More About Consulting...

College Majors Business Major
1

<p>Does anyone know about the job security, pay, and hours of consulting (assuming you dont go to a T10, but a good T20-T30 school)? I also wanted to confirm whether or not you have to go to a super prestigious school to do consulting, or can you go to a T30 and still do fine.</p>

<p>Also, what is the type of consulting that helps corporations better themselves? I know it has the word strategy in it, I think it was like managing strategy consulting or something like that. How well do they do?</p>

2

<p>In answer to your questions:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The hours on the job make no difference what school you came out of.</p></li>
<li><p>Obviously, the higher ranked the school, the more likely you are to be recruited into the consulting area. And MBAs have a significant advantage over undergraduates. Best majors are business, economics, communications, and international relations. In my view, any business school in the top 30-40 will get some recruits into consulting, although they will have far more of the graduates go into basic business functions like accounting, marketing, and general operations the farther down you get from Wharton/MIT/Virginia/Michigan/UC Berkeley/and NYU.</p></li>
<li><p>You are thinking of strategic consulting. There is also operational consulting, IT consulting, E-Commerce consulting, Human Resource Consulting, and specialized "boutique" consulting. Most of the consultants go into the first three and last one of the six areas listed above. Obviously, they do quite well--the market is HUGE.</p></li>
</ol>

3

<p>"Best majors are business, economics, communications, and international relations"</p>

<p>you forgot Engineering, especially Industrial Eng.</p>

4

<p>I'll take this opportunity to ask some of my questions. I never thought of "consulting" as being limited to one job description, as anyone can be a "consultant". There's a "dog training consultant", and a consultant for just about anything. So obviously, we are referring to a specific industry. What is the day in the life of a consultant? Say you're a strategic mangagement consultant, (which I assume deals with business management?)</p>

5

<p>I second wallstreet's question as in I would like to know as well. Also, is this salary thing accurate, because it seems REALLY high:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.careers-in-business.com/consulting/mcsal.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.careers-in-business.com/consulting/mcsal.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

6

<p>yeah, it's pretty accurate. there's a reason why people here are pretty much exclusively drawn to either ibanking or consulting.</p>

7

<p>california_love8,</p>

<p>corporate strategy
management consulting</p>

<p>are the most commonly used terms</p>

8

<p>"And MBAs have a significant advantage over undergraduates"</p>

<ul>
<li>"Historically, the body of knowledge stemming from Industrial Engineering formed the basis of the first MBA programs, and is central to operations management as used across diverse business sectors, industry, consulting and non-profit organizations."</li>
</ul>

9

<p>thanks for the response rs, now can anyone answer a couple more things:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Is there ultra stiff competition for these jobs like there is in I-banking, or is it pretty easy to get a job even if it isnt from the super firms?</p></li>
<li><p>Why industrial engineering? I thought it would be either EE, BME, or Mech E because these are the most prolific/degrees with the biggest growth oppurtunity?</p></li>
<li><p>Also, how is job security and hours. I wasn't asking in my first post whether the school you make makes a difference in the amount of hours worked, I was just asking in general how much they work.</p></li>
</ol>

10

<p>"Why industrial engineering? I thought it would be either EE, BME, or Mech E because these are the most prolific/degrees with the biggest growth oppurtunity?"</p>

<p>Any Engineering major is fine to get into a Business related career, thats what I heard, but Industrial Engineering (IE) is the best since it doesn't deal w/ too much technical stuff like in Chem E, Mech E, Elec E, BME etc.</p>

<p>IE is the most business oriented Eng. major.
trivia fact: "Historically, the body of knowledge stemming from industrial engineering formed the basis of the first MBA programs, and is central to operations management as used across diverse business sectors, industry, consulting and non-profit organizations."</p>

<hr>

<p>"What is Industrial Engineering?
To design systems or make systems more productive and efficient, Industrial Engineers develop ways of integrating...</p>

<p>People
Machines
Materials
Energy
Information"</p>

<p>IE is very related to systems engineering (SE) and Operations Research(OR); infact some schools have I&SE and IE&OR degree programs in the eng. dept</p>

<p>"I'm in industrial engineering because I read that it was a fast track to consulting and management positions. I wanted to work in a technical field, but I didn't want to work behind
a desk." </p>

<p>Julie McMinn, B.S., '02 (Penn State)
Production supervisor, Motorola" </p>

<p>for more info on IE go here:
<a href="http://www.ie.psu.edu/Academics/Undergraduate/IEIntro/Questions/Q1.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ie.psu.edu/Academics/Undergraduate/IEIntro/Questions/Q1.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>(Penn State school's IE site)</p>

