Consulting for PhDs, Lawyers,
and Doctors at a Glance

Opportunity Overview

* Many firms are now hiring PhDs, JDs, and MDs for associate positions. The associate position is the entry-level stage for MBAs. It is viewed as a longterm career-track position. Recruiting for the associate position is generally done in the fall.
* Some firms hire advanced-degree candidates for analyst positions. These are typically two- or three-year spots filled by undergraduates who may later be sponsored for an MBA degree by the firms that hired them. The difference in salary and job responsibility between the associate and analyst positions is
significant. Recruiting for these positions is from early fall to late winter.
* Advanced-degree holders with work experience can be brought in as industry hires for various levels above associate. Recruiting for these more-senior positions occurs throughout the year.
* The consulting industry is currently slumping along with the economy;
competition for berths at top firms has always been fierce and is now even more so.

What Consulting Offers Advanced-Degree Holders

* Outstanding compensation (base salaries of $85,000 to upwards of
$115,000), full benefits, and signing bonuses of $10,000 to $45,000
* Excellent opportunity to learn about a wide variety of industries and business issues
* Many possible career paths, both within and outside of consulting
* The opportunity to effect change in corporations and rganizations
* The opportunity to become a generalist with your specialist degree

Recruiting Overview for Advanced-Degree Candidates

* Highly structured and extremely competitive process
* Systematic advanced-degree recruitment uncommon
* Heavy emphasis on analytical abilities and teamwork skills
* Case interviews are mandatory; advanced-degree holders need to carefully prepare ahead of time

Scope of This Insider Guide

This Insider Guide is designed to help nonbusiness advanced-degree holders find a niche and a job in the consulting industry. Much of the material is presented from the perspective of PhDs, since most advanced-degree candidates fall into that category. But JDs and MDs will find that this information applies directly to them as well. We have, when necessary, included information that specifically applies to JDs and MDs. No matter what your degree, read all the sections of this guide to get the fullest possible picture of
the industry and its opportunities. If youre serious about a career in consulting, read WetFeets companion volumes to this Insider Guide: Careers in Management Consulting, Killer Consulting Resumes, and the Ace Your Case series. Recruiters constantly stress the importance of intensive research and practice in trying to
land a good consulting job. Studying these guides and doing your own research and preparation will make your job search more effective.

The Industry

* Overview
* The Bottom Line
* What Do Consultants Do?
* Lifestyle
* Career Path
* Variety of Opportunity
* Major Consulting Firms and Boutiques

Overview

So, youve been in grad school studying the fractional quantum Hall effect for the last six years, wondering just what else you could do besides turn into a clone of your advisor, find a tenure track job, and move to a square state with no natural bodies of water. Or maybe your internship at that corporate law firm has made you reconsider long-term career options. Or maybe you find yourself practicing insurance-paperwork management rather than medicine.
Youve heard about consulting, but youre not really sure what being a consultant means or why a firm would hire a PhD, JD, or MD to be one.

Heres the skinny: Consulting is a high-profile, high-paying industry that offers people with a variety of educational backgrounds the chance to quickly learn a tremendous amount about the business world. Basically, consultants are hired
to advise corporations and governments on how to solve a variety of problems that cant be solved internally. Consulting firms such as Accenture, The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and McKinsey enerally specialize in providing advice about strategic and operational issues. Strategy focuses on what tactics a business should take to improve its performance; organizations hire strategy consulting firms for their high-voltage craniums and objectivity. Operations
concerns itself with the day-to-day challenges of running a business; organizations look to operations firms to roll up their sleeves and apply their industry and functional expertise. Depending on the size and focus of a firm, these business problems can be as straightforward as researching a new market or as complex as rethinking a companys organizational structure.

Despite the lackluster hiring statistics for consulting firms in recent years, one thing is for sure: the consulting job market sparkles compared to the dismal academic job market. Moreover, firms are increasingly looking to nontraditional

advanced-degree holders such as PhDs, JDs and MDs to get the basic skill sets they seek. In the process, theyve found that advanced-degree holders and candidates often make excellent consultants. As an advanced-degree holder, you have a smorgasbord
of employment opportunities in consulting. There are, of course, the pure strategy and operations consulting firms we mentioned above, but those arent the only games in town. If youre an advanceddegree holder with a special interest or skill set in
computers, economics, health care, human resources, psychology, or statistics, theres a good chance you can find a position with a firm doing consulting in precisely those areas.

As a JD, you can put your legal training to use as a litigation consultant, providing support to law firms that primarily work on antitrust or securities lawsuits. Here, you might be called on to do anything from assessing damage claims to analyzing key economic and financial issues to being an expert witness. PhDs in economics are also attractive candidates to litigation firms.

