profitability analysis
• Project management and PMO support

Consulting and Soft Skills

• Structured problem-solving
• Hypothesis-driven thinking
• Stakeholder management and client relationship building
• Executive-level communication and presentation
• Storytelling with data
• Facilitation and workshop leadership
• Change management and influence without authority
• Team leadership and collaboration
• Adaptability in ambiguous environments
• Time management and prioritization under pressure

Formatting Tips for a Strategy Consultant Resume

Strategy consulting firms and corporate strategy teams expect resumes that are polished, concise, and easy to scan. Think of your resume as a one-page executive summary of your professional story.

Overall Layout

• Length: Aim for one page if you have under 8–10 years of experience; two pages only for seasoned professionals with extensive roles or publications.
• Margins and spacing: Use 0.5–1 inch margins and consistent spacing between sections. White space improves readability.
• Sections: Common sections include Header, Summary, Key Skills, Professional Experience, Education, and Optional (Certifications, Publications, Leadership, Languages).

Fonts and Style

• Use clean, professional fonts such as Calibri, Arial, Garamond, or Times New Roman.
• Font size: 10–12 pt for body text; 12–14 pt for section headings.
• Use bold and italics sparingly to highlight company names, job titles, and key results.
• Avoid graphics, photos, and complex layouts; applicant tracking systems (ATS) and consulting recruiters prefer simple, text-based formats.

Header

Your header should immediately present your identity and contact information in a clean, professional way.

• Full name (slightly larger font)
• City, State (or City, Country for international roles)
• Phone number and professional email address
• LinkedIn profile URL (customized) and optional portfolio or website if relevant

Professional Summary

Include a 2–4 line summary that positions you clearly as a strategy professional. Tailor it to your target role and highlight your value proposition.

Example: “Strategy consultant with 5+ years of experience advising Fortune 500 clients in technology and financial services on growth strategy, market entry, and cost optimization. Proven track record leading cross-functional teams, building financial models, and delivering recommendations to C-level executives.”

Professional Experience

List your roles in reverse chronological order. Each role should tell a concise story of impact, not just responsibilities.

• Include company name, role title, location, and dates (month/year).
• Use 3–6 bullet points per role, each starting with an action verb.
• Focus on achievements and outcomes, not just tasks.
• Quantify impact wherever possible (revenue, cost savings, time saved, process improvements).

Education

• List degrees in reverse chronological order (MBA, Master’s, Bachelor’s).
• Include institution, degree, major, graduation year (or expected), and honors.
• Add relevant coursework (e.g., Corporate Strategy, Finance, Data Analytics) if you are early in your career.
• Highlight GMAT/GRE scores only if strong and relevant to top-tier consulting applications.

Highlighting Case Work and Project Experience

Strategy consulting is project-based. Your resume should showcase the types of cases you have worked on and the value you delivered. Even if you are not yet in consulting, you can frame your experience like case work.

Structuring Project-Based Bullets

Use a simple “situation–action–result” structure to describe your projects. Emphasize the business problem, your analytical approach, and the measurable outcome.

• Situation: Briefly describe the client or business context and the strategic challenge.
• Action: Explain your specific contributions (analysis, modeling, workshops, recommendations).
• Result: Quantify the impact (e.g., revenue growth, cost reduction, improved margin, higher NPS).

Example bullet: “Led market entry assessment for a $2B consumer goods client, conducting market sizing for 5 target countries and building a 3-year P&L model, resulting in a prioritized entry roadmap projected to increase regional revenue by 18%.”

Including Non-Consulting Experience as “Strategy” Work

If you come from industry (e.g., finance, operations, marketing), frame your experience around strategic outcomes:

• Highlight initiatives where you influenced long-term direction, not just day-to-day operations.
• Show how you analyzed data to inform decisions (pricing changes, product launches, process redesigns).
• Emphasize cross-functional projects, executive presentations, and decision support work.
• Group key strategic projects under a “Selected Strategic Projects” subsection if needed.

Showcasing Industry and Functional Focus

Strategy roles often value depth in specific industries or functions. Reflect this clearly in your bullets:

• Industry: Technology, healthcare, financial services, consumer goods, energy, public sector.
• Functional: Corporate strategy, M&A, digital transformation, pricing, operations, customer strategy.

Use consistent wording (e.g., “growth strategy,” “operational efficiency,” “digital transformation”) to align with job descriptions and help ATS systems recognize relevant keywords.

Demonstrating Analytical Rigor and Executive Communication

Strategy consultants must combine deep analytical rigor with the ability to communicate simply to senior leaders. Your resume should show both sides: quantitative capability and executive presence.

