<p>I am interested in attaining an associate level type 2-3 year position at a strong brand name consulting firm that has strong world wide exposure especially in Europe and the Middle East. I have a Bachelors in ME and getting a masters in IE currently. </p>
<p>The bigger ones do not recruit at my school at all,
McKinsey
BCG
Bain
Monitor
Booz & Co</p>
<p>and the ones that do,
Accenture
Deloitte
Ernst and Young
are primarily interesting in accounting/tax auditing type associate positions to be filled.</p>
<p>Does submitting an online application at these firms yield any results if they don't recruit engineers from your institution to begin with?</p>
<p>I’m not sure why you would work at a big four accounting firm with a masters degree in engineering. Do you want to work in accounting or engineering? There are many engineering consulting firms that you didn’t list that range from small to large. A google search would turn up many more.</p>
<p>You can always submit an online application if you are serious about a company. What have you got to lose? Give it a shot.</p>
<p>Deloitte is a big 4 accounting firm but they have a big consulting department that has technology integration, and strategy & operations divisions.</p>
<p>Ernst and Young also has a consulting department dealing with Performance Improvement.</p>
<p>4 months before i graduate with my MS in IE i will apply online mostly to their middle east offices if applicable since their would be less competition i would assume for arab talent.</p>
<p>The goal in mind is to get an associate position then move on to get an MBA which is the accepted norm at these firms. This fits perfect with the goals i have in mind. Maybe i will even mention my GMAT score somewhere in the application hehe.</p>
<p>Cheers.</p>
<p>Edit- the first post i meant to attain a position as business analyst not associate since that is reserved for MBA holders.</p>
<p>Of course, I am here to give you the federal contracting viewpoint of these thread topics. Several of those Big-6 firms have a “Federal”, “Government” or “Defense” Sector of their corporation. Are those sectors as big as there Accounting sectors?..Of course not, but when the Feds are throwing out $100-$200 million contracts, why not get in on that piece of pie doing subcontracting work under the Northrops, Lockheeds, CSC’s and Boeings?</p>
<p>That is exactly what at least Deloitte, Booz Allen and others do.</p>
<p>Frankly, I’m not that surprised, given, as aalba005 mentioned, the large consulting arms that the major accounting firms operate. I know quite a few MIT engineering PhD’s who took jobs in consulting, including such firms as Deloitte, as well as top-tier strategy firms such as McKinsey and BCG (along with jobs in investment banking, venture capital, etc.) One would think that if any group would be dedicated to the craft of engineering, it would be MIT PhD engineering students, so if even many of them don’t really want to work as engineers, what does that say about the rest of the engineers?</p>
<p>Here we go again. There seems to be a recurring theme with all of your posts. Investment banking is awsome, engineering is lame. Venture capital is great, engineering is a horrible choice… Give it up already. Your scenario of a PhD from MIT doesn’t apply to 99.9% of engineering graduates. MIT attracts the smartest people in the world, so its not a surprise than many companies recruit PhD grads for very lucrative positions. </p>
<p>I can see how industrial engineering could play into operations at a big 4 firm but I guess my point is that I would find it very unusual for someone with an ME undergrad degree to get hired by Earnst and Young. I’ve never heard of this but thats not to say it never happens.</p>
<p>From my understanding of the consulting business, they are looking for people with high problem solving aptitude. Recruiting an engineer as a consultant under the basis that he has good problem solving skills and not because he understands thermodynamics is one way of looking at it.</p>
<p>A different approach would be for example i am doing an internship at a small consulting firm this summer that deals Power Management Consulting. My background in ME helps me make consulting decisions dealing with heating and cooling systems and HVAC. This applies to oil & gas consulting and manufacturing and production management consulting as well with manufacturing processes and design.</p>
<p>Investment banking is a different story and a background in ME serves little purpose besides proof of problem solving aptitude, but for consulting i can’t help but see ME or any other engineering degree as a huge plus. Am i missing something? This is the picture i get at least on the power management consulting front from what i know, i do not know much about the other branches of consulting.</p>
<p>If you don’t like my posts, then just don’t read them. Nobody is holding a gun to your head. The OP seems to be interested in engineering students becoming consultants, including consultants with the major accounting firms, hence my posts seem to be highly relevant to him. If you don’t want to participate in such a discussion, nobody is forcing you. </p>
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<p>MIT PhD engineering students are arguably the most dedicated engineering students in the country, perhaps the world. I agree with you - 99.9% of all engineers do not have the dedication to complete a PhD from MIT, heck they probably don’t have the dedication to even win admission to the program in the first place. I think it is safe to say that if you don’t truly love engineering, you’re not going to complete such a degree.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, to this day, I still find it notable that of even that particular highly dedicated group of engineers, many of them will take non-engineering positions in favor of consulting (or finance). So if even some of them can be swayed to non-engineering positions, what does that say about the average engineering student at an average school? Let’s be perfectly honest - many engineering students, especially the mediocre ones, don’t actually love engineering and would be perfectly happy to consider other careers. {Whether they can find such an employer is a different story.}</p>