Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: July 7, 2026

 

A strong Strategy& resume is a one-page document that front-loads your academic record, quantifies the impact of your work and leadership, and proves you can structure problems the way a strategy consultant does. This guide breaks down exactly what Strategy& looks for, how to format and write each section, and the mistakes that get candidates screened out before a single interview.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

To land an interview at Strategy&, your resume needs a clean one-page format, a competitive GPA, and bullet points that show quantified results rather than responsibilities.

 

• Strategy& is the global strategy arm of PwC, formed in 2014 from the old Booz & Company

 

• Keep your resume to one page with five sections: header, education, work experience, leadership, and skills

 

• Aim for a GPA of 3.5 or higher, since Strategy& screens close to MBB standards

 

• Write every bullet as a strong action verb plus a measurable result

 

• A cover letter is optional for US roles but expected in several European offices

 

• The resume screen is the most competitive step, so most applicants are cut here before interviews

 

What Is Strategy& and Who Is This Resume Guide For?

 

Strategy& is the global strategy consulting business of PwC. It was formed in 2014 when PwC acquired Booz & Company, one of the oldest strategy firms in the world. Strategy& competes with McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, so it screens resumes with a similarly high bar.

 

The firm sits inside PwC's Advisory practice but recruits and brands itself separately from PwC's core consulting arm. Strategy& was formed on March 31, 2014 after PwC bought Booz & Company and was required to drop the Booz name.

 

Undergraduates and recent graduates typically join as Associates, then move up to Senior Associate, Manager, Director, and Partner along a defined career path. This guide is for anyone applying to that Associate track or to an experienced-hire role, whether through the career portal or a referral.

 

What Does Strategy& Look For in a Resume?

 

Strategy& looks for four things on your resume: a strong academic record, evidence of analytical problem-solving, leadership, and quantified impact. Recruiters spend only about 30 seconds on each resume during the first screen, so these signals need to be obvious at a glance.

 

Having interviewed and screened candidates at Bain, I can tell you the first pass is brutally fast. A recruiter scans your school, GPA, the names of the companies you have worked at, and your leadership roles, in roughly that order.

 

The firm states plainly that it wants an exceptional academic record from a leading institution, paired with skills it cannot teach quickly, like the discipline of a competitive athlete or the judgment built through real work experience.

 

• Academic record: your school, GPA, and any standardized test scores

 

• Problem-solving: evidence you can break messy problems into clear parts

 

• Leadership: roles where you owned an outcome and moved other people

 

• Impact: numbers that show what changed because of your work

 

These signals build on the fundamentals of any strong consulting resume, tuned for the higher bar that strategy firms apply.

 

How Should You Format a Strategy& Resume?

 

A Strategy& resume should be one page, in reverse chronological order, with five clear sections and a single-column layout that an applicant tracking system can read. Use a standard font like Arial or Calibri at 10 to 12 points and keep the formatting simple.

 

Your application runs through PwC's recruiting system, which uses an applicant tracking system to parse and rank resumes before a human reads them. Avoid tables, text boxes, columns, photos, and graphics, since these confuse the parser and can drop your consulting resume keywords from the scan.

 

Section	What to include	Placement
Header	Name, phone, professional email, city, and LinkedIn URL	Very top
Education	School, degree, graduation date, GPA, test scores, honors	Top for students
Work experience	Employer, title, dates, and quantified bullet points	Main body
Leadership and extracurriculars	Clubs, sports, volunteering, and side projects with impact	Below experience
Skills and additional	Languages, technical tools, and a short interests line	Bottom

 

Students with limited work history should place education above work experience. Experienced hires flip that order and lead with their professional roles.

 

How Do You Write Each Section of Your Strategy& Resume?

 

Write each section to answer one question fast: does this person have the academics, the analytical track record, and the leadership to do strategy work? Below is how to handle each of the five sections.

