The Qualities That Set Great Consultants Apart

What elite consulting firms are quietly screening for beyond resumes, frameworks, and raw IQ.

By Jay Kang

4 min read

May 28th, 2025

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As of 2025, top consulting firms like BCG, McKinsey, and Bain have been reported to have <1% offer rates. Being a structured thinker, an analytical problem solver, and having strong quantitative and qualitative skills are now table stakes, and increasingly, firms are starting to use online screening tests and highly targeted interview questions to figure out what gifts and natural abilities predict long term success at the job. The Act One team interviewed dozens of consultants, including 20+ partners at top-tier consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Oliver Wyman to figure out what non-obvious gifts you have to have if you want to succeed. We found three common gifts that you must have.

Gift 1: Intellectual Curiosity

Intellectual Curiosity was consistently mentioned by partners at MBB firms as one of the most important natural gifts that the best consultants have - but what exactly is it?. A partner at Bain describes being Intellectually Curious as being “open to the 1%” – a mindset where you are recognizing that even if you're 99% sure you're right about something, there's still a small chance you might be wrong. Put differently, a senior partner at BCG described Intellectual Curiosity as the gift of being obsessed not just with what is happening in the world, but why they are happening the way that they are. In other words, outstanding management consultants don’t just find the right answer to a complex business problem - they understand the why.

Gift 2: Empathy

Conducting excellent analysis, crafting gorgeous slides, and nailing the presentation may win you applause within your team, but is only half of the battle in consulting. The other half rarely gets talked about on college campuses: client “buy-in”. Getting a client not just to understand your recommendation, but to believe in it—to own it—is just as difficult, and arguably more so, than crafting the perfect pitch.

The truth is, clients don’t want you to solve their problems for them; they want you to solve their problems with them. The quickest way to sabotage a client relationship (and their buy-in) is to walk into their office in a suit that is sharper than theirs, a watch that should be in a vault, and a subtle “I know better than you” kind of attitude.

Rather, the best consultants master a skill not talked about in blog posts: empathy. They make their clients feel heard, respected, and as if you completely understand their pain points. They speak not just to the issue, but the underlying insecurities beneath it. This isn’t just professionalism or some kind of strategic mind game - it’s a therapeutic skillset: asking thoughtful questions, actively listening, and teasing out unspoken tensions that may be more important than the spoken ones. It’s about reading the room and then reading between the lines.

However, this is much easier said than done, particularly when there are multiple client stakeholders.

As one Deloitte partner shared with the Act One team, it’s common to walk into a client organization and find that various departments are quietly (or not-so-quietly) pulling in opposite directions. The sales team may be calling for aggressive expansion while operations is begging for a breather. Finance wants predictability. Marketing wants boldness.

Navigating the complex relationships between various stakeholders to get collective “buy-in” is not only important; it is critical to client success. Understanding each stakeholder’s underlying motivations, fears, and ambitions becomes the consultant’s compass. Forging alignment across those fractured lines is the difference between a strategy that sits in a slide deck and one that actually gets implemented.

Gift 3: Thought Leadership

While all first-year analysts are expected to deliver high-quality analysis and flawless execution of the work assigned to them, the top performers distinguish themselves in a very different way: they become thoughtful contributors. In fact, the standout, top 10% analyst often isn’t waiting to be assigned work at all—they’re actively shaping the direction of the team’s thinking. This is known as thought leadership.

For early-career consultants, thought leadership means contributing meaningfully to both internal and client-facing discussions. It’s not about having all the answers. It’s about bringing sharp, original perspectives that don’t just fill up silence, but move the conversation forward.

As one Bain partner shared with the Act One team, analysts who consistently generate unique insights during brainstorming sessions are often the ones who show early signs of partner potential. The reason is simple: they’re already thinking beyond the executional level and engaging at the level of strategy and innovation.

Given the nature of the term, thought leadership has two dimensions: thought and leadership. The first is the ability to identify differentiated ideas (the “thought”)—to see something others might have missed. That’s no small task, especially when you’re new to the field and still building your business acumen. The second dimension, the “leadership”, is often more decisive. Many junior consultants have strong ideas—but they hesitate to voice them. There’s a natural reluctance to speak up in high-stakes meetings, particularly when surrounded by more senior colleagues or partners. The fear of being wrong, or of overstepping, can silence even the best instincts. And yet, in practice, partners welcome fresh thinking—especially when it’s presented thoughtfully and grounded in logic. Often, the newest person in the room has the clearest view, precisely because they bring a different lens. The consultants who rise fastest are those who combine intellectual clarity with the confidence to contribute. Thought leadership, at its core, is not just about having a point of view—it’s about having the conviction to share it. The best consultants aren’t defined by their alma mater or how quickly they can crack a case. They’re defined by how they think, how they listen, and whether they’re brave enough to speak when it matters. These gifts—curiosity, empathy, and thought leadership—aren’t easily found on a résumé. But they’re what separate those who simply “do the job” from those who change the trajectory of a client’s future. If you want to stand out, don’t just ask whether you’re qualified—ask whether you’re equipped with the qualities that truly make a difference.