Proving Analytical Strength

• Highlight quantitative projects: financial models, market sizing, forecasting, performance dashboards.
• Mention tools and methods: advanced Excel, SQL, Python/R (if applicable), regression analysis, sensitivity analysis.
• Show how your analysis changed decisions or strategy, not just that you “built a model.”
• Include academic or research work that demonstrates strong analytical skills (thesis, capstone, case competitions).

Showcasing Executive and Client Communication

• Include bullets about presenting to C-level executives, boards, or senior leadership teams.
• Mention creation of “executive-ready” PowerPoint decks, strategy documents, or board materials.
• Highlight facilitation of workshops, steering committees, or stakeholder interviews.
• Show examples where your recommendations were adopted or directly influenced strategic decisions.

Leadership and Influence

• Demonstrate how you led teams (formal or informal), mentored juniors, or coordinated cross-functional workstreams.
• Include leadership roles in student organizations, professional associations, or community initiatives.
• Use verbs like “led,” “drove,” “orchestrated,” “facilitated,” and “influenced” to emphasize leadership.

Tailoring Your Strategy Consultant Resume to Specific Roles

Strategy consulting roles vary by firm, level, and industry focus. Customizing your resume to each job description significantly increases your chances of getting interviews.

Analyze the Job Description

• Highlight recurring keywords (e.g., “growth strategy,” “M&A,” “digital transformation,” “pricing”).
• Identify the primary industry focus (e.g., healthcare, technology, public sector) and functional focus.
• Note level-specific expectations (e.g., “manage workstreams” vs. “own client relationships” vs. “drive sales”).

Align Your Summary and Skills

• Mirror the language in the job description in your summary and skills section.
• Move the most relevant skills to the top of your skills list.
• If the role emphasizes a particular domain (e.g., digital, analytics, sustainability), ensure that domain appears clearly in your summary.

Prioritize Relevant Experience

• Reorder bullets under each role to lead with the most relevant projects.
• Rename internal projects (while preserving confidentiality) using language that matches the job’s focus.
• Emphasize similar client types or industries to those mentioned in the posting.
• For corporate strategy roles, highlight internal stakeholder engagement and long-range planning experience.

Optimize for ATS and Human Readers

• Include exact phrases from the job description where they genuinely apply to your experience.
• Avoid keyword stuffing; integrate terms naturally into bullets and your summary.
• Keep formatting simple so ATS systems can parse your resume accurately.

Common Mistakes in Strategy Consultant Resumes

Even strong candidates lose out due to avoidable resume errors. Avoid these pitfalls to present yourself as a polished, consulting-ready professional.

Being Vague and Not Quantifying Impact

• Avoid generic bullets like “Responsible for strategic projects” or “Worked on various analyses.”
• Always ask: “So what?” and add the business outcome.
• Use metrics: revenue uplift, cost savings, margin improvement, time saved, process efficiency, adoption rates.

Overloading with Jargon and Internal Language

• Remove internal project names, acronyms, and proprietary terms that outsiders will not understand.
• Translate internal initiatives into clear, market-recognized language (e.g., “global pricing optimization program” instead of “Project Phoenix”).
• Write bullets so that a recruiter unfamiliar with your company can still understand your impact.

Listing Tasks Instead of Outcomes

• Do not just say you “created PowerPoint decks” or “conducted interviews.”
• Explain why you did those tasks and what decisions they enabled.
• Focus on contributions and results, not just activities.

Unclear Career Narrative

• A disjointed resume with unrelated roles and no clear strategy theme can confuse recruiters.
• Use your summary and bullet framing to connect your experiences to strategy, analysis, and leadership.
• Remove or minimize outdated or irrelevant roles that do not support your target path.

Typos, Inconsistencies, and Poor Formatting

• Strategy consulting is detail-oriented; even small errors can be red flags.
• Ensure consistent date formats, bullet styles, tense, and punctuation.
• Proofread multiple times and, if possible, have someone else review.

Ignoring Level Expectations

• Entry-level and analyst roles should emphasize analytical skills, academics, and case competitions.
• Consultant and manager roles should emphasize project leadership, client management, and business impact.
• Senior manager and director roles should demonstrate thought leadership, practice development, and revenue generation.

A strong strategy consultant resume is itself a strategic document: focused, evidence-based, and outcome-oriented. By highlighting your analytical rigor, strategic thinking, and ability to influence senior stakeholders—and by tailoring your content to each opportunity—you significantly increase your chances of landing interviews with top consulting firms and corporate strategy teams.