Gemic

About our Fellowship Program

All you need to know before applying to be a fellow at Gemic.

If you’re looking for information on internships, please check our Internship Program page.

Watch the recording of our webinar Q & A panel about the internship and fellowship programs, featuring Gemic staff and previous Gemic interns.

Overview

What is the Gemic Fellowship?

The Gemic Fellowship is a paid engagement for mid-career and post-academic candidates who have significant professional skills or expertise, but limited experience in the business consulting field.

Fellows are able to learn the ropes of Gemic-style consulting, while contributing a depth of knowledge and experience they’ve developed outside the consulting industry.

Fellows are fully integrated members of Gemic work and culture, and a successful fellowship is a pathway into an entry-level Strategist or entry-level Senior Strategist role at Gemic.

Who should apply to the fellowship?

The fellowship is best suited for candidates with 4+ years of sustained experience or achievement in a profession or industry other than business consulting and who thereby bring a depth of professional expertise.

This differs from the Gemic Internship, which is best suited for final year undergrad or grad students, recent grads and/or those with under 2 years of experience.

Fellowship candidates will start with limited consulting exposure, but with the proper guidance and mentorship from Gemic, are expected to learn quickly and operate at a sufficiently high level.

What is the fellowship timeline?

Hiring occurs on a rolling basis, rather than at seasonal intervals (like the Gemic Internship).

What does the application process entail?

In your resume and cover letter, please be sure to highlight the background of professional experience that represent the transferable skills and additive perspectives you could bring to Gemic.

Please remember, we are looking for 4+ years of cohesive experience or sustained development in a different industry. In other words, your materials should clearly show where you’re coming from and (briefly) how you see yourself contributing to Gemic.

There are 3 rounds of interviews.

  • First round: Sharing past work experiences and how the expertise you’ve honed over time might be applied to Gemic’s work
  • Second round: A short presentation exercise to review your thinking and delivery, as well as the kind of work you’re interested in doing at Gemic
  • Final round: A more informal chat with two Gems not met in previous rounds.

All interviews will be conducted in pairs by Gems, ranging from Senior Strategist to Director of Strategy. Final offers are decided by the fellowship committee. 

What advice do you have for the interview?

It sounds trite, but the best advice is to be yourself! We’re interested to learn what you can specifically and authentically bring to Gemic.

Besides a good night’s sleep, the best way to prepare for your interview is to have a clear agenda of personal or professional details you’d like to share with us and a prioritized list of questions you’d like to ask us.

Also, keep in mind that your interview may be held remotely. You’ll want to secure an space where you can read attentively, carry on a conversation, think out loud, and jot down notes.

Above all, don’t be afraid to be open and explorative. We want to see how you process, probe and play with information in order to land on interesting or productive insights.

Where will the fellowship take place?

Currently, we accept fellows in our New York, Berlin and Toronto offices.

Ultimately, you will be assigned to an office based on your proximity to one of these offices and your work authorizations.

Additional placement factors may include the need for particular fellows with particular skill sets in different offices and your remote work capability. 

Does Gemic sponsor visas?

Unfortunately, we are not able to sponsor visas or work permits in any country. You must have prior legal work authorization in the country (office) to which you are applying.

How much does the fellowship pay?

Fellows are paid the equivalent of a mid-level Strategist salary. For applicants in the US, joining Gemic for this trial period may require individuals to resign from existing full-time employment that provides health benefits. As such, we will provide appropriate health coverage during the course of your fellowship.

Working at Gemic

How does Gemic differ from other consulting firms?

Gemic is unique in three ways–– at least!

Firstly, we aim to work with leading global companies that want to reimagine our collective future; we aim to be their trusted advisors and partners, rather than just their strategy vendors. Ultimately, this means that we see each project as an opportunity to navigate big, hairy, audacious questions that will have a meaningful long-term impact, rather than as one-off transactions.

Whilst rooted in anthropology, Gemic is also unique in its deeply multidisciplinary approach to business consultancy, which has equipped our client partners with robust insight into the macro context informing their business, revelatory foresight into emergent paradigms of value, and disruptive new precedents for product and service innovation.

And lastly, beyond the rigor and uniqueness of our approach, Gemic prides itself on being the “friendly consultancy,” known for its egalitarian ethos and for a commitment to hiring people who are not just brilliant, but passionate, empathetic, kind and collaborative as well. 

What do fellows do?

We set a higher bar for fellows to bring an additive perspective and experience into the Gemic community.

As a fellow, you’ll hit the ground running and participate in at least one consulting project, ideally from end-to-end. You can also expect to participate in key organizational activities, like writing client proposals, spearheading a piece of thought leadership, internal salons, etc.

What kinds of projects will I get to work on?

Our work often focuses on developing foundational human or cultural insight, brand strategy, innovation strategy, or foresight. Details here.

Clients typically partner with us when they seek to develop growth strategies with profound value to people, society, and shareholders, in both the near and long-term future. For more, check the Work page.

