It’s been awhile since our last Life as a Consultant interview. We’ve talked to consultants from McKinsey, Nortel Consulting, and Booz Allen amongst others.

Today’s interview is with a former Bain consultant. His story is particularly interesting given his engineering background and current venture capital role.

Now on to the interview! I’ve bolded a few particularly helpful comments for recruiting and shared my reactions in gray boxes

The views and opinions expressed are strictly those of the interviewee and do not reflect the views of the interviewee’s employers or affiliated entities.

1. For the benefit of readers, can you give us a summary of your background? Education, current job, previous jobs, interests, etc

I graduated from a private university on the West Coast with a bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering. In between the summer of my sophomore and junior years, I did an internship at a semiconductor company in their product development department. While I knew that my passion was in technology, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to be an engineer after my summer internship.

In my junior year, I was involved with a student-run consulting group, where I worked with Fortune 500 companies on strategic issues in a small student team. That’s where my interest in consulting really took off. The following summer after my junior year, I did an internship with Bain in their San Francisco office. I enjoyed my experience enough to return full-time in 2006. I worked at Bain for about 2 years, working on projects that spanned a variety of industries including semiconductors, private equity, media, consumer products and health care. I also had the privilege of working in multiple Bain offices including Hong Kong, Shanghai, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Silicon Valley.

I left Bain after 2 years to join a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley that focuses on tech and cleantech investments.

2. Many readers of MC have an engineering/technical background similar to yours. What advice can you give them about breaking into consulting?

From my experience, engineers tend to do very well in consulting, particularly at a firm like Bain. Consulting is a very quantitative and analytical job, especially at the lower levels. Because a junior consultant does not have years of industry experience to draw upon, in order to stand out, he or she can add value by demonstrating a keen grasp of the numbers and by defending a recommendation with solid financial/data analysis and research.

That said, engineers often fight an uphill battle when applying or interviewing for consulting jobs. Be sure to have a well thought out story about why you want to work in consulting given your engineering background. You will also need to demonstrate that you have done the appropriate preparation while in school to succeed in consulting from the start. This could include taking some business-related classes, such as Financial Accounting or Economics, or participating in a business group, such as a student consulting group.

A good story and evidence of thorough preparation are critical. More thoughts on landing consulting jobs from engineering

3. Bain is one of the most desirable consulting firms to work for. Can you tell us what the recruiting process was like?

Bain tends to focus on top-tier universities for recruiting, whether it is out of undergrad or business/graduate school. Bain works closely with my university’s established career services department every year for the recruiting process. There are usually two cycles for recruiting: once in the Fall for full-time candidates (graduating seniors), and once in the Winter for summer internship candidates (juniors or seniors planning to complete a master’s degree).

Bain follows strict deadlines for resume submissions and first/second round interviews. “Off-cycle” hiring is very rare and is usually reserved for people currently working in industry (i.e., not for students). After the resume submissions, those selected for interviews will go through 2 or more rounds, in which multiple consultants and managers will give case and fit questions. The entire process goes by very quickly; candidates usually find out whether they have made it to the next round in less than a week.

Off-cycle hiring at the top firms is always tough. More on Bain recruiting from an international perspective

4. Based on your summer internship, what would you say are the most important differences between a summer and a fulltime job at Bain?

One great aspect of the summer internship is the amount of exposure Bain gives interns to the projects and the work. Interns become integral members of their cases, and are involved in every team meeting and often in client meetings as well. This gives the interns a real feel for what the projects are like and what it would be like to work at Bain full-time.

One major difference between the internship and the full-time job would be that during the internship, Bain still has the responsibility of “selling” the intern. Social events, fancy dinners, and fun trips are planned for the interns all summer long to make sure they have a great summer and want to come back to Bain after graduation. While the social events are still a part of the full-time job, they do not constitute as large a portion.

Another major difference between the internship and full-time is the amount of responsibility one is given. Interns work on projects for about 8-10 weeks before heading back to school. It is very difficult to carve out a meaningful chunk of work for such a short period of time, although Bain does a decent job at it. With the full-time position, one can work on a project for 3-6 months or more, and can really dig into a piece of work in great depth. In this way, the full-time experience was much more fulfilling, as I felt like my work really made a difference for my clients.

5. Bain is also known as one of the most “fun” firms to work at. Do you think this reputation is justified, and if so, why?

While I can’t compare the experience with working at other consulting firms, working at Bain was definitely a fun experience. One common analogy I hear is that working at Bain feels like being in college, and I would definitely agree with that. Because of the “bottom-heavy” structure of Bain, there are a lot of new college graduates in the office, making the workplace a very social environment.

Bain also promotes a fun office culture through regular, sponsored social events ranging from simple things like happy hours to annual offsites, in which the entire office goes to locations such as Cabo San Lucas or Hawaii for a three-day long party (with a few business meetings here and there).

6. Many people enter consulting because they think it opens doors and provides many exit opportunities. Does this ring true from your personal experience and the experience of your colleagues?

