This article was guest written by my friend Zeke Lee, a fellow former management consultant (Booz & Co.) and Stanford graduate who offers some great real world advice on the realities of recruiting. Zeke is also the founder of the GMAT Pill Study Method, a great GMAT prep resource for those considering the MBA route for their career aspirations – more on that at the end of the article.

Those of you who follow Management Consulted know the 2 most common ways to get into the industry are through

1) undergrad recruiting at a target school

2) business school recruiting at a target MBA program

Well, let’s say you missed the boat with #1: undergrad recruiting. Your school wasn’t a “target” school or you had no clue what management consulting was until now. How would you use #2 to get into management consulting?

Let’s first take a look from the firms’ perspective.

You see, different firms have different hiring practices between these two options.

As a management consultant at Booz & Company, I trained alongside with the rest of my hiring class. 95% of my class were MBA hires. Booz happens to have a much more “diamond” shaped hierarchy with lots of MBA level hires, but only a few undergrad hires.

Other firms like Bain & Company, on the other hand, hire a lot more undergrads and have a more “pyramid” shaped hierarchy. So a class of consultants will likely include a few more undergrads than MBA hires at a place like Bain.

Knowing the organizational structure of various firms helps you understand which firms have a higher demand at which levels. As an undergrad you may not research much about a place like Booz, but certainly at the MBA level the firm would come into mind because of the greater opportunities there.

Many of my colleagues at Booz were hired from MBA and so I naturally learned how many of them broke into the industry.

Let me give you an example of an MBA hire who leveraged his previous industry exposure to get into a specialized team of Booz & Company.

This fellow consultant (we’ll call him Jim) used to work at Boeing–the aerospace company full of rocket scientists who design the 787′s and 777′s for continental and intercontinental airflights you’ve all been on. Realizing he wanted to branch out of the nitty gritty details of what he was doing at Boeing, Jim decided he wanted a more business oriented career. He tried getting into the management consulting industry but couldn’t even get an interview.

After getting the career advice he needed, Jim took his GMAT and entered a top MBA program.

During a random networking event, he met a Booz & Company employee who actually was not a management consultant—BUT he happened to work right next to the group of management consultants at his office~ These consultants happened to specialize in aerospace! This referring employee told the group that they might be interested in someone like Jim who came from a big-name aerospace company like Boeing.

It’s important to note that Jim wasn’t an aerospace engineer—he had some assistant project manager position. But the fact that he came from a big company with a big brand name like “Boeing”–which also happened to be one of Booz’s key clients–made it that much easier for the referring employee to make the referral. You see, branding is that important.

As a side note, for anybody looking for a job right after undergrad, I highly recommend starting with a company that has a STRONG BRAND name. I would almost say that from a career perspective, it matters LESS what your job title is and MORE what your company name is–at least when it comes time to finding your next job in the early stages of your career. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule but this is generally true. A strong brand helps people associate you with something familiar and makes the referral process much easier–it’s just the way human beings are wired up.

Anyway, back to Jim. So Jim got his interview with the Aerospace team because he came from Boeing, a key client for the aerospace team. His interview was actually delayed over a long period of time because the hiring managers were in and out of town traveling from engagement to engagement. Jim followed up and eventually met in person.

During the interview, Jim shared stories of how he became VP of the consulting society at his MBA program, how he led teams at Boeing and made presentations to 200+ colleagues, etc. Negotiations went on for quite a bit, but eventually Jim got the job.

You see, this wasn’t even through the school’s official recruiting program! Definitely make use of your school’s recruiting channels, but do not overlook random networking events that might point you in the right direction like this one did.

From this story, we can summarize Jim’s progression that you can also follow:
Jim…

1) Realized he wanted to get into management consulting

2) Took the GMAT exam

3) Got into a top MBA program

4) Networked and leveraged the brand name of his company wherever he went so people could identify who he was (the Aerospace guy)

5) Got the interview with a very specialized team (generally less competition) that he had exposure to.

6) Closed the deal

Consulting firms love hiring people with industry experience + MBA. Whether you work at Intel (semiconductor industry), Amgen (bio-engineering), or L’Oreal (luxury retail), getting an MBA can position yourself as a potential hire with the specific industry experience that firms love.

There’s much less risk for the firm to hire you if you already have a sense of who the major players are in that industry and how the competitive landscape looks. Instead of spending the first few months reading reports on what is happening in the industry, you can just jump right into the real work–saving the firm time and money!

Ok ok, I know. There are a lot of assumptions there.

Just because you work at a semiconductor company does not necessarily mean you understand the semiconductor industry in the high-level way that consultants do. This is true. When I was at Lucent Technologies, for example, there were plenty of people who had no clue what was going on with the company simply because they weren’t exposed at that level.

