<p>Which is more important to consulting firms, the undergraduate business school or the graduate business school you attended?</p>
<p>It depends on what position you are applying for. Elaborate.</p>
<p>An entry level position.</p>
<p>Entry level would of course mean undergrad. Unless you plan on entering as a specialist which would require advanced degrees. Kinda logical eh ;)</p>
<p>What about overall?</p>
<p>Most people in strategy and management consulting get MBAs after 3 years or so. Then you just basically climb the ladder.</p>
<p>Yes, so i think the graduate school would be most important.</p>
<p>how does one qualify to be a consultant? i mean, if you only have an undergrad degree, you don't have much real world experience to be a good consultant, i would think... can someone explain this to me? thanks</p>
<p>I was planning to either go to emory university or georgia tech for undergraduate business school and then Columbia business school for graduate business school.</p>
<p>this is the way consulting firms work (or at least the big 3 - McKinsey, Bain, and BCG):</p>
<p>Process:</p>
<ol>
<li>Associate Consultant (2-3 years) - they basically solely recruit from Ivys, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Gtown, top LACs, and a few other top 20-30 universities. So you need to go to one of these consulting hunting ground schools to have a good chance.
Also for the AC even if you've had experience in industry prior to joining the firm you will still be placed in the AC position because you don't know the consultant's "tool kit" which you learn as an AC (so even a 30 yr old without an MBA will be placed in this position).</li>
<li>Business School - Once you finish as an AC you can't advance unless you go back to get an MBA. If you're good the company will foot the bill. If they pay you have to work the next three years for them.</li>
<li>Consultant (3 years) </li>
<li>Manager (salary ~300k, excellent bonuses 400k+)</li>
<li><p>Partner (salary ~500k, bonuses of 1mm+ (up to millions)</p></li>
<li><p>Managing Director (aka there is only 1 like the CEO)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This website also gives an explanation of the consulting career track. </p>
<p>In brief, your undergrad school is more important for entry-level positions at consulting firms, and the business school where you get an MBA is more important for mid-level management positions.</p>
<p>
[quote]
how does one qualify to be a consultant? i mean, if you only have an undergrad degree, you don't have much real world experience to be a good consultant, i would think... can someone explain this to me? thanks
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You're right, which is why you would be put into an analyst or AC position (each consulting firm uses different job titles for the same role). So in this position, you would work with more experienced consultants, and do a lot of their 'grunt-work' for them (although consulting grunt work is usually more interesting and more exciting than entry-level work in other fields). </p>
<p>I would also point out that if you have highly specialized or extensive industry experience, you can get into a higher position than an analyst within a consulting firm, even if you don't have the consultant's tool kit. Of course you have to have quite specialized and extensive industry experience to get that.</p>
<p>sakky i was told by a friend of mine who's a partner at bain that it is really really rare for someone (even if they have a lot of industry experience) to get a job higher than an AC/analyst because one of the most important things in consulting is knowing how to use various consulting tools (the tool kit) which you really don't learn outside of consulting. Even if you know how to analyze a firm in your industry of expertise you don't know how to present it in the typical consulting view. How true is this?</p>
<p>as sakky mentioned too you work with more experienced consultants...usually a team consists of 2-5 ACs, 2 consultants, 1 manager, and 1 partner.</p>
<p>what's a "tool kit" or what is in it?</p>
<p>Bern700, if you don't believe me, you can just go straight to the source. Here it is from the horse's mouth.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bain.com/bainweb/Join_Bain/roles.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.bain.com/bainweb/Join_Bain/roles.asp</a>
<a href="http://www.bain.com/bainweb/Join_Bain/experienced_hires.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.bain.com/bainweb/Join_Bain/experienced_hires.asp</a></p>
<p>Notice how people who are experienced hires can, depending on their qualifications, get hired for positions are Bain Consultants (not AC's) for a 2nd or 3rd year role. </p>
<p>What you say is true in that those who don't know the toolkit will have to learn it, which means they have to attend the consulting 'mini-MBA' program. But once they complete that, they can immediately step into a more senior position within Bain because of their industry expertise.</p>
<p>Kfc4u, the consultant's toolkit is basically the mannerisms and behavior of a consultant, with all the special methods of communication and doing business that that implies. It means knowing how to use buzzwords, learning a speaking and writing style with which to present your data, how to do quantitative analysis of a business, etc. Most of that can be picked up in a good MBA program. For those who didn't get their MBA's (and even for some who did), consulting companies run an intensive set of courses for new hires designed to teach you these techniques. They sometimes call that a 'mini-MBA' program.</p>
<p>oh sorry if i sounded like i didnt believe you...i was just confused because i had heard otherwise and i just wanted to find what the truth was...btw i really really want to be a consultant! :)</p>
<p>i think consulting might be an interesting career field, but my parents said that in their experience, consultants are those who have years of experience under their belt in addition to a rare speciality focus, and that's how they make their business. obviously, an undergrad does not describe that. how can i convince my parents that consulting is a financially stable job that has a market for me?</p>
<p>I'm pretty sure your parents idea of consultants refers to the type of freelance consultants that individually contract with companies to provide certain industry knowledge or specialized advice. This type of consultant is different from consultants working for consulting firms. </p>
<p>Management consulting firms have been around for a whlie, but they're rarely in the headlines because they generally work behind the scenes. This is why many people outside of business don't know a lot about management consulting. Management consulting is more stable than freelance consulting because you're hired by an actual consulting firm (not unlike being hired by a corporation). The firm you work for trains you and then as an employee of your firm you provide consulting services to client companies. Job secruity is higher because if a client company is on hard times then they may cut off the consulting services provided by your firm, but you will not lose a job. This is assuming that your firm doesn't lose a ton of clients due to some kind of economic downturn. However, freelance consultants would lose their job if a client company no longer wanted consulting services. The major reason why people might lose their job at a consulting firm is if they're failing to meet performance goals, which is what enables them to rise up the ranks. I think this process is called the "Up or Out" system. Otherwise, job secuirty at consulting firms is safe, and I hear the compensation and benefits is pretty nice at the top firms.</p>
<p>I don't mean to intrude on the original post, but I have a question that's pretty relevant to it. </p>
<p>Does anyone know if the top management consulting firms (McKinsey, Bain, BCG, etc) actually recruit undergrads in the midwest and east? More specifically, at which if any of these schools do top firms actively recruit undergrads?:</p>
<p>Northwestern University
UMichigan
UIllinois Urbana-Champaign
UVirginia</p>
<p>Besides those schools and the Ivies, what other schools do top firms actually actively recruit at? I know that most firms provide information on the schools that they're connected to, but they usually don't say which undergrad schools they actually have an active presence at.</p>