As a fellow, you’ll be assigned to a project team based on project availability and resource needs, but additional factors may include your skillset, your passion areas. Often, Gemic also takes a global approach to building project teams, meaning that Gems based in North America may have an opportunity to work with Gems based in Europe.

What happens after the fellowship?

The fellowship is one of the pathways into an entry-level Strategist role or a junior-level Senior Strategist role.

One to two weeks prior to the end of your fellowship, your coach will collect feedback from your project team members and provide a recommendation to the Management Team, who will make a final decision on whether to extend an offer for full-time employment, and for which role–– either Strategist or Senior Strategist.

Ultimately, a job offer will also depend on factors like positive feedback from team members, contribution to Gemic’s thinking and culture, recommendations from coaches, needs of the company and candidate availability.   

Hiring at Gemic

What do you look for in an ideal candidate?

Fellows should have a demonstrated history or track record of achievement in their professional field, with a clear sense of how their transferable skills can add value to the Gemic team.

Otherwise, there is no typical Gemic profile, but overall, we look for exceptionally curious, creative, collaborative and humble humans who have a sincere interest in a consulting career and a demonstrated passion for dissecting business and culture.

Generally, we look for the following skill sets:

  • Demonstrated intellectual curiosity or achievement (this is most likely academic or professional, but we will consider other serious examples)
  • Research and analysis skills
  • Strong self-management and time-management skills
  • Thoughtful and clear communication, inclusive of active listening
  • Ability to think strategically, including developing frameworks for understanding business challenges or cultural phenomenon
  • Ability to formulate compelling insights and points of view

We also look for the following qualities:

  • Ambitious, curious and collaborative thinkers
  • Culturally or linguistically fluent
  • Humble and relate to one another
  • Easily inspired by colleagues through casual, conversational interactions
  • Passionate about social sciences, business, technology, humanities, and/or design
  • Passionate about telling stories and “connecting the dots”
  • Genuinely nice; people who meet everyone at eye-level with equal respect regardless of their position in an established hierarchy

What is Gemic’s POV on diversity and inclusion?

As a global team of thinkers, we believe that a diversity of perspectives makes us better, not just at decoding the world today, but also at building the future we want to see.

We intentionally seek global talent from a variety of academic, professional and experiential backgrounds and our growing team includes a mix of anthropologists, political scientists, economists, journalists, historians, technologists, futurists, designers and beyond.

What is Gemic’s stance on racial and ethnic diversity and inclusion?

We have made a specific commitment to increasing the racial and ethnic diversity at Gemic because diverse teams are more successful by nearly every meaningful professional metric and because strategists from diverse backgrounds bring voices and perspectives that have been historically underrepresented in the top tiers of consulting.

That said, we know that Black people, Indigenous people, and other People of Color experience unique barriers when it comes to access, professional development, networking and leadership opportunities within the consulting industry. In response, Gemic has invested in several initiatives aimed at providing support and resources for diverse talent, including an anti-racism task force that serves to implement best practices of DEI within the workplace and the BIPOC Strategist Working Group, which serves to foster support and sense of belonging within Gemic.     

Hear more about what current Gems of color have to say about their Gemic experience and about why diversity matters in consulting.

Diversity in consulting 

Culture at Gemic

How is the work-life balance at Gemic?

Fellows will work a typical 9-5 schedule, but given that we operate on a project-based model, you can expect each day to vary based on your active projects and the needs of those projects.

It’s important to know that consulting comes with the occasional period of intensive work–– particularly before a deadline!

However, Gemic prides itself on being a people-first workplace that is committed to supporting the holistic well-being of its employees. This includes creating mechanisms for Gems to “check-in” with their support team, routinely soliciting company-wide feedback on work-life balance, planning projects to ensure teams have adequate support and bandwidth.

Importantly, Gemic does not valorize over-working, micro-management, or facetime, and Gems are trusted to approach their daily work in ways that balance their personal wellbeing with optimal productivity.

How does Gemic approach professional development?

Gemic is committed to providing learning and development opportunities to all employees.

To ensure a smooth transition into the role, you’ll be paired with a buddy, who’ll provide day-to-day support on all things Gemic, and with a coach, who will help transition you into Gemic’s ways of working, whilst also helping you to leverage your past experience.

Gemic has instituted a clear matrix of roles within the organization, with guidance on the responsibilities and success metrics for each role. You and your coach will use this matrix as a tool to outline and set your goals for the duration of your fellowship.

Accordingly, feedback is also a significant part of the workplace culture at Gemic and you will have regular opportunities to exchange feedback about your experience and your performance against your professional goals.

Lastly, full-time hires also receive a yearly budget to use on independent learning, tools or resources that further your professional and personal development and wellness.

Contact us

I have more questions! How can I find more information?

You can email fellowships@gemic.com any time to ask questions not addressed above.  Unfortunately, we are unable to connect individually for phone or video conversations due to our organization size and the demand for requests.