 

Header and contact details

 

Keep your header simple: full name, phone number, professional email, city, and a LinkedIn URL. Skip your full street address, a photo, and any objective statement, since none of these help and a photo can trip up the parser.

 

Education

 

For students and recent graduates, education sits at the top. List your university, degree, expected or actual graduation date, GPA, and any standardized test scores that strengthen your profile.

 

Include your GPA if it is 3.5 or higher and your SAT, ACT, GMAT, or GRE score if it is strong. If your overall GPA is dragged down by early coursework, list your major GPA or last-two-years GPA when those numbers are higher.

 

Recruiters at strategy firms read an upward trend as a sign that you learn fast. A line like "Major GPA: 3.8" next to a 3.4 cumulative tells a story that a single number cannot.

 

Work experience

 

This is where most of your resume should live. For each role, list the employer, your title, location, and dates, then write three to five bullet points underneath.

 

Lead each bullet with what you accomplished and the result, not your daily duties. Strategy& cares far more about the impact you had than the tasks you were assigned.

 

Leadership and extracurriculars

 

Do not skip this section. A dedicated leadership or extracurricular section is one of the easiest ways to show the initiative and team skills Strategy& values, especially if your work history is thin.

 

The firm openly says it looks for qualities beyond academics, such as the self-discipline of a competitive athlete or leadership built through campus roles. Treat these entries like work experience and write quantified bullets for them too.

 

Skills and additional information

 

Use the final section for languages, technical tools, and a short line of interests. Fluency in a major European language is a real asset at Strategy&, which staffs across global offices.

 

List concrete tools like Excel, SQL, Python, or Tableau rather than vague soft skills. A short interests line also gives your interviewer an easy, human opening question.

 

Getting every section right is hard to do alone. If your resume is not landing interviews, my resume review and editing service includes unlimited revisions and a 24-hour turnaround to help you present the strongest possible application.

 

How Do You Write Strong Resume Bullet Points for Strategy&?

 

Write every bullet as a strong action verb, the action you took, and a quantified result. The formula is simple: verb plus task plus measurable impact, ideally with a percentage, dollar figure, or other number.

 

Weak bullets describe responsibilities. Strong bullets describe outcomes. Compare these two versions of the same line.

 

• Weak: Responsible for managing social media accounts and creating content

 

• Strong: Grew the company Instagram following by 140% in six months by launching a weekly content calendar

 

The strong version names the result first, attaches a number, and shows how you did it. Start with sharp action verbs like built, led, launched, negotiated, or analyzed, and avoid filler openers like "responsible for" or "helped with."

 

If you do not have a clean number, estimate honestly and explain the basis. A defensible "reduced processing time by roughly 20%" beats a vague "improved the process" every time.

 

What GPA and Academic Record Does Strategy& Expect?

 

Strategy& does not publish a GPA cutoff, but competitive candidates typically have a GPA of 3.5 or higher. For the most selective Strategy& roles, the effective bar rises to around 3.6, closer to McKinsey, BCG, and Bain than to the broader Big Four practices.

 

As one of the Big Four strategy arms, alongside Deloitte's Monitor and EY-Parthenon, Strategy& screens academics more strictly than core Big Four consulting. A strong GPA from a quantitative major at a respected school carries the most weight.

 

Firm tier	Competitive GPA (2026)
MBB (McKinsey, BCG, Bain)	3.5 to 3.8 or higher
Strategy& and Big Four strategy (Monitor, EY-Parthenon)	3.5 and up, 3.6 for top roles
Big Four core consulting (PwC, Deloitte, EY, KPMG)	3.0 to 3.5

 

A lower number is not an automatic rejection. If your GPA falls below 3.5, you can still land consulting interviews with a lower GPA by leaning on a strong test score, a referral, or standout work experience.

 

Does Strategy& Require a Cover Letter?

 

Strategy& does not require a cover letter for its US roles, but several European offices do ask for one. Even where it is optional, a sharp cover letter can strengthen a borderline application and is occasionally read by your interviewer.

