<p>Does anyone want to elaborate on what it takes to be a top consultant and general information about consulting ? Thanks</p>
<p>People skills. </p>
<p>Creativity.</p>
<p>The stamina to work 80 hours a week.</p>
<p>No ties that would prevent you from travelling a lot at a moment's notice.</p>
<p>Sakky's list is right on. I would add a few more:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Attending a top university. There are 4 types:
a. The 8 Ivy League schools.
b. Top privates (MIT, Stanford, Chicago, Johns Hopkins, Caltech, Duke and Northwestern, maybe Carnegie Mellon, Georgetown, Emory, Rice, NYU, Washington U., Vanderbilt and Tufts)
C. Elite publics (like Cal, Michigan, UVA, maybe Texas-Austin, UCLA, William and Mary, UNC-Chapel Hill, Illinois-Urbana Champaign and Wisconsin-Madison)
D. Top LACs (Amherst, Williams Swarthmore, Pomona, Carleton, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Haverford, Wesleyan, maybe Davidson, Colby, Grinnell, Bates, Reed, Vassar and Claremont McKenna)</p></li>
<li><p>GPA. Most Consulting firms will not consider students with less than 3.5 GPAs. Obviously, the higher the GPA, the better your chances.</p></li>
<li><p>Major. It is not common for students who major in Communications or Art to get jobs with MCs. Obviously, Economics, English, Business, Engineering and Mathematics are the most popular majors. Excellent communication, computer, analytical and quantitative skills are also required.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>And like Sakky said, you have to be willing to work 80 hours+/week, including weekends from time to time.</p>
<p>thanks sakky & Alexandre:
question- is a double major in sociology & history good?
also, what are the job prospects,salary expectations ... and is the competition fierce? i have done some research and i want to see if what yall say reaffirms my data.</p>
<p>Sociology & Biology major is not the best combination. Economics and Math or Computer Science are better combinations. But if you attend a top university, not matter what you major in, if you have a very high GPA and the right approach, you can get your foot in the door. </p>
<p>As for the competition, it is fierce in some consulting firms, but not in all. And the competition is not as fierce as it is in IB. </p>
<p>Starting salaries depend on the location. In NYC or San Francisco, it would be somewhere over $60,000. In Houston or Chicago, probably a little lower.</p>
<p>What does the actual job of being a consultant entail? What does one do?</p>
<p>Anyone? What does a consultant do? :)</p>
<p>nobody knows, its a big mystery. theyre just overpaid. just playin.</p>
<p>my cousin is a senior "consultant" at microsoft, at age 25 in LA. he went to uci and gota 3.3 gpa witha doulbe major in compter science and electrical engineering. he wroked for two yrs at a smallish firm after goingto microsoft. he rose through the ranks pretty quickly. he has excellent people skills. his job entails going to the headquarters of companies and heading a team of microsoft software enigineers to develop e business solutions, like a new website. for example, he went to san fransisco to setup the GAP's website. hes been to atlana, new york, chicago, and other places too. its common for people with more prestige degrees to work under him or with him. he studies at UCLA's anderson school of biz right now. i hope this helps, my fingers hurt.</p>
<p>OK, let's back up. We have to be careful about what kind of consulting we're talking about.</p>
<p>In the 'lexicon' of business-schools, when people say 'consulting', and don't specify what kind of consulting, they are usually talking about management consulting. The major management consulting firms are the "M's and the B's" - McKinsey, Mercer, Monitor, BCG, Bain, and Booz-Allen. These are the jobs that require mass travel, mass stamina (very long working hours), and are very keen on "prestige" degrees. Management consultants help customers in a wide range of business tasks, often strategic, but encompass the entire gamut. </p>
<p>Then there are the IT consultancies, which are a different breed of consulting. IT consultants do what mrtrojanman stated above - basically, helping companies build out and use their information technology infrastructure. </p>
<p>Then there are the highly specialized consultancies. They range from software consultancies, to engineering consultants, and every other kind of consulting under the sun. Basically, any task that a company has to do, you can bet that somewhere, there is a consulting company that will advise you how to do it. I once knew a guy who started his own HVAC consulting company. Yep, that's right, HVAC. For those of you who don't know what HVAC is, it's Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning. Basically, this guy had worked as a mechanic for decades, specializing in the repair and maintenance of HVAC systems, so now he has a consulting company helping companies design, install, and maintain HVAC systems in a cost-effective manner. </p>