“Huh? Quarterly Earnings? Today? What’s the CEO’s name again?”

So you can’t really say that by working in an industry you automatically understand what is going on.

However, for the purposes of finding a job what matters more is your PERCEIVED understanding of an industry rather than your ACTUAL understanding of an industry. Your mere background of coming from an industry automatically raises your PERCEIVED value as someone familiar with that industry. And it is this PERCEPTION of industry expertise and industry fit that can help you get into a specialized team within management consulting. This is especially true when everyone else is pitching themselves as a “generalist.”

Be careful, though! It’s not as convincing (though still possible) if you try to change industries in the process. For example, if you worked at Intel and want to do consulting in the retail industry, you’re going to be competing with people who already have retail experience and may be a better fit.

Having said that, IF you like your industry and just want to shift over to the business side of that same industry, then the GMAT/MBA route will position you well for a career in management consulting for those who missed undergrad recruiting.

For those of you who plan to take the GMAT exam, I highly recommend you check out a great GMAT prep resource, the GMAT Pill Study Method, especially if you want to maximize your time efficiency when studying. The site’s been getting good reviews around the web and even has a 60-day money back guarantee if you are not satisfied. In fact, if you decide to enroll, Zeke is letting ManagementConsulted.com readers in for a generous 25% discount –a great bargain and excellent alternative to Kaplan or Princeton Review.

Travel is a defining characteristic of management consulting regardless of your company. From Bain to Accenture, from McKinsey to Towers Perrin. If you’re a consultant, you can expect to become familiar with acronyms like LGA, LAX, and ORD. You can expect to spend enough time in hotels that the staff will recognize and greet you by name.

However, there is A LOT of misinformation on this topic.

Here are the TOP FIVE myths about consulting travel and my thoughts about the “broader truth” behind each.

The BAD MYTHS:

#1 Consultants spend months, often years, in the farthest flung cities where the weather is freezing and Arby’s is considered fine-dining

This is the most oft-repeated consultant traveling myth, and one that turns many away from giving the profession a serious thought (and also the biggest category of investment banker jokes). That’s not to say the truth is glamorous – reality lies somewhere in the middle. Most management consultants throughout their careers will find themselves in 1 or 2 cities that have few redeeming qualities. But the majority of the time – work is focused in large cities (think San Francisco, California and not Paris, Texas) and developed countries (think Johannesburg, South Africa and not Tallinn, Estonia).

Paris, Texas-based companies need consultants too – but most likely, they won’t be able to afford the services of Big-3 caliber firms. If you work for regionally-focused consulting companies with functional expertise (eg, environment, tax), your chances of spending significant time in such places will increase

At the end of the day – lifestyle matters to consultants. Partners avoid sending teams to lifestyle poor areas for extended periods of time (as often the resulting negative feedback can hurt the Partner’s performance as well). And if they do, there are typically compensating mechanisms (“spend 3 months here, and I will strongly support your interest in a Latin-American project when staffing comes around).

#2 Consulting travel means a frantic, neverending procession of deadlines. You’ll be building Powerpoint Presentations on a trans-Pacific flight thru the night, land in Foreign Country A and rush to the client where you’re already 15 minutes late for the crucial meeting. Give the presentation – the whole time, your manager and team will be glaring at you for unforgivable typos in the slide “deck”. Once the meeting finishes, the team piles into another taxi and races to the airport to catch a flight to Foreign Country B. And the whole cycle starts anew.

Another convenient myth that investment bankers like to share to make themselves feel better at 4am on a Friday night. The truth here is also somewhere in the middle. Travel projects – particularly international ones – face a higher degree of pressure to succeed (both from the client and from firm leadership). You will face more deadlines, and will be expected to spend part of flight time working. You’ll also face at least a few deadlines where it seems like you rush from the airport to the client and back again. But “a few” is the key phrase here. In the course of a 3-month project, expect this to happen 2-3 times maximum.

#3 You have no choice about where you work. The office staffing manager sends you an email of the following variety:

“Your next project will be in [RANDOM TOWN], Wisconsin. We’ve booked the team at the local Days Inn for the next 3 months. Please find the cheapest flight leaving tomorrow morning. Sincerely, your Staffer.”

