Dutch Consulting CV 2026: Six Interviews, No Format

The missing Dutch consulting CV rules, stated plainly

Three things a reader wants and no Dutch page we could read supplies: a page count, a rule on photographs, and a required language for the document.

That is worth saying out loud, because the advice market fills the gap confidently. What we can say is what each firm publishes, and where the silence sits.

Notice the shape of that table. The firms publish process and plumbing. The document itself is where they go quiet. So the rational move for a candidate is to spend the preparation time on the process, which is published, and to make the CV correct rather than nationally styled.

A consulting CV built only from what the firms publish

Three of the queries this page was measured on asked for an example or a template. There is no Dutch consulting CV template to hand you, because no firm publishes one. There is something narrower and more defensible: the lines of the document that a published requirement actually decides.

Eight of them, each with the firm that wrote the rule.

Nothing in that table is a Dutch convention. It is the intersection of what the firms recruiting consultants in the Netherlands put in writing, which is a smaller and more reliable object than a national style guide.

What the content should show is a separate question, and one firm answers it. Gupta Strategists names what it looks for: a consultant who "is analytically sharp, performs well in a group and is eager to learn", and in the cases "your mathematical and communication skills, judgement and creativity". Five of those six are demonstrable on paper with a number attached, and the sixth, performing well in a group, is what the interviews are for.

The one line this table cannot fill is the page count. Nobody in this set publishes a length for any market, and the two published routes that do exist contradict each other; both sit in the consulting resume guide with their sources. Until a Dutch firm prints a number, one page that fits the eight rules above beats two pages that guess at a ninth.

What Gupta Strategists publishes instead

The most detailed Dutch process description we could read belongs to Gupta Strategists, whose six case interviews and single rehearsal we set out separately. Its own page, a healthcare-focused strategy practice. Its words: "It consists of two rounds, of three one-hour interviews each. Every hour, you will speak to a different colleague, allowing you to learn about us as well. Each interview consists of a 'fit interview' and a 'case interview'."

Do the arithmetic. Six interviews of one hour, across two rounds, each hour split in two. That is twelve distinct segments with six different interviewers. The firm also gives the case its own clock: you are asked to solve the problem "and come up with an advice within half an hour."

So a candidate faces six half-hour cases rather than one long one. That changes preparation completely. Endurance and consistency matter more than a single peak, and any habit that only works when you are fresh will fail somewhere in round two.

The firm names what it is measuring: "We believe it is important that a strategy consultant is analytically sharp, performs well in a group and is eager to learn. In the case interviews, we also test your mathematical and communication skills, judgement and creativity."

And it removes one worry in writing: "Our cases are about various subjects, both within and outside the healthcare sector. Knowledge of healthcare is not required."

The offer to ask for

The same procedure page carries something no CV guide can give you. The firm writes: "We offer every applicant the opportunity to practice a case with one of our colleagues. This is entirely without judgement and you will receive sufficient tips for your first real interview."

Its FAQ tightens the terms. The offer goes to every candidate invited for a first round, the practice conversation "does not count as part of the assessment of your first interview," and the candidate receives tips afterwards.

A rehearsal in the firm's own format, with one of its consultants, unscored. If you are invited to a first round there and do not ask for it, you have left the single most valuable published item on the table.

The same page also hands you flexibility at the other end: "You can start whenever you like: the very next day, or after a few months if that is more convenient." That is worth knowing before you invent a start date to look decisive.

One caution on scope. All of the above belongs to one firm and one practice. It is a reliable source for how that firm hires and tells you nothing about the firm next door.

The practice case one Dutch firm publishes in full

The unscored rehearsal above has to be requested. A complete written case does not: Gupta Strategists publishes one on its own site, free and without an account, and it is the most substantial free artifact any firm in this set hands a Dutch applicant.

The firm sets the terms on the page. It states that there is "no right or wrong answer", and that what it looks at is how you reach the answer rather than the answer itself. It warns that the written version cannot reproduce the interaction, since in a real interview you can ask questions. And it prints the clock: "In a case interview, you have about 30 minutes to arrive at an answer."

The case itself is a public return on investment question. A non-profit called the Dutch Clean Water Foundation has funded a Chlorine Filtered Water System now running in three refugee camps, and the firm is asked to evaluate the return on that investment for a decision about extending the donations. The work is set out in named steps: first give a clear set up for the main question, then name the most important risks the project can run into.

The numbers are on the page and worth recalculating before you use them. The foundation's own funds of 44,000 EUR and third party donations of 60,000 EUR add to 104,000 EUR of non-grant money. The grant is quoted as 172,000 EUR, broken out as 100,000 EUR in 2021 plus 72,000 EUR in 2022, which adds up. Then a further 24,000 EUR is described as the remainder of that grant, payable after the project finishes, which leaves two readings of the grant total and the page does not settle which. Say which reading you are using out loud; an interviewer who wrote an ambiguous brief is testing whether you noticed.

One figure also carries a unit trap. The case states that 500,000 people died in 2020 from diseases caused by polluted drinking water, out of roughly one billion episodes of disease. That is 0.05 percent, since 500,000 divided by one billion is 0.0005. It is a death rate per episode rather than per person, and treating it as a population mortality rate gives an answer that is wrong by orders of magnitude.

The same careers section lists four ways in, which is worth knowing before you apply cold: Strategy Consultant, Strategy Consultant for experienced hires, a slot simply called schedule an introduction, and a Business Course dated November 2026. The introduction slot is a published route to a conversation without a vacancy attached.

Language, and what Roland Berger actually requires

The language question is the one candidates worry about most, and only one firm in this set answers it. Roland Berger's application FAQ writes: "A natural communicator, your spoken and written English is excellent. You also have a good command of the language local to the office you are applying to."