<p>The point is that there are all kind of consulting companies out there, ranging from the extremely glamorous, like McKinsey, to the seemingly mundane (but apparently still highly profitable, like the HVAC guy I know).</p>
<p>Interesting.Does anyone have any more info on engineering consulting?I always hear about management consulting, never engr. consulting.</p>
<p>Project management is a great field to go into. I have had many years of success in the industry and I highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to pursue a career in the industry. In order to be a great asset in the field you need to have exceptional teamwork, problem solving, and communication skills. Additionally, I recommend masters education to put yourself ahead of the competition. One tool that has given me great success is the Kolb Learning program provided by the HayGroup. You can take a look at it by visiting <a href=“Hay Group”>Hay Group; . It has help put together great teams that get the project done.</p>
<p>Management consulting means using your organization’s proven methods to help the upper management of companies with the logistics and direction of their businesses. But that’s pretty much BS…</p>
<p>In real life, CEOs hire consultants in order to have someone else sign off on their decisions when they present them to the board of directors. For example, a CEO decides to raise their pay from $2 million a year to $5 million a year. They hire McKinsey to make a bunch of graphs and powerpoints to prove how great this would be for the business. The consultants get paid six figures, the CEO gets his millions, and everyone’s happy. The investors just lost millions, but they won’t say anything… After all, McKinsey signed off on the decision.</p>
<p>Awfully cynical view above…</p>
<p>Junior management consultants (ie presumably what the poster aspires to be) are essentially brains for hire. The bargain is that you are reasonably well compensated and learn a ton about effectively running businesses - comp is a little under 100 all in for the right out of UG set, and around 200 for the right out of b-school set (this is at a top firm) - in turn you provide an attractive, smiling young face with a fancy degree from a bigtime school and sign your life away for most of the week. </p>
<p>One person described it to me as “solving a once in a career problem for a CEO every 3-6 months.” Now, this is a bit glamorized, but at the end of the day: it is a pretty unique job that does provide a very real skill set after a couple of years. If you’re looking to make it into a top MBA program after 2-3 years, general consensus is that this is a verrrry good way to go. If you make it to one of the top 3 firms (by no means easy, generally The McBain Group gets a huge number of incredibly bright applicants from all of the top schools in the world and take less than 1 in 100) you would have to try pretty hard not to make it into one of the H/S/W MBA programs. If you want to run a company one day, again this is a very good way to go. Keep in mind, the travel is a grind, and the vast majority of hires will leave after a few years (although generally with excellent options).</p>
<p>If you’re totally willing to sell your soul and want to take a shot at making seven figures in your twenties go the finance route…</p>
<p>Rereading the original post, to make it in you need the gift of gab, a polished appearance, analytical skills, and a high GPA from a top university (as an undergrad, for grad students grades don’t matter).</p>
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<p>Consultants are like pigeons. They fly in, s**t all over you, then fly away.</p>
<p>One time that companies hire consultants is when they are merging. I know that McKinsey worked for two companies in that situation, studying the organizations and making recommendations for the new structure. They had teams of bright young folks sitting in conference rooms, inputting data into computers.</p>
<p>Another time, I saw a presentation that was put together by a group at Price Waterhouse Coopers on the pharmaceutical industry trends. It was presented by senior consultants, who obviously had risen through the ranks and worked their way up. They talked about being called in to pharmaceutical companies to work on making changes to compete in the changing healthcare environment.</p>