PhDs in Statistics and Psychology are in demand at human resources specialists such as Towers Perrin. For MDs, firms with health care practices are a great place to get a job.
Remember that employment opportunities exist beyond the few well-known firms at the forefront of recruiting and hiring advanced-degree candidates.

Despite the current slow growth of the industry, employment prospects for nontraditional candidates should expand in the future as the economy picks up and the industry continues to change in size and scope. Although some firms may not systematically recruit advanced-degree candidates, you may still be able to get interviewed and hired, provided you package yourself properly and then effectively convey your relevant skills.

Some firms not
only deign to hire
nontraditional
advanced-degree
candidates, but
actively recruit
them.

The Bottom Line

Consulting can be a great transition career for an advanced-degree holder. The profession offers PhDs, JDs, and MDs superb salaries, intellectual challenges, and a staggering range of career paths, both inside and outside the industry. On projects, consulting is also an excellent means for an academic, lawyer, or physician to learn about the business world quickly. Consulting requires an
analytical mind, excellent people and team skills, and the willingness to work hard. Although many advanced-degree holders have the skills necessary to be consultants, it requires some effort to convey these qualities to recruiters.

Advanced-degree candidates need to prepare in advance for the rigors of the interview process. Consulting is a very demanding profession: the hours are exceptionally long and extended travel is the rule, making a balanced personal life difficult to attain. To become a consultant, youll need to prepare a killer resume and then go through a rigorous multistage interview process. For the
most part, advanced-degree candidates hire in at the MBA entry-level position of associate, although the title varies from firm to firm.

Job Prospects

The consulting industry is going through a significant down-cycle that mirrors that of the economy as a whole and has been exacerbated by the role of consulting firms as handmaiden to the corporate scandals of recent years; the rapid growth that firms enjoyed in the late 90s has tapered for the time being.
Industry behemoth Accenture, which nearly doubled revenues and increased its staff by 50 percent in the second half of the decade, has had stagnant growth in terms of both staff and revenue in 2001 and 2002.

The firm reports that it is seeking to recruit to a net increase in staff in coming years. Ditto for other firms in the industry. While firms have somewhat curbed their appetite for new recruits, top firms still conduct on-campus recruiting and accept resumes from experienced candidates.

What Do Consultants Do?

Consultants are hired advisors to corporations. Although specific projects vary from firm to firm, consultants tend to work on issues that will have major impact on the clients company. A consulting project, which may also be called a study or engagement, may last anywhere from a month to several years. Strategy engagements are typically shorter than operational engagements. For instance, a
market study for a company contemplating developing a new product may last only a month or longer, while a reorganization of a major corporation might last several years. Consultants address business problems for the client, defining the problem, developing frameworks or approaches, collecting data, and then presenting workable solutions. Increasingly, consultants are also called on to do the nuts-and-bolts implementation work such as configuring and installing massive software systems. Firms such as Accenture and
Deloitte Consulting have entire practices dedicated to applications like SAP and Peoplesoft.
Typically, consultants work in teams that report directly to the clients CEO or other senior management people. Depending on the firm, a consultant may also be hired by a country or the federal, state, or local government to solve problems in a similar way.

Team Structure

Team sizes can range from a handful to several hundred, depending on the nature of the work and the policy of the firm. Many strategy firms staff teams with five to seven consultants, while IT projects may have more than 30 people working on the development and implementation of a new software system.

Reporting structures are similar in both strategy and operational firms. Analysts and associates do most of the day-to-day work. Overseeing them is a project manager who, in addition to managing the study or project, also manages the client on a daily basis. In addition to project managers or managers, who usually work full-time on a project, a firm will assign a senior manager or engagement manager to work part-time on a project to manage high-level client issues and maintain quality assurance. Finally, a partner will often maintain some affiliation with a project, serving as an executive sponsor and building a very high-level
relationship with the client. You can get a feel for how a firm staffs its projects by comparing its revenues with the number of consultants. High revenue per consultant generally means that more-senior consultants are involved in the work.

Project Duration

Project duration varies widely in the industry. Strategy consulting engagements have, by some estimates, dwindled to an average of three months. An implementation of an SAP software package, the glue that links everything in an organization from inventory to human resources, might take an average of 12 to 18 months. A reorganization of a major corporation might take far longer. For an associate at a strategy consulting firm, this means getting a wide variety of experiences quickly; for an associate in a change management or software implementation practice, less so. Indeed, consultants often become ensconced in the clients organization for months, if not years.

Client interaction is a critical part of any consultants work. More and more frequently, consulting firms are