Senior ME-consulting/law

College Majors Engineering Majors
1

<p>While this is only my first thread, over the last year I have found many users with informative posts from this site that have helped me indirectly... so now I was hoping for some direct assistance.
I am an ME major at the U of M entering my senior year. I have a strong GPA (3.96) with some notable experience and leadership opportunities. While natural intellect is required for this curriculum, I attribute most of my academic success to ambition and work ethic.</p>

<p>I am most inclined to seek an entry-level position in consulting, but also have aspirations for studying in graduate school in either business or law. Since business school is most properly complemented by experience, the latter is the only one I am considering at this time.
...now that the essentials are out of the way:</p>

<p>My interests in engineering are most aligned with consulting because of the breadth of the occupation. Fast-paced lifestyle, new projects, presentations, and most importantly working with other intelligent associates; this is an occupation that I would enjoy. I fear being pigeon holed. From what I know, there is quite a spectrum of these firms and presumably a drastic drop-off after the top tier? I am aware breaking out into top firms would be extremely difficult from my school and background, but with proper contacts and networking is this still feasible? </p>

<p>Practicing in law (patent attorney would even specifically utilize an engineering undergrad) has been in my consideration for a few months now. While the career would have its perks, I am most attracted because I think I would be good at it. I am ambitious enough to study it, and would achieve a respectable LSAT. It's a less common route traveled but any insight is appreciated.</p>

<p>A few months till the fall career fair and I any advice would be helpful. While I may seem indecisive, it's only because once I commit to something I'll do whatever it takes to excel in it; and it seems only responsible to seek advice, after all, I am 20 (all textbooks and no real world).</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>There are certainly a lot of question in this thread. First, what does the “M” stand for? If it’s Michigan, you’re not pushing yourself too far thinking about consulting. However, GPA, major, and college are only one part to the process. You need to start practicing case-based interviewing and preparing for the written exams. Those are more important than GPA. The Big 3 have a very large number of applicants every year and usually hire less than 1%. Getting hired requires successfully passing through 7 or 8 case/experience interviews.</p>

<p>As far as the firms, you have the Big 3 (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, collectively known as MBB) for management consulting then a massive drop off to the rest. You’ll find some small firms that are very good in highly specialized areas, but MBB are usually the target. If you want to not pursue management consulting, you can look at the big IT consulting firms (Accenture, Deloitte, IBM). It is much, much easier to find a job there (25% hire rate or so). Deloitte is particularly interesting for many students because it’s not terribly hard to get hired there and they have a management consulting arm to go with their IT arm (sort of like MBB-light). </p>

<p>As far as being pigeonholed, consulting is anything but that. You will jump around from engagement to engagement every 2 months or so for MBB (or every year or so for the IT firms) meaning that after 2 years, you have a much broader perspective of business than someone in a non-consulting position. Not only will you have worked in multiple areas of business, but you’ll probably have worked in multiple industries all with Fortune 500 clients. In addition, as a consultant you’ll interface higher up in the company than a non-consultant, giving you more visibility (in MBB you’ll interface with C-level executives - most employees spend their career never meeting a C-level executive). Consultants frequently receive job offers from the firms they visit (so you’ll always have a safety net) and make powerful friends quickly (so you’ll have upward mobility). Further, just having the name of one of MBB (especially the first one on the list) on your resume will open doors after you leave. </p>

<p>As far as grad school, to be promoted at MBB you will need to have a grad degree. Out of undergrad, you’re hired as an analyst then spend 2-3 years in that role. After that they basically kick you out to get a degree (usually an MBA but they also people to JD programs and even MS, MD or PhD - McKinsey is the most well known for JDs, MDs, and PhDs). If you work in MBB, they feed directly to Harvard / Wharton / Stanford / Darden so you basically have automatic admission with a good GMAT and McKinsey is known to feed to UVA / Harvard for JD with a good LSAT. Further the degree is usually paid for by the consulting firm if you return after graduation (you have a guaranteed job at graduation as long as you weren’t a terrible analyst). In an IT firm, you can get all the way to Partner (or Senior Executive in the case of the publicly held firms) without a graduate degree. They are much less likely to pay for graduate degrees, but recently some of them (notably Accenture) now pay for certain MBAs if you return after graduation (though there’s not much of a reason to return - the IT firms way underpay MBAs). </p>

