Tuesday

Open Forum: Skills Required to Break Into Consulting/Strategy Roles

2 Comments July 7, 2009 – 9:32 am | Permalink |  Print This Post |

Following is an open forum discussion picked from our Group.

Mayank Gupta asked :

What all skills do I need to build to get through Consulting/Strategy industry. I am an MBA Marketing and B.Tech (Mechanical and Automation Engineering) fresher with no prior experience.

In these times of recession, every where I read they have been telling to build up your skill sets. I want to work in the companies involved Management Consulting/Corporate Strategy and Planning for eg. AT Kearney, McKinsey, Bain & Co. But the jobs in these kind of companies are hard to come by these days, esp. for a fresher.

I am an MBA (Marketing) + B.Tech (Mechanical and Automation Engineering) graduate with no prior experience. I would like to know what all skills do I need to build and also, what all software programs do I need to know. Please provide your valuable suggestions

Prashanth Krishnaswami, Management Student, Content Developer replied…

I am no expert but what I’m going to be telling you here is reliable hearsay. I think it is close to impossible for a fresher to break into any of the companies you’ve listed above unless that fresher is from a country’s top 5 business schools.

However, sometime down the line (say around 6-8 years), after you’ve worked with some tier 2 business consulting companies and have networked with a lot of people in the consulting business, you can break into any of the biggies. But all that depends purely on what you do in that time (6-8 years). The 6-8 year period is only a safe period I’m quoting here for you. If you are exceptionally good, you could do it within half that time too.

Some more reliable hearsay tells me that McK has cut recruitment numbers even in IIMs by a significant percentage. So, now would be a really bad time to try to break into any of the biggies, anyway.

Think on those lines. You would understand my point.

Akil Laxman, Consultant  replied…

I would concur with most of what prashant has said. The strategy consults that you want to get into recruit only from IIM-ABC and that too in small nos . If this is the path that you want , I suggest that you develop yourself as a area expert by working with a few tier 2-3 consultancies and apply to them once you have a lot of relevant experience .

As I am aware of your current situation ( I read another thread) , I would suggest that you join a start-up consultancy for now . The pay might not be great but It’ll definitely put you on the path to where you want to go. Start-up consultancies are mushrooming all over the place. Be sure to choose one where the founder is backed by good experience in the industry.

Ashish Mishra, Freelance Consultant at odesk.com replied …

Well I agree with the views expressed here regarding your query. But just brand is not the only consideration to select people. Brand does not ensure success.

What these companies look at is your own personality and how you have grown and developed yourself as a professional to accomplish what you look for in life.

I would suggest you to understand their philosophy behind hiring people. They look for leadership qualities the way this term Leadership is taught as a separate course in top universities in North America. I hope that might help you. And needless to say that you need to expand your network and collect views from the people from different background and experiences.

Moreover McKinsey has a separate knowledge center where you can apply for the jobs.

Ashok Shastry, Founder – ConsultGenie replied…

On big consulting firms I have nothing to add to what others have already said. I believe there’re millions of individuals who have great talent and can make superb consultants on their own.

First thing I suggest is to find a mentor and do a bit of internship if possible. It could be an individual or a small consulting firm. If this is not possible then find a job you like but keep trying to find a mentor and learn the nuances.

End of day it takes great focus and experience to be a consultant. If you’re sure of what you want to specialize in, at least to a small extent, I can try and connect you to a few consulting firms I know.

Dilish Kuruppath ,webMethods Consultant at Software AG replied..

Practically, its all your will to decide where you want to end up. You can stop at any position in your career and stop growing (or) you could keep moving.

Again, the possible path (for who ever, whatever degree it be) would be – get into an industry (anything), gain experience starting from the basics and grow to different levels, changing companies help too – it gives you more exposure. Once you are comfortable with quite a decent understanding (with in-depth hands on of what happens in the ground) of almost all the aspects of the industry, get into consulting.

Remember, you need to keep looking at the bigger picture for whatever you are doing at any point in time. Once you have the right credentials ( in terms of experience), you can get in and become successful. Spend at least 5-8 years to start off. You wont regret it.

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