11

<p>tom925,</p>

<p>Industrial Engineering makes up the basics for the first year of an MBA program if you are an operations management or production operations or operations research major. It does not, however, make up the basics if you are a finance, accounting, marketing, management, human resources, or economics major--despite what Ms. McMinn says above </p>

<p>(I should point out that I was an operations mgmt major/computer systems minor in my MBA at UCLA, so I can speak to this point quite well. My undergraduate major was accounting/finance).</p>

<p>Industrial engineering covers production planning, inventory systems, capacity planning, fabrication and assembly systems, distribution, and logistics, and ERP systems.</p>

<p>Knowing all of this is definitely helpful to the average business person who is going to end up working at a manufacturing or engineering firm. A lot of this would be almost useless for people who end up in financial services or banking or retail or advertising or entertainment areas. Thus, the reason why the courses you take will vary so much at the graduate level even during the first year. (not as true in an undergraduate environment).</p>

<p>I would love to believe, as you do, that industrial engineering if the most important thing for business--or consulting--but, sadly, that is false. For example, there were exactly 6 people in my MBA program at UCLA that went into operations management. Over 200 went into finance or financial services or accounting, over 100 went into general management, and over 50 went into marketing . This gives you an example of the typical breakdown of an MBA class. Today there would probably be about 5 in process managment and 3 in quality management and maybe 10 in computer technology areas. As you can see, the financial/accounting/gen mgmt overwhelms the operations/industrial engineering majors. </p>

<p>Even I, with my operations mgmt/computer background working at a major manufacturing company ($14 billion in revenues/year) spend more of my time on computer and financial integration/compliance tasks than in operations--mainly because so much of the industrial engineering is handled by foreigners overseas. There is just not a lot of demand for this from a consulting point of view anymore. Most of the really difficult manufacturing problems have already been solved or have moved overseas--and the money is in the financial areas/strategic areas/IT areas of consulting for the most part.</p>

12

<ol>
<li>Is there ultra stiff competition for these jobs like there is in I-banking, or is it pretty easy to get a job even if it isnt from the super firms?</li>
</ol>

<p>yes, same ultra stiff competition as ibanking. Probably a teeny tiny bit less competitive but you're still gonna need exceptional grades and marketable/appropriate skills. Even the boutique firms will still be strict in what they look for. It's just the nature of the industry because of the nature of what it means to be a consultant. If people were able to solve their own problems, they wouldn't need consultants to do it for them. Consultants have to be some of the smartest people in their fields to be able to provide quality advice and solve problems that no one else can solve. No matter what firm you work at, this will be true and is what makes the industry very competitive and tough to get into (just like ibanking).</p>

<ol>
<li>Also, how is job security and hours. I wasn't asking in my first post whether the school you make makes a difference in the amount of hours worked, I was just asking in general how much they work.</li>
</ol>

<p>Hours are pretty tough, but much more lenient than ibanking. probably 10-12 hours a day for about 60-70 per week. The KILLER is the insane amount of travel to anywhere from bumfudge, idaho to major metropolitan areas. You'll be outside of the office and away from home probably half of the week, most likely more than that. And this is true of the vast majority of consultancy firms out there. You are expected to go to a client site to solve their problem, not do it from the comfort of your own desk. It doesn't really matter what school you go to, this is how the job is.</p>

13

<p>rs, would it be easier possibly if you become an electrical engineering or other engineering consultant because the qualifications are more unique? I didn't know that it was THAT hard to get jobs in this field. I thought that as long as you go to a T30 school and do well there you have a chance, but I guess not. Do you have any data to back it up?</p>

14

<p>"There is just not a lot of demand for this from a consulting point of view anymore. Most of the really difficult manufacturing problems have already been solved or have moved overseas--and the money is in the financial areas/strategic areas/IT areas of consulting for the most part."</p>

<p>I did hear that the demand in the manufacturing area in the U.S is going down.</p>

<p>But I also heard w/ an IE degree one could concentrate on other non-manufacturing areas as well.</p>

<p>(I just finished my freshman yr; I get my info from others and the web)</p>

<p>So are you saying IE concentrates more on the Manufacturing industry?</p>

15

<p>"A lot of this would be almost useless for people who end up in financial services or banking or retail or advertising or entertainment areas."</p>

<p>I do know someone who majored in Chem Eng (B.S.) and is working in the financial sector.</p>

<p>"mainly because so much of the industrial engineering is handled by foreigners overseas. There is just not a lot of demand for this from a consulting point of view anymore. Most of the really difficult manufacturing problems have already been solved or have moved overseas"</p>

<p>are you also saying the overall demand in IE is down because of out sourcing?</p>

16

<p>interesting info, thanks Calcruzer</p>

17

<p>"Consultants: Accenture, Booz Allen Hamilton, Deloitte & Touche"</p>

<p>some of the firms that have recruited IEs from PSU.</p>