<p>Is there any data on what schools some of the less highly ranked consulting firms like Accenture, Navigant, Charles River Associates, Monitor, BAH, etc recruit out of? Their websites are not particularly helpful with this (except Charles River, they have a solid list).</p>
<p>Also, do any of you have experience working for these companies? What's it like? Why do you think they're considered second tier firms?</p>
<p>I would've put this in the Career forum but I'm more curious about hearing what schools these places recruit out of than the working conditions at the firms.</p>
<p>it’s pretty regional. i know at GW we have all the federal consulting companies recruit on campus fairly heavily (deloitte, ibm, booz) since we’re in their backyard, but not so much the mck’s or bcg’s, although kids with solid networks and great gpas still get some interviews at the top tiers. </p>
<p>then there are all the smaller regional economic/financial consulting firms that you probably haven’t heard of which a lot of people end up working for.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how you are classifying consulting firms. Firms like Charles River and Navigant offer a more niche type of service with a focus on economics. There is a group of economic consulting firms, including Analysis Group, The Brattle Group, Cornerstone, and others that shouldn’t be considered second tier. These firms all recruit highly quantitative students from top programs with strong academic credentials and offer compensation at levels similar to the management consulting firms. These firms are not as widely known to the general public as they often perform behind the scenes, but all provide opportunities to work on high profile and challenging projects, and often with top tier academics. While this type of consulting isn’t for everyone (most undergraduate hires at such firms work for 2-3 years before heading to graduate school), it shouldn’t be thought of as “second tier.”</p>
<p>I worked for Andersen (now Accenture) and Deloitte for many years eventually rising to the level of director of a specialty practice. In many ways, I feel that I wasted my early career in consulting and that my real career did not begin until I shifted to industry.</p>
<p>Yes, you get to experience many projects and get vital exposure to different industries. However, what was missing was true management experience and true P&L responsibility. Let me explain. My management experience was limited to small teams of consultants and my P&L experience was limited to project budgets and my practice area. Both of these were too narrow in scope to be relevant on the outside. Additionally, as a consultant, I was unable in most cases to see implementation through completion. We got a project started, trained client staff how to keep it rolling, wished them good luck and walked away. For many projects, the goal was to provide them with a deliverable (a report) and that was it.</p>
<p>I grew tired of the game after about 5 years and after 10 years, I started interviewing in industry where I could actually have “skin in the game” when it came to implementation. The problem that I encountered was quite vexing. Everyone that I interviewed with wanted to see real world experience. They wanted to know what I actually did for people and companies. I would go on and on about many of the most interesting projects that I had accomplished and the same questions always came up. How many direct reports did you manage? What was the largest budget you managed? Bottom line, what were you actually responsible for? All I could do was repeat my sexy consulting stories and promise that I could do it in the real world. I had lots of interest from other consulting firms, but as I got older I found myself getting farther and farther behind other candidates of my age group. I found that many decision makers in industry saw my consulting experience as “academic” and that I had spent much of my career in an ivory tower. Many of these folks viewed my consulting experience with contempt – even though these same folks would have hired me as a consultant. They respected my intelligence, my skills as an observer and my opinions. But they saw me as an outsider who never really did anything concrete in my career.</p>
<p>My suggestion is if you do go into consulting, do it for a short period of time and then get the hell out before your competition in industry passes you in real on the ground experience. I got out in my early 40’s and eventually got the experience I needed and now make more money than I did as an executive at Deloitte. But, man was it hard. If I could do it all over again, I would have been more decisive in school and chosen an industry to specialize in earlier. Consulting was a cop out for me because I wanted a sexy job and I wanted to get a variety of experience prior to making a final choice. What I did was just extend my academic career and learned the industry and politics of consulting which is irrelevant to much of the real world of business. Did I waste my time completely? Absolutely not – I still use many of the skills today that I learned then. My mistake was hanging around way too long. I should have left after 2-3 years. Instead, I hung around for more than 10 and made my life a lot harder than it should have been.</p>
<p>Interesting perspective Osakadad. I came to consulting from the other direction, gov’t service. I prefer consulting because we are constantly challenged with our work. Our clients hire us to do things they can’t figure out. YMMV.</p>
<p>@Erin’ Dad – in your case you came to consulting with experience that you can leverage. I began my consulting career immediately after getting an MBA and all my prior experience was in Japan prior to getting my degree in the US. So, all I had was overseas experience and then consulting experience. We were hired for the same reasons as you are. However, I had no serious management or P&L experience when I came out of consulting. I did work with Fortune 100 companies and other rising firms as well, but I was never responsible for the business. I always advised decision makers, I was never one myself until I left. Had I done it your way, I would have a different perspective.</p>