<p>I'm curious how one gets into consulting, specifically management consulting. </p>
<p>A little bit about me: I go to a good, but very small LAC that isn't a recruiting target for any major consulting firms. I'm a political science/chinese major with a strong gpa (~3.95). I focus mainly on international security and East Asia. By the time I graduate I'll have a couple good internships (but focused on international relations, not business), a published paper, 2 semesters abroad in Asia, and should be at least conversational in Mandarin. I do not however have many 'hard' skills and only basic econ classes. </p>
<p>My long term goal is to go get a masters in IR but before I do I'd like to work for a couple years. Consulting is appealing to me because the work sounds interesting, the pay would let me save up for grad school, and I think the connections might be good. I've heard that a lot of people work at the big consulting firms for a couple years, get some good hard skills and connections, and then move on with their careers. </p>
<p>I have two questions though: First, can someone without quantitative training coming from a non-target school even get a job with a consulting firm? Second, do these sort of jobs look good to IR grad schools? Does my plan to do something like this for a couple years, make some money, and then move on make sense? Also, if anyone knows anything about the different types of consulting and which might appeal to me beyond management consulting please tell. </p>
<p>Thanks and forgive my ignorance as I don't know much about the business world.</p>