<p>How do you land a job at a place like Bain and Co. , McKinsey, Accenture, etc.? Is econ a popular major for the consulting industry? What classes are usually the most helpful? What types of experiences/extra-curriculars do these big companies usually look for? Also, is it like i-banking, where you work for a few years and then hope that they'll let you come back after an MBA? How many hours would you usually work, is it 100+ like ibanking? What's the salary like? Thanks guys</p>
<p>I work for one of those consulting firms you mention - Accenture. One of my coworker frends is an Economics and Political Science Double major, and most of my co-workers have very diverse college backgrounds, but business school and computer science are the most numerous in our case, mostly because we do a lot of outsourcing (especially IT) and not just consulting. I don't know about Deloitte, Bain and Co and the others, but I would guess that they might prefer certain kind of backgrounds, especially management and i-banking, as the involvement they have in varied industries is not as wide as Accenture's and therefore benefit less from having staff of diverse skill sets<end shameless="" company="" plug="">.</end></p>
<p>Classes? Take anything that deals with business or maybe computer science, but they're not terribly important 4 consulting IMHO.</p>
<p>Hours? Sure you'll work your butt off so yeah... a 100 hour week wil be quite rare but you'll experience it sooner or later. Usually 50-60 hrs is what I put. Be prepared to travel a LOT (4 days a week). Consultants get sent anywhere at the whim of the client. </p>
<p>MBA? I would guess that you wil have a hard time, as my company clearly has stated that thwy will not pay for it or promise anybody who leaves for school to have a job when they come back - and forget about evening school with these hours.</p>
<p>Experience/skills? Get jobs/internships that develop your leadership and networking skills - the 2 main skills a succesful consultant will have. Be a go getter, type A kinda person. If you can, excel in a particular area (accounting, marketing computer science, human resaources). Some of the negative things we are called are: control freaks, workaholics, know-it-alls, documentation monkeys, ***holes (when they'e angry at us), so if you are sometimes called those, hey you're fit! We also speak Consultese, meaning our documents are usually heavy with acronyms and the most cliched business terms. We have to use fancy words so that clients feel that they're getting something extra for the outrgeous fees they pay us :) </p>
<p>Salary? Coming from an average school and working in a metro area you sould expect to start around 50K if you're straight out of undergrad with no pro xperience. At leat 60K with MBA or experience. </p>
<p>Hope this helps</p>
<p>Wow, that was very informative. Thanks!</p>
<p>Is the 50K before or after bonuses?</p>
<p>Before. I haven't completed my 1st year yet so I dunno how big (small?) bonuses will be.</p>
<p>How did you get into consulting? could you give us your story? Were you recruited on campus what kind of experience did you have, how exactly did it work?
Also:
-Is an MBA nesessary?
-Could you give more examples of where people attended college in your firm and their respective majors?</p>
<p>thanks,</p>