<p>What would the best degree be to get into management consulting? Would ILR (Industrial and Labor Relations) from Cornell be good? What about others? Thanks</p>
<p>As I've posted in other threads, the first thing to realize about management consulting is that there are about six different categories:</p>
<p>(1) Strategic consulting
(2) Financial consulting
(3) Operational consulting
(4) Logistical consulting (which is sometimes included in category 3 above)
(5) HR and benefits consulting
(6) IT (computerized systems) consulting</p>
<p>The degree that is best will be different for each area.</p>
<p>ILR (from Cornell) would be good for areas 3, 4, and 5 (especially 5), not much help for 2--and would be a starting point only for 1 and 6.</p>
<p>I have done a bit of searching on the internet, but im still not really sure. What are the differences between them? I know management consulting is hard to get into, but what of the categories are the easiest? hardest? Also, what is the pay difference?</p>
<p>My economics professor quoted a poll of the majors of elite managerial consultants. Surprisingly, the most frequent major wasn't economics, management, accounting, finance or engineering. At the top of the list was History. We pondered what makes history majors special: research, writing, trend-analysis, open mind, etc. Makes some sense, but many were still skeptical. Then someone brought up the colleges managerial consultants attend. Almost all the Ivies and top privates that are actively recruited do not offer business, business-centered economics or engineering programs.
For management consulting, it's the school that counts.</p>
<p>Tepper has an amazing Management track, as well as Operations.</p>
<p>As usual, the statistics do not tell the whole story. (and unfortunately, ferryboat10's economics professor didn't go the extra mile to explain it).</p>
<p>First of all, I could not disagree more with ferryboat10--and his/her professor about it being "only the school that counts" in getting a consulting job. It is true that going to a good school will make it more likely that you can get a good job--but it largely depends upon what courses you took--and your connections--and your internships prior to being hired.</p>
<p>Let me give a quick example since this topic has come up before (wish I could find the old thread).</p>
<p>Someone earlier made this same comment about Penn--and about how all their Communications and Engineers were hired into top business IB and consulting jobs with no business background. So I pulled out a list of the placement (by student, with their major and minors listed) for the previous year (2006 was pulled last year in 2007 for this study). While it is true that Penn placed 65 people into IB and consulting jobs out of the Communications and Enginnering majors, of this number, 47 had done minors in the business school (Wharton) as part of their preparation to get the jobs. </p>
<p>In fact, from a ratio perspective--since there were only 59 people in these majors that minored in business, this means that 47/59 or 80% of the people who did the business minor this way were the ones that got the jobs.</p>
<p>So, you tell me--do you think they got their jobs this way because of they were Communications and Engineering majors? Or do you think their strong background in the business minor might have had something to do with them being hired?</p>
<p>Yale has instituted an undergraduate finance certificate program for the exact same reason. The placement of people who do this program in addition to the regular major is similarly high and way out of proportion relative to those who do not do the program.</p>
<p>Also, let me point out that measuring a person's undergraduate major does not tell the whole story if those people then went back and got an MBA later on. I've had this statistic (on history majors in consulting) quoted to me before--but nobody could tell me how many of them had masters degrees in business later on. My guess is it was quite high--but conveniently overlooked in doing the survey. </p>
<p>There is also one last thing I think that should be considered. There has been an absolutely "boom" in financial clubs on the Ivy-league and other top colleges campuses. Unless you belong to one of these clubs, you have little to no chance of recruitment to top firms. Why?--because these "clubs" are being used in place of classes to teach business skills to the students.</p>
<p>Here's a recent article on this phenomena that states the importance of getting these business skills at the Ivies outside of the classroom:</p>
<p>Meet</a> Your New Recruits: They Want to Eat Your Lunch</p>
<p>Let me quote from the article:</p>
<p>Once, merely graduating from an Ivy League college or similarly prestigious rival like Stanford or Swarthmore qualified students for a choice entry-level perch on Wall Street. No longer. "The whole idea of smart people just falling into banking is becoming rarer," says Lance LaVergne, a vice-president and global head of diversity recruiting at Goldman Sachs (GS). "Clubs are essential to preparation, especially for students who are not majoring in traditional disciplines like finance or accounting."</p>
<p>thats some nice info, however i know this for a fact that YOU CANNOT do a minor from wharton unless you are IN wharton. You can only do courses ,albeit a lot of courses, however that does not count as a minor at penn if ur not in wharton</p>
<p>I think what you meant was that they had done some business Courses (which wouldve counted as a minor had they been in wharton).</p>
<p>It should be pointed out that my economics professor brought up the stat to make the point that business majors must be well rounded. It was only in discussion did other the issues come up: history majors' attributes, data skewed by top schools without business schools. The stat lies in question, but it seems to supports the widely held notion that management consulting firms recruit mainly top schools.</p>
<p>BTW, business minors usually consist of principles of accounting, economics, statistics and 1-2 other introductory courses (speech, computer applications, business law, etc.) that most business majors have completed by mid Sophomore year. No management consulting firm will be impressed by the mere fact a student took those freshman level courses any more than Spanish 101 or any other elective.</p>
<p>Yes, that's for the clarification, som1. I should point out, however, that the people who took the Wharton courses actually had this noted on their placement statistics from Penn--so I presumed that meant they were minoring in the subject--but you are correct, minors aren't allowed (which makes me wonder how and why the career office makes this distinction).</p>
<p>Ferryboat10, </p>
<p>I presume that most consulting firms would value the non-business courses over the basic business courses only if they applied to the work you would be doing. For example, they might care about Spanish if you were going to do your consulting in a Spanish-speaking country, or if you would be dealing with a Latin American subsidiary on a regular basis. </p>
<p>P.S. Funny you should mention Spanish, since I actually took 3 semesters of college Spanish (and had taken Spanish all 4 years of high school) prior to getting my UCLA MBA. While I was recruited by one firm to do post-sales presentations to executives of clients on the financial products they were buying (in South America countries), this was the exception, not the rule. </p>
<p>I do agree with you, however, that all business firms will highly value certain non-business courses such as communications, public speaking, and critical thinking.</p>