A chief executive who receives a consulting document often skims it in a few minutes, between two meetings, reading the titles and glancing at the charts. If the message does not get across in that time, the best analysis in the world has no effect. That is why firms have developed very precise rules for building their slides, which every junior consultant learns in their first weeks. This article presents them one by one, rebuilds a slide step by step, and ends with a practical question: how to talk about these skills on a CV without writing “proficient in PowerPoint”.
One slide, one message
The first rule is the simplest and the most often broken: each slide carries a single message. Not two juxtaposed ideas, not an inventory of observations, not a “status update”. One message, which can be stated in one sentence.
This rule has two consequences.
It forces you to sort. An analysis often produces several lessons. The consultant must choose the one that serves the recommendation and move the others to the appendix or to another slide.
It makes the document modular. A slide that carries a clear message can be moved, removed or reused in another document without losing its meaning. This is what allows teams to quickly build different versions for a management committee, a board or an operational workshop.
A simple test: if you cannot summarise the slide out loud in a sentence of fewer than twenty words, it probably carries several messages.
The title that states the conclusion
In a consulting document, a slide’s title is not a label (“Sales trends”), it is a sentence stating the conclusion (“Sales have been falling for two years, only in the store channel”). This is called an action title.
A good action title follows a few rules:
- it is a complete sentence, with a verb;
- it fits on two lines at most;
- it says what the reader must remember, not what the slide contains;
- it is demonstrated by the body of the slide: the chart, table or text proves what the title asserts, no more and no less.
The action title has a hidden virtue: it forces the consultant to know what they think. An analysis whose title you cannot write is not finished.
The storyline before the slides
Experienced consultants never start by opening PowerPoint. They start with the storyline: the sequence of messages which, read one after another, form a complete argument.
The most common method is to write, on one page, the titles of all the slides in the document. Read in order, they must tell the story of the recommendation without the bodies of the slides. This sequence is often structured as a pyramid: the recommendation first, then the two or three arguments that support it, then the evidence for each argument.
This step has three advantages:
- it reveals the gaps in the reasoning before hours have been spent on formatting;
- it lets the partner or manager validate the direction in five minutes, on a single page;
- it divides up the work: each consultant knows which slides they must produce and what message each one must demonstrate.
It is the same logic as a good case interview structure: start from the question and the conditions for the answer, rather than piling up analyses. Our article on case interview frameworks develops this structuring method. And for a manager, building the storyline in the first week is one of the reflexes described in the article on becoming a manager.
Choosing the right chart
The chart is the body of most consulting slides. Its choice depends on the comparison you want to show.
| What you want to show | Suitable chart | To avoid | |---|---|---| | A change over time | Line or column chart | Pie chart, horizontal bars | | A comparison between items | Sorted horizontal bars | Unsorted columns | | A breakdown of a total | Stacked bars or waterfall chart | Pie chart with more than four slices | | The move from one value to another | Waterfall chart | A table of figures alone | | A relationship between two variables | Scatter plot | Two overlaid lines on two axes |
A few principles of sobriety complete this table:
- a single accent colour, for the element that carries the message, and greys for the rest;
- no separate legend when the series can be labelled directly;
- rounded figures and a clear unit;
- a source at the bottom of the slide, systematically.
Firms often use PowerPoint add-ins to produce clean waterfall charts or stacked bars, as well as internal template libraries. Knowing them is a plus, but the rule remains the same: the chart must demonstrate the title.
A slide rebuilt step by step
Take a typical junior slide, presented during an engagement for a chain of DIY stores.
Initial version. Title: “Store analysis”. Body: a table of twenty rows (one per store) with revenue, floor space, number of visitors and margin, and three bullets at the bottom of the slide: “significant disparities between stores”, “some stores underperform”, “size seems to play a role”.
The reader has to do all the work: read twenty rows, compare, guess the conclusion.
Step 1: find the message. Examining the data, the team notices that the largest stores have a much lower margin per square metre. That is the message.
Step 2: write the action title. “Large stores generate half as much margin per square metre as medium-sized stores.”
Step 3: choose the chart. To show a comparison between three size categories, sorted horizontal bars, with the margin per square metre for each category. The large stores’ bar is in the accent colour, the others in grey.
Step 4: add only what reinforces the message. An annotation on the large stores’ bar (“including six stores below break-even”), the number of stores per category under each bar, and the source at the bottom.
Step 5: review with the one-minute test. Does someone discovering the slide understand the message by reading the title and looking at the chart? If so, the slide is finished. The detailed table goes to the appendix.
The final version contains much less information than the initial version, but it conveys a message, and it is this message that will move the discussion with the client forward.
Mentioning these skills on a CV without platitudes
“Proficient in PowerPoint” appears on almost every CV and says nothing. For a firm’s recruiter, the interesting skill is not the tool, it is the ability to turn an analysis into a message for a decision-maker. It is shown through experiences more than through the skills list.
A few ways to make it visible:
- cite the deliverable and its audience: “materials for the annual strategy seminar, from storyline to charts, presented to the executive committee”;
- give an order of magnitude: number of slides produced, number of committees prepared;
- mention the tools actually used in the skills line, without adjectives: PowerPoint, a charting add-in, Excel;
- save the detail for the interview: prepare a story where you reworked a document to make it clearer.
The strategy consulting intern CV template shows a bullet of this type, with strategy seminar materials built from storyline to charts. The digital transformation consultant template illustrates for its part the preparation of steering committees for a leadership team.
Your CV in fact obeys the same rules as a slide: one message per line, a visible hierarchy, a read possible in one minute. The ConseilCV editor applies a sober, regular layout and produces a PDF that screening software reads without difficulty, so that form does not distract from your messages.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to master PowerPoint add-ins before joining a firm?
It is not essential: firms train their new joiners in their tools. Having already used a charting add-in or slide templates is nevertheless a plus, especially for an internship.
How much text can a consulting slide contain?
As little as possible. A two-line title, a chart or a table, and possibly three short bullets commenting on the chart. The detail goes in the appendix or in what you say.
Do slides count in recruitment interviews?
Rarely directly, except in written case exercises, where you have to prepare a few slides from a file. The logic of the action title is directly assessed there.
How can you practise building slides?
By taking business articles or public reports and trying to summarise each part in one action title demonstrated by a single chart. The exercise also trains synthesis, which is useful in case interviews.