<p>In your situation, it’s not a bad idea to interview with consulting firms. While interviewing, you’ll get to experience a little of the lifestyle (you’ll go to a number of dinners, get to meet the other potential analysts, meet with current consultants, etc) and see if you like what you see. Simultaneously, take the LSAT and apply to law school as a backup. Then after you have your job offers and law school admissions, you can make a more informed decision. Even if you decide to pursue consulting, you’ll already have an LSAT score to apply in 2-3 years following your time as an analyst (I believe LSAT scores are good for 5 years).</p>

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<p>BanjoHitter, thanks for the reply. You have very informative posts, including this one.</p>

<p>I am at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities; sorry for not being clear. It may have also been unclear that I am attracted to consulting because it presumably wouldn’t be a career to pigeonhole an employee. I like the networking opportunities that you mention are parallel with consulting. That would be very advantageous (assuming the lifestyle isn’t as appealing 20 years down the road).</p>

<p>Could you expand a little bit on how management consulting and IT consulting are intertwined in the firms that cater to both services (i.e. lateral movement within a division, etc)? MBB does not recruit at my school, and I would have to seek help just to get a foot in the door. Furthermore, the hype is a little intimidating (that attitude alone is certain to shun admissions). I have a couple Harvard professors that have come forward and offered to write letters and/or delegate contacts; that would be a good place to start.</p>

<p>Accenture, Deloitte, and IBM all recruit at my school. Any specific input on all or any of the previously mentioned firms would be helpful. I have read quite a bit about Accenture already, and it is well liked by Vault’s Top Places to Launch a Career. Do you have a personal preference? Vault notes a $75,000 tuition reimbursement per year for Accenture, which is unbelievable. Could you explain other common career paths after being an analyst at an IT firm, post MBA?</p>

<p>Lastly, I like your idea about simultaneously pursuing both for the next few months. I have the month of August off, hopefully that would be adequate time allotted to honestly gauge my caliber. I have seen such opposing views on preparing for the LSAT (i.e. a few weeks versus six months), but I will keep this thread free of that discussion. Another thing to keep in mind would be that the schools would prefer a more recent score. Do you have an opinion on performance right out of undergrad versus a few years out?</p>

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<p>There’s a mistake in the last post referring to Vault; that was actually Businessweek.</p>

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<p>When firms offer both (and all IT firms state that they offer strategy consulting, but only Deloitte actually does) it’s structured as as a combined strategy - IT package. Basically Deloitte’s strategy arm exists to sell business for Deloitte’s IT arm. The difference between that approach and a traditional management consulting approach (an MBB approach) is that Deloitte obtains most of their business off of bidding, whereas MBB rarely ever bids, especially McKinsey; they’re approached by CEOs and asked to solve a problem. As a result Deloitte operates off a budget, whereas MBB sets their own price. If you’ve ever worked in consulting, you’ll understand that those two lead to very different quality of work experiences. In once case you fight to keep down headcount and have to cut corners, in another you’re more free to increase headcount. As a more illustrative example, in one you fly coach red-eye on Sunday night and in the other you fly first class on Monday morning.</p>

<p>Accenture’s reimbursement plan is not very good. It was launched about a year ago with an email that basically said “if you get into one of these 12 schools, we’ll consider funding your MBA.” It’s been a while since I saw that list, but the usual suspects are on there (HBS, Wharton, INSEAD, MIT-Sloan, Stanford GSB, etc). Accenture’s reimbursement program is not impressive, either. You foot the entire MBA out of pocked then every 6 months you remain with ACN, they reimburse 1/4 of the tuition. They also bring you back at the same salary and level as when you left. So if you were a C2 making $70,000 when you left, you’re a C2 making $70,000 when you return. Compare that to McK where you leave as a analyst making close to $80,000 and return as an associate making close to $140,000. As a result, what tends to happen is that ACN’s consultants leave and don’t come back. And it makes sense. ACN doesn’t need people with radical ideas, they need people who can accomplish tasks and lead teams. You don’t need an MBA to do either of those things. So why should they pay for it?</p>