Read that carefully, because it is a requirement about you rather than about your document. The firm asks for spoken and written command of the local language. It does not say the application has to be in it.

Compare that with McKinsey's own language rule, which exists but covers a different territory. Its application FAQ answers the question "When applying for roles within Austria and Germany, in what language should my attachments be written?" with "We accept attachments in both English or German. Please submit only one version in your application." The Netherlands is not in that scope, and the honest reading is that the firm publishes no Dutch language rule.

So the practical answer, stated as our own inference rather than as a firm's rule: write the CV in English unless a posting says otherwise, and be ready to demonstrate Dutch in conversation if the office asks for it. If the posting is silent and it matters to you, the address to ask is the one Roland Berger names on the same page, which is HR in the office you want to join.

The entry route most guides miss

Dutch-market candidates with an advanced degree have an extra door, and it is published. McKinsey's advanced professional degree page lists a role called Fellow and adds one line: "This role is offered only in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands."

The same page sets out who the advanced degree route is for, and the scope is wider than the name suggests. Its words cover "candidates who have an advanced professional degree (e.g., PhD, Post-doc, MD, JD), hold a bachelor's or master's degree with 4+ years of work experience, or completed a master's degree within four years of their bachelor's degree."

That third clause matters in the Netherlands, where a master's degree follows directly from a bachelor's for a large share of graduates. A candidate who assumed the advanced degree route meant doctorates only may be eligible without a doctorate.

The page publishes no deadline of its own and routes candidates to a deadline tool. We tried four ways to read that tool, including an archived copy served in original form, and the dates are assembled in the browser rather than served. So we cannot give you a Dutch date, and we are not going to approximate one.

The five portal checks that apply anywhere

The document rules are silent, and the plumbing rules are not. All five of these are published, and all five kill applications quietly.

1. Attachment type. BCG publishes that a CV uploaded without selecting resume as the attachment type will not be recognized by the system.
2. Parsed education dates. The same FAQ says a CV is parsed into profile fields and to check the dates, since inaccuracies there "can affect your application."
3. Personal email. BCG says to avoid a university address, because access ends after graduation and the address cannot be changed later.
4. File format. McKinsey accepts PDF or Word and requires that nothing be password protected.
5. Office preference alignment. BCG says preferences should match the role's location, and that you may hold up to four applications at a time on its students' portal without changing those preferences.

The fifth is the one with a Dutch twist. If you are applying to a global posting while wanting Amsterdam, the preference field is the only place that intention is recorded, and BCG says changing it later will not update applications already submitted.

What we could not establish, and who holds it

Four open questions. Each belongs to a firm rather than to us.

1. A Dutch CV length. Nobody in this set publishes one, for any market except the two recorded in the consulting resume guide, and those two contradict each other.
2. Whether a photograph is expected. Only Roland Berger takes a position, and its position is to leave the photo out. No Dutch-specific page says anything.
3. Whether the CV may be in Dutch. Unpublished. McKinsey's language rule covers Austria and Germany only.
4. Application deadlines for Dutch offices. Behind a browser-rendered tool at one firm, and absent at another that says it has no fixed hiring period.

Two of those four have a named address. Roland Berger says to contact HR in the office you want. Gupta Strategists publishes an application procedure page and invites questions through it. Writing to either is faster than reading another guide, and it is free.

Where the preparation actually lands

Given six half-hour cases in the one process published in detail, the useful preparation is repetition under a clock rather than a better document. Our own structuring weights say what we measure: Coverage 45, then Separation 25, Depth 20 and Concision 10. Those four are ours, set by us and read from our own code, and no firm publishes a rubric you could set against them.

Concision 10 is the smallest weight and the one that decides a six-interview day, because an answer that runs long once will run long six times. The structure drill and the math drill both run without an account, and the method page explains what each weight rewards. Our six case simulators are not live yet, and no drill here teaches business content.

For the adjacent markets and documents: the German rules are in the German consulting Lebenslauf guide, the two published UK routes are in the UK consulting CV guide, and the letter question is in the consulting cover letter guide.

What changed on this Dutch CV page, and when

6 October 2026. Three of the queries Search Console recorded for this page over its first seventeen days asked for a Dutch CV example or template, one impression each. The page had no example in it, so two sections were added.

The first assembles the eight lines of a CV that a published firm requirement actually decides, each with the firm that wrote the rule, and states plainly that this is the intersection of published requirements rather than a Dutch convention. The page count is named as the one line it cannot fill, because nobody publishes one.

The second reports the complete practice case Gupta Strategists publishes free on its own site, read 6 October 2026, with its 30 minute window, its named steps and its own figures recalculated by hand. Two arithmetic notes came out of that recalculation and both are on the page: the firm's wording leaves the grant total open to two readings, and its mortality figure is a rate per episode of disease rather than per person.

The targeting did not move. The keyword this page carried into the audit was « best it cv », which no version of a Dutch consulting CV page can honestly serve, so it is refused rather than accommodated.

30 September 2026. This replaces a 228-word page that described a Dutch CV convention, gave a length, and named no source for either.

Both of those are gone. We could not find a Dutch firm that publishes a format, a length or a photo rule, so the page now says so in its first paragraph instead of supplying a national standard from memory. That is the change with the largest effect on what the page claims, which is why it is flagged in the opening lines rather than only here.

Also removed: an assertion that Dutch is required for consulting work in the Netherlands. One firm publishes a local language requirement about the candidate, and no page read here makes it a condition of the document or names the level.

Added in this version: the six-interview structure with its half-hour case clock, the five things Gupta Strategists names as tested, the free practice case with its exact scope, the Roland Berger language requirement read precisely, the Fellow route with its four-country limit and its wider eligibility scope, five portal checks, and a closing section that leaves four questions open and names who holds each.