Not true. Your choice in projects – choice of location, choice of “function” (eg strategy, operations, organization, etc), choice of client – depends on two key factors: your PERFORMANCE ON PRIOR PROJECTS and your SENIORITY. But even the worst-performing, most junior-level consultants can sway staffing decisions in their favor. I will write about this more when I hit the “how to succeed at your new consulting job” series of posts, but here’s what you need to know:

Staffing is never a one-way process. Based on your background, your interests, your stated preferences – and your ability to build relationships with firm leadership – you can exercise sway over staffing decisions starting on Day 1 of your job at a management consulting firm

If you find yourself staffed consistently on projects of lower-interest in less-attractive locales, there are several reasons why this is happening:

1) You don’t care enough to express your opinions to firm leadership, to staffing, even to your team
2) You aren’t proactive in meeting partners, managers, etc – people who REALLY make the staffing decisions
3) You haven’t learned the art of effective “pushback” – the ability to express your honest opinions without offending those around you

The GOOD MYTHS:

#4 Consultants travel in style – business class flights, filet mignon steak dinners, new countries and continents explored every week

The opposite extreme of BAD MYTH #1, but equally misrepresentative. Similar answer as before – aspects are true (business class flights for select projects and distances, the occasional fancy dinners with the team and/or client, some international projects will see you traverse 5 countries in the course of 1-2 weeks). But this is the exception and it comes with its own baggage, in the form of BAD MYTH #2. What is the norm, then? Expect to spend 50% of your time on domestic projects, traveling to cities like Houston, Raleigh, Chicago, and Seattle. You may fly business class, but you can expect an equal number of economy-class flights (particularly given lack of long-term scheduling flexibility). And there will be fancy dinners – but these come typically after several long nights and high-pressure meetings. And work dinners are not like dinners with your frat buddies or school tennis club. Not at all.

*Recent macroeconomic conditions may have caused the pendulum to swing closer to #1*

#5 You become Mr. Uber-Platinum-Gold-Diamond-Titanium Status for Life – free upgrades on every flight, every hotel room. You accumulate enough frequent user points/miles/etc to enjoy free vacations for the rest of your life

Again, the truth is a more moderate version of this myth. Many consultants will rack up serious points – especially the longer you’ve been a consultant and the more senior you are – and will have “Status” on every major airline and hotel chain. At my peak, I was Starwood Platinum, AA Platinum, and middle-tier status on a few other airlines and hotel chains. But I’ve already run out of free hotel nights and free flights (sorry, readers!). And Platinum status doesn’t last forever – otherwise, these Status programs would be major money losers. The minute you quit consulting is the minute you’ll lose it. Hopefully it’s not a big enough loss to sway your decision – but it is one factor of the consulting lifestyle that can become addicting, particularly over extended periods of time.

It seems like everyone these days is a consultant – strategy consultants, business consultants, technology consultants, IT consultants, marketing consultants, the list goes on and on.

It’s a catch-all title for someone who gets paid to give their advice on particular subjects to companies

In this post, I’ll attempt to answer 3 big questions:

-Who are consultants?
-McKinsey, Accenture, Monitor…what’s the difference between different consulting firms?
-What do consultants actually do?

Who are consultants?

Business consultants as people are generally:

1) Knowledgeable about the topic at hand
2) Well-connected within the industry
3) Have a reputation and/or brand (based on experience, publications, etc)
4) Effective communicators

Companies often face questions that they are incapable of answering or too busy to properly address. This is where consultants come in, armed with the above 4 traits, to help address precisely those questions.

Further reading: Why companies hire management consultants

McKinsey, Accenture, Monitor…what’s the difference between different consulting firms?

The consulting industry can be segmented accordingly:

1) Management consulting firms (eg McKinsey, Bain)
2) One-stop-shop and technology-focused consulting firms (eg Accenture, Deloitte)
3) Niche/boutique consulting firms (eg Mercer HR, Kurt Salmon)
4) Independent consultants (self explanatory)

My categorization isn’t perfect – for instance, boutique consulting shops provide management advice; one-stop-shops often focus on IT/technology and less on strategy.

In addition – many corporations these days have in-house consultings groups (often populated by ex-McKinsey-Bain-BCG-types).

And much of what the venture capital industry does when working with portfolio companies is similar to what Monitor would do for their Fortune 500 clients.

Further reading: Interviews with a McKinsey and Bain consultant

Finally, what do consultants do?

The answer is that it depends. If you’re an analyst/associate (the focus of Management Consulted), your job is to do the grunt work necessary to answer client questions.

You will work with the following pieces of software:

1) Microsoft Powerpoint
2) Microsoft Excel
3) Email…lots and lots of email

You will be provided the following pieces of hardware:

1) Blackberry
2) Durable laptop

Your day will typically include the following (with a more detailed post on this later):

1) Client meetings
2) Team (internal) meetings
3) Data gathering and analysis
4) Slide creation
5) Conference calls

With all the above, your job is to come up with the most comprehensive, data-driven insights and answers that your clients don’t already know. These will form the basis for recommendations that your team will provide, and from which your clients will (ideally) make changes to their business to result in one or more of the following:

1) Increased revenue
2) Reduced costs
3) Clear strategic direction
4) Gameplan for hiring and firing of employees
5) And so forth