Heads-up, Boston Consulting Group: I might be sending over my résumé.
That's because after using a job simulation tool for a short time, I have a better sense of what working at the prestigious consulting firm might be like.
The free online tool I used is produced by a San Francisco company called Forage. It's designed to give college students and others just starting out a sense of what they'd be doing if they landed a job at a consulting firm like BCG or KPMG, big banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan, and retailers like Lululemon.
That could come in handy because the job market has slowed from the frenzied hiring we saw a couple of years ago. Now, given it might take longer to land a role, it makes sense to do what you can to ensure it's a good fit.
Tom Brunskill is a cofounder of Forage and now serves as its VP and general manager after education company EAB acquired it in April. He told Business Insider that, growing up in a small town in Australia, he didn't come from a line of bankers, lawyers, or accountants. That made his decision to become a corporate lawyer somewhat arbitrary, he said.
"I used 'Boston Legal' and 'Suits' as my main source of inspiration for choosing a career," Brunskill said.
Forage, he said, is designed to address what he sees as a big problem: High schools and universities often don't do an adequate job equipping young people with the skills, knowledge, resources, or confidence to find careers that align with their abilities and interests.
In the roughly 90 minutes I spent using Forage, the tool made me do some work. No surprise, given it was consulting, it involved producing slides. The tool also made me think like a consultant — or at least try to.
Instead of reading others' reviews of what it's like to work at the firm, I watched short videos from BCG consultants, read articles they'd written, and tackled those decks.
Here's what it was like: