I don’t know the specific title but she had 7 jobs offered when she graduated, back when getting one job was an accomplishment. The work my daughter described sound very much like a consult ion. Maybe I use the term too freely, thanks for pointing that out.
Thanks, DrGoogle, That anecdote about her points to what has been said- industrial and systems engineers are in demand currently, whether some people on this thread want to acknowledge that or not. Would they be in demand years from now-maybe, maybe not, but the general skills and aptitude should still be there even in a downturn.
DrGoogle, There could be some companies that use the term “consultant” or entry level consultant or something like that , but analyst or some other type of term to indicate the progression is probably more common. Even if the term consultant were used, I don’t think a kid right out of college would be taking the lead. And of course, Industrial and Systems grads do go into other things besides consulting. One of my son’s friends always wanted to work in the car industry and works for Ford. I think his title is manufacturing engineer or something like that.
Industrial and systems engineers design better ways for entities to do the things they do. They’re all about efficiency, productivity, and ultimately profitability. When will that ever be out of demand?
Hopefully, never! 
“Consultant” is a general term for the job. Within a consulting firm, there are low level analysts, team leaders, managers, partners, etc. All are “consultants” in that they are hired by another company to perform some task. A new graduate would be hired as a “consultant”, but would start at the bottom, so to speak, like any other entry level job.
Yes, I agree. That is what I said-that even if hired as a "consultant, " the kid would not be taking the lead. They, would, indeed, be starting at the bottom, just like in any other job. Same with a “systems engineer.” A kid right out of college would not be coming in and taking the lead in anything. My Industrial and Systems son identifies as a “systems engineer” so seems to be more on the systems side of things in his job but is actually doing research in an interesting area and has been able to be part of a couple of published papers (though of course not as the lead researcher). That is the beauty of industrial and/or systems. You really can take it in all kinds of directions. He did interview for a couple of more “industrial” type jobs, like UPS. But it wasn’t for him. Luckily, he did not get an internship offer! When he interviewed for an internship with who he ended up with ( a non profit science and technology research consulting firm), I could tell immediately he was very excited and that that type of job was a much better fit for him. Luckily, he got the offer and a full time offer after the internship. There are many paths to take. So far, so good. Good luck to your son!
I understand in general MechE (my major) and CivE/Environmental and ChemE and EE… the standard programs. The term “system engineering” is new to me. So after reading this post it seems the term is best used along with some other descriptive words / related majors.
It sounds like 2 different type of systems engineering.
Systems Engineering is an ABET accredited discipline at the undergraduate level at some schools. Some of you posting are probably older and some of these undergraduate programs probably tend to be newer. Systems has in the past been primarily associated with Industrial (and still is) and there is some overlap. Undergraduate systems engineers take all the required engineering courses (math, physics, chemistry, probability, statistics, etc.) that any engineer does and then takes courses on top of that that are associated specifically with systems engineering. Some of the courses would include things like: discrete event simulation, stochastic decision modeling, human machine interface, data and information engineering, deterministic decision models, etc. Data management and data mining are big these days. Many kids are sought after by consulting firms. I have posted some of these links before in terms of programs.
http://www.ese.upenn.edu/prospective-students/undergraduates/sse.php
http://web.sys.virginia.edu/undergraduate.html
http://www.incose.org/AboutSE/WhatIsSE
Some of what describes in post #69 could be IEOR too. Columbia has a Masters degree in It.
GMU actually has a B.S. program that has an operations research technical area option. Systems is a multiple discipline approach. It is flexible . It is forward thinking and works for some kids. It looks at the big picture. It is not civil, chemical, mechanical, and doesn’t try to be. Is it for everybody? Of course not. After seeing a lot of these posts, I am thankful my traditional engineer husband did not try to influence either son from pursuing what seemed like the better fit for them. He was fully supportive and this thread has helped me realize how important that kind of support is to a young person in sorting out their options. At least this thread seems to have saved the OP from the clutches of systems engineering. 
http://seor.gmu.edu//bsse/bsse.html
http://seor.gmu.edu//bsse/overview.html
If I remember correctly, operations research is multi disciple and looks at the big picture too. So it does make sense that industrial engineering and systems engineer are combined in the same department. Same as some schools have industrial engineering and operations research.
Yes, Industrial and Systems have been associated together for a long time . Industrial and Systems (like mechanical, civil,etc.) has been accredited by ABET since they started evaluating programs in 1936. When I talk of the systems undergraduate programs being “newer,” they are more likely to have started to be accredited more recently and there aren’t that many of them so not as much exposure at the undergraduate level. I looked at a few randomly and Penn has been accredited since 1982, UVa 1981, GMU 1993, Lehigh 2005. A lot of bright kids these days seem to be gravitating to things involving data, computers, computer science as well as the more traditional fields.
I graduated from ISE in 2011 from one of the mentioned programs in the Mid-Atlantic. I went into consulting post grad for a few years, but wanted to move to the West Coast so have been in the aerospace and defense industry for the past 2 years. There’s a big difference.
My experience with consulting was very “nice”. Nice offices, nice perks, not too much coworker aggression and frankly not much variability in the types of people you work with. Consulting tends to attract more cookie cutter types from what I’ve seen (business casual and good at keeping track of social niceties). This could be good depending on what types of people you want to work with. Granted I was a new grad, so a lot of what I did wasn’t very technical. But a lot of my class mates who went into systems integration type roles, learned a lot of software-related skills, got paid a lot, and are still at their companies. A lot of times the higher performing students went into consulting over industry (better pay and better prestige at least within the ISE circle).
As an industrial engineer with a defense and aerospace company, the work environment and atmosphere is far less glamorous and clean (more exposure to chemicals / noise), but the substance of the things I am exposed to (engineering / science), is IMO more inspiring. Another thing to keep in mind is there are lot of older folks in the aerospace industry to the hiring phases, and a lot are about to retire (more opportunities for the younger crowd), but that makes the atmosphere a little more old-fashioned. Additionally, there’s more of a serious, military-driven atmosphere leading to a no non-sense approach to work. Many managers are former military.
Systems engineering for EE/ME/AE majors includes systems integration (control systems, digital signal processing, hardware, software validation and verification)
Systems engineering can also include what could be described as project management with a technical bent (system requirements and coordination / integration between business / engineering / supply chain and logistics). This would entail a lot of meetings that won’t involve technical aspects of a program / project / product.
As an IE in industry, you would also interact with many blue-collar types, the technicians and manufacturing workers, but in consulting you can go your whole career interacting with just business professionals. So all really depends on preference.