<p>I wouldn’t put ACN as a good place to work these days. In the last few years, they’ve started selling work heavily under gain-share agreements (i.e. “We’ll come in for free and split the savings of our work 50/50.”) Working on a gain-share project sells a ton of work (which is why they’re growing like crazy) but it create a hostile environment to work in. Senior Managers (SM’s) are promoted to the partner equivalent (SE) based on the amount of work sold. It’s really, really easy to sell gain-share work So SMs and SEs are selling them like crazy, even if there’s not much money to be made (taking high risk projects). They then put the squeeze on employees to get every last dollar out of a company while at the same time spending as little as possible (sharing cars, limited team dinners, getting on people about staying at anything but minimum-cost hotels, etc). </p>

<p>The good and bad part about the gain-share growth ACN has seen is that they’re hiring like crazy and promoting like crazy. You have to try to get fired or not promoted these days. The downside is that people are being promoted past their level of competence and you’re starting to see incompetency at the higher levels in ACN. In addition, eventually the firm is going to stop growing as the gain-share well will start to run dry. Look for a massive bubble to burst in the next few years because of the unsustainable growth. </p>

<p>Deloitte has also started to move into the gain-share business, but not as aggressively as ACN. MBB has apparently resisted the easy-money because they see where it leads (also they’re very good about maintaining manageable growth - probably because they’re private, but also because they’re strategy firms and should know to do that).</p>

<p>As far as applying for MBB, the best way to do it from a non-target school is to find contacts and see if they’ll let you in the applicant pool. If you score high enough on the written test, you’ll move to the next round. If those options aren’t there, going to a place like ACN or IBM then an MBA or JD then MBB is not a bad option at all as long as you can get into one of their target schools.</p>

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<p>Clarification: “Professors whom are Harvard graduates that are professors here” rather than “Harvard professors”</p>

<p>Thanks for putting Deloitte on the map for me. I overlooked them because sources list their industry type as “accounting”, but sure enough, their site explicitly says they recruit engineers specifically for their IT/strategy branch. Referring again to Business Week’s rankings, Deloitte takes the #1 spot. Since the IT branch of Deloitte is seemingly minute compared to the accounting branch, I wonder how working there would differ when compared to IBM or ACN? I would assume they are almost two separate entities but just have the same ownership.</p>

<p>In working with a local firm for a couple months, I noticed that, at that level, the bidding was extremely competitive primarily due to a lack of work available. This overly competitive bidding lead to countless errors (like you say, cutting corners whenever possible) and sometimes firms would get thrown off a job mid-project. Perhaps this is analogous to what you described at the upper tier?</p>

<p>The ACN information was extremely insightful. I have noticed their growth is almost uncanny; the “Wal-Mart of Associates” as some say. They are still acknowledged as an upper-level firm, but as you say, it looks like they have a downhill track because of some corporate level decisions. The reimbursed information was also helpful. The only way to find out specifics like that is through communities like this(CC or glassdoor), or not until you’re sitting at a table with HR discussing documents.</p>

<p>As far as non-target school applications, what exactly do you mean admitted to the applicant pool? Since these firms still have the online application process, are you suggesting that it would be wise to use a contact as a vehicle for my application rather than submitting online material?</p>

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<p>I wouldn’t put too much faith in the “Best Companies to Work for” list. To make the list, the company had to respond to a detailed survey. Thousands of companies were contacted and only about 300 responded, 100 of which made the list. Looking at the salary rankings of companies that did respond, McKinsey and Bain didn’t respond. If they did, they’d probably be right around BCG’s ranking (Top 5). The thing is, everyone already wants to work for McKinsey and Bain, so they have no reason to give out salary or benefit information to Fortune.</p>

<p>I wouldn’t view Deloitte as any different than Accenture or IBM. Accenture used to be the consulting arm of Arther Anderson (accounting). IBM used to be the consulting arm of PWC (accounting). The accounting and consulting arms act separately with one owner.</p>

<p>As far as my comment about getting in the applicant pool, the way it works is that once your resume gets in the right hands, you’re selected for a written test. At that point, your school is not as important. Your written test score dictates if you go to the case and experience interviews and the case and experience interview performances dictate if you move on from there. So it’s about knowing the right people and getting your resume in the right hands.</p>