 

In the United States, Strategy& states that you are not required to submit a cover letter with your resume. In the United Kingdom you submit a CV and a personal statement, and offices in countries like the Netherlands ask for a CV, transcripts, and a cover letter.

 

When a cover letter is optional, write one anyway if you have a genuine, specific reason for choosing Strategy& over MBB. A persuasive, tailored Strategy& cover letter shows the firm you researched it and did not simply mass-apply.

 

Whichever region you apply in, expect an online assessment after you submit your application. Strategy& uses a cognitive and behavioral test, so a clean resume only gets you to the next gate, not past it.

 

What Are the Most Common Strategy& Resume Mistakes?

 

The most common Strategy& resume mistakes are listing duties instead of results, running longer than one page, burying your GPA, and using a cluttered template that breaks the applicant tracking system. Each one gives a fast-moving recruiter a reason to move on.

 

• Describing responsibilities instead of quantified outcomes

 

• Going over one page, especially as a student or recent graduate

 

• Hiding or omitting your GPA when it is competitive

 

• Using columns, tables, or graphics that confuse the ATS

 

• Reusing a generic resume instead of tailoring it to a strategy role

 

• Writing vague bullets with no numbers, like "improved efficiency" with no figure

 

Most of these are the same consulting resume mistakes that sink applications across every top firm, so fix them before you apply anywhere.

 

Tips to Make Your Strategy& Resume Stand Out

 

Tip #1: Tailor your resume to one office

 

Strategy& does not use a single global staffing model, so each office hires for itself. Name the office you are targeting and, where you can, connect your background to its industries or geography.

 

Tip #2: Mirror the language of strategy work

 

Use words that describe what consultants actually do, like structured, prioritized, sized, modeled, and synthesized. This signals that you already think in the firm's terms and helps you clear keyword-based screening.

 

Tip #3: Make your resume interview-ready

 

Your interviewer will likely open with the prompt walk me through your resume, so every line should be a story you can defend. Cut anything you cannot speak to for two minutes with specifics.

 

After the resume and assessment, you will face the Strategy& case interview, which is where most offers are won or lost.

 

If you want to learn case interviews quickly, my case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days.

 

A winning Strategy& resume is not about fancy formatting or buzzwords. It comes down to one page, a strong academic record, and bullet points that prove your impact with real numbers. Build that, tailor it to the office you want, and you give yourself the best possible shot at an interview.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is Strategy& and is it part of PwC?

 

Strategy& is the global strategy consulting business of PwC. It was created in 2014 when PwC acquired Booz & Company and rebranded it. The firm operates as a distinct strategy unit inside PwC's Advisory practice and competes directly with McKinsey, BCG, and Bain.

 

What GPA do you need for a Strategy& resume?

 

Strategy& does not publish an official GPA cutoff. Competitive candidates usually have a GPA of 3.5 or higher, and the bar rises to around 3.6 for the most selective roles. A lower GPA can still work if you have a strong test score, a referral, or standout experience.

 

Does Strategy& require a cover letter?

 

It depends on the region. Strategy& does not require a cover letter for its US roles, but several European offices ask for one as part of the application. Even when optional, a tailored cover letter can help a borderline candidate.

 

How long should a Strategy& resume be?

 

One page. Students, recent graduates, and most experienced hires should keep a Strategy& resume to a single page. Recruiters spend seconds on each resume, so a tight one-page document forces you to lead with your strongest points.

 

How hard is it to get an interview at Strategy&?

 

Very hard. Strategy& recruits at a level close to MBB, and the resume screen cuts most applicants before any interview. A clean one-page resume with a strong GPA and quantified bullets is what gets you past that first gate.

 

Can you get into Strategy& from a non-target school?

 

Yes, though it is harder. Strategy& recruits most heavily at leading universities, but candidates from a non-target school still break in with strong grades, relevant experience, and networking. A referral can make a meaningful difference when your school is not on the firm's core list.

 

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