Hi,I am looking to enter in to graduate consulting in summer 2012. I have finished two unproductive years at Nottingham University where i sort of lost track of myself. I took a gap year to revive myself and played cricket at national level for Kenya. My experience doing this has been phenomenal especially being part of a world cup squad. I also became a free lance coach in three countries.Now i have no genuine quality experience in business but am on a 2.1 in Industrial Economics and Insurance, I have my own part time import business which is doing good for itself. I have also worked in my family business learning alot, but these business are not professionally run like the ones I will be consulting to. I know i have the necessary soft skills to become a good consultant but am worried about my technical knowledge about the industry.Thus could you recommend to me material that i can read to develop my hard skills so that i can be very good at my interviews.Kind RegardsRunish

You sound slap-dash and not the sort of profile we want to see in Consulting. 2 years wasted at one of England's top Universities followed by one year of hitting a ball around a field won't be that attractive to employers, and a shopping spree on Amazon isn't likely to change that. Being good at interviews does not come from reading a couple of books, it comes from shaping your personality and reinforcing it with your experience. Life is competitive - and finding a graduate job is no exception. Even more so now. So I recommend (a) take your head out of the clouds (b) decide why you want to be a Consultant and potentially regret for the rest of your life you didn't take up 4-day long ball-hitting monotony as a profession.You seem to have decided "Yes - I want to be a Consultant! But I know naff-all about it, so I want to learn about it".It should be other way around no?