SLAP ME WITH REALITY OF GETTING INTO STRATEGY CONSULTING - GENMAN - FOUNDER OFFICE
Need some real gyaan from seniors here.
Background - Built a media/entertainment company in college, was COO there, scaled to 56 members Team with actual growth and revenue numbers. Few startup internships in business ops, plus decent PORs like IEEE, Placecom, incubation cell.
Graduated in 2025, dropped my on-campus offer due to personal reasons and taking one more drop because I feel now is the right time for MBA next year. In this 2 year period I have been building my own MVP, will launch after CAT.
My long term interest is clearly in building / entrepreneurship, but for placements I'm only looking at Consulting and GenMan roles. I can code really well, have experience in talent management, marketing, COO / business ops, and I'm decent in maths, stats, data science.
So my main question is - In interviews how do I display myself as someone who is really interested in startups but is open for consulting / genman roles only? I don't want to sound confused or like I'm keeping options open randomly.
What should I expect in such interviews and what should I actually prep? Like before interview, after interview, before joining b-school, after joining, before SIP, before final placements?
If anyone from FMS / IIMs / XLRI with a similar startup + consulting mix has cracked it, please share how you framed your story.
TLDR - GEM CSE 91/96/77, fresher with startup COO exp (56 member team) + MVP building in gap. Wants to position as startup guy but targeting only Consulting/GenMan for placements. What to expect and how to prep for interviews?
With a fresher + 2 year gap profile, how realistic is strategy consulting from colleges like IIM I/S/M/U? Is MBB even on the table or is it mostly Big4 / Tier-2? Please roast if needed, but give me the real picture.
What should I focus on now? Like before interview, after interview, before joining b-school, after joining, before SIP and before final placements?
One more thing - I'm building 2 separate MVPs which are actually step 1 & 2 for a bigger ecosystem play I want to build in 5-6 years. Can't merge them now but they will make sense later.
Please roast if needed, but give me the real picture.
Profile - 91/96/77 [8.5 CGPA] - GEM, CSE, grad 2025. - Unreputed Shit Engg College
Realistically IIM A/B is out, target is FMS / IIM C / IIM L / XLRI but ideal/realistic as per my profile is IIM Indore / Shillong / Mumbai / Udaipur + SIBM.