Yes and no. Often the sales pitch is that after 2-3 years of consulting experience, one can go into virtually any industry and choose their job function. This is a bit of an exaggeration and it’s important that readers get a realistic view.

The consulting experience provides people with very rigorous, real-world business training and equips them with the ability to solve business problems with a structured and analytical approach. The experience is better suited toward certain industries/job functions than others. Natural exit opportunities include private equity, venture capital, or corporate strategy, which are not bad options at all.

There are certain other job functions that consulting does not prepare as well for, such as starting your own business which may require some operational experience. That’s not to say that consultants haven’t succeeded in starting their own businesses, as I know plenty of former consultants that have. However, often there are other elements in a person’s career in addition to the consulting experience that have allowed him/her to succeed in such endeavors, such as years of operational experience before consulting or an MBA. Overall, most prospective employers find former consultants highly desirable because of the great training that consulting provides and the high quality talent that consulting firms demand.

I couldn’t agree more – see the series on consulting exit opportunities

7. Can you tell us what it’s like transitioning from Bain to Venture Capital and how the two jobs compare?

In both consulting and VC, I have to be very agile when becoming knowledgeable about a particular company or industry. In consulting, a client who’s been at the company or working in the industry for many years is paying me a lot of money for my advice, so I had better not waste time in becoming an expert. In VC, I look at new investment opportunities across a variety of industries and have to become knowledgeable enough in a short amount of time to make a decision about whether or not to invest.

There are a few major differences, however. The consulting world is a bit more defined. The client and the consulting team together come up with the questions to answer and the deliverables, and the workplan naturally follows. VC is much more vague. The only guidance is to bring in good investment opportunities and make good decisions about whether or not to invest. There are a million ways that I can spend my time and none of them is the best way. I have to be disciplined on my own and monitor how I spend my time.

In terms of the lifestyle, I work fewer hours in VC than I did in consulting (when I was on an active project). VC is also a bit more flexible, as I can set my own hours and work locations to a certain extent. However, with consulting, I knew when I was done. There are specific deliverables and I often got time off in between projects where I didn’t have to think about work at all. In VC, I’m never done — there is always another startup to research and more to do, although there is usually no urgency on the VC side to get things done by a certain time/date.

8. Where do you see yourself in the next 5 years?

I plan to get an MBA after a few years in VC. After that, I would like to stay close to technology and entrepreneurship by staying in VC, joining a startup, or starting my own company. While I really enjoyed my years as a consultant and would recommend it to most people, I don’t think I will go back. I think my passion is in working with new technologies and entrepreneurial people.

9. Any last words of advice to prospective consultants?

Just some food for thought: consulting is not for everyone. My experience was this it was the perfect first job out of college for me. I got great business training that I could use for the rest of my career. However, for me, staying longer than 2-3 years would put me on a path to become a career consultant (which is a great career choice, but not for me). The longer one does consulting, there are diminishing returns to the value the experience adds to future job opportunities in other areas. In other words, the longer you do consulting, the better you get at being a consultant. This is a realization that many come to after a few years in consulting, and it is often a difficult choice about whether to stay or move on, and when is the right time to leave.

That’s it, folks!

Looking for: Current consultant? Interested in sharing your story with readers? Get in touch to setup an interview or become a guest poster!

The Life as a Consultant series continues. The guest today is a senior consultant from Celerant Consulting – an operations-focused consulting firm.

Previous interviews featured consultants from Booz Allen, AT Kearney, Nortel, and McKinsey.

Disclaimer: I did not personally conduct this interview. Both the questions and answers were sent to me by a kind reader. I found the content to be insightful and thorough, so enjoy!

I’ve bolded parts that are helpful for consulting applicants, and have additional comments in gray paragraph boxes at the end of each question

What do you do?

Celerant is a virtual company, in that we don’t have regional offices. Our consultants live anywhere in North America that they wish and the project sites become their office. Typically I will fly out Monday morning and return on Friday evening every week of a project which tend to last anywhere from 4-12 months at a time. Upon arrival on Monday morning I go directly to the client site where it is expected I will begin work no later than after lunch that day.

My typical day (averages 12 hours long) is spent facilitating a client team through identification and development of solutions. Another large portion of my time is spent helping this team explain the value of our solutions to key stakeholders in the organization. I’m working with people from the ground floor up to top management in order to fully implement sustainable change in the organization. Implementing change includes helping them to see the value of change and how it will benefit everyone in the long run, and getting the key people to feel so good about new ways that they are carrying out their business that they would never want to go back to the old.

The value we offer our clients first and foremost is that of an outsider with experience in their field with ideas and alternative solutions to the way that work is currently being done. We are change agents. It is our job to help stretch the clients thinking of what is possible and drive them to implement new or improved systems and processes which will in turn streamline the workflow and rationalize the work being done by those people in certain functions and decision making roles. Typically we take a hard look at things like:

• Identifying & picking up ‘quick wins’ (financial and cultural improvements that can happen within minimal effort or approval) that can gain momentum for the client & the project
• Reviewing how the client manages its inventories, organizes & executes activities across departments, and responds to market demands.
• How effectively the client is forecasting, planning, executing and reporting the work that is taking place
• Realigning the roles, responsibilities, and structure within the organization in alignment with the value chain for the company

What sets Celerant apart from other consultancies is that we are an Implementation and Operational Strategy consultancy. We are on the ground with the people doing the work and achieving cost savings & process optimization which link directly to the bottom line. Also, as a result of the program that we come in offering and the typical project duration we pride ourselves on our ability to deliver sustainable behavior change to our clients which will assure a culture of continuous improvement has been institutionalized.

Read my post on a day in consulting and additional thoughts on consulting travel. Celerant is focused on operations work – intense, daily client interaction with folks up and down the org chart is typical

What steps have you taken to get to where you are today?

This was my first job after graduating from college. It was through much conversation with professors, friends, and career services that I identified the field of Management Consulting as the field I wanted to enter. I realized up front the rigor of the job (travel, lifestyle, etc) but was enticed by the opportunity to see the inner workings of many different companies and learn first hand the ‘Don’t and Don’ts’ of business so that one day my company won’t make the same mistakes.

I entered Celerant at the consultant level and was promoted 1.5 years later to the title of Senior Consultant. With the promotion I have taken on much more responsibility and expectations for output and thought leadership. I have spent time in many different areas of our company learning about offerings such as Asset Management, Supply Chain, and most recently Organizational Effectiveness. I see the experience of diversifying experience in the first few years as a ‘Must Do’, for it helps ones marketability as well as helping you avoid becoming pigeon holed when looking for future jobs in that industry or if you were to change industries all together.

Consulting affords a broad business education, but you can’t take it for granted. Strive to learn a diverse set of skills to keep options open. More on consulting skills here

What qualities do you and your company/organization find most attractive when hiring?

Years of experience in related industries and/or consulting are a big plus when applying. But I think the following characteristics about a candidate are also very appealing to Celerant:

• Experience facilitating, coaching, and driving groups to solutions and outputs
• A “Whatever it takes” mentality
• Self Confidence
• The ability to present and speak with confidence about ones convictions and ideals
• Not just an understanding of the problems that companies face or the solutions to improve their current situation, but the ability to take the client from the old to the new (Facilitation)
• Creativity to solving problems and the ability to communicate with others

What sort of academic and professional experiences would be helpful in landing a job in your field?

I think that the following were all very important in preparing me to land a job in the consulting field:

• My focus on Management & Organizational Behavior “Why do people act and behave like they do in given situations?” or “What do good organizations do?”
• Experiences in coaching and leading in many different arenas in and out of college. I spent 4 years coaching basketball, took on many leadership positions within volunteer organizations, and was forced to develop & implement solutions within all of those experiences
• Ability to understand at a high level those buttons that impact the bottom line and financial viability of a company
• Utilize your professors/mentors/friends in industry as advisors that you keep in touch with. I have continued to keep my 2 college advisors as well as some close friends (both peers and from my parents generation) abreast of my endeavors, thoughts, concerns, and new ideas on given basis. People you have a connection with are receptive to listening and want to offer advice.

Having had no prior “long term” industry experience when entering this job it was these past experiences that helped me to relate, adapt, and find solutions to problems I encountered along the way.

The above points emphasize leadership and business knowledge. Read every consulting resource you can find and edit your resume to demonstrate you have a consulting skillset

Where would you recommend that people interested in this occupation begin to look?

• Use the college and grad school alumni network – Call, e-mail, take them out to lunch
• Use the network of family and friends you have – they know you the best as far as your credibility, although you may need to show them that you are definitely ready and qualified to enter the industry you are looking at
• Go knocking on doors & find ways to talk to people in companies you are interested in
• Have a mantra/story that you are always talking about. Not just a clear picture of what you want to do, but why and how excited you are about finding an opportunity. It is amazing how powerful it is when one keeps their goal mind at all turns, and how opportunities begin to present themselves

Network and network some more! It’s key to landing consulting jobs. Learn how to network at presentations and consulting networking basics from previous posts

What are your future professional plans?

I will own my own business someday soon down the road. Risky? Yes, but I’m very clear that I want to be the one ultimately accountable for my success and that of my company.

I also look forward to working in executive development one day coaching CEO’s and top level management teams through transitions, tough decisions, and new opportunities.

I’m very excited to return to coaching at some time in the future and work developing and mentoring young people through athletics.

Lastly, I hope to one day be able to be a sounding board and Angel investor for young people and the business ideas and plans that they want to get off the ground.

I think that I will need to be a CEO in order to coach CEOs (credibility). To that point I believe that getting my MBA will be critical as well.

Entrepreneurship and venture capital are two attractive consulting exit options

Any last words of wisdom?

• Keep your goal in mind at all times. Let it emanate from you in all you do.
• Take every opportunity to learn and increase your frame of reference
• Do what you like, define success for yourself (don’t let others) and become comfortable with the reality of what it will take to achieve that success. If you are doing something you don’t like, it will be clear to everyone you work with.

Are you a current consultant or someone who recruited successfully? Interested in being interviewed? Please get in touch to be featured in the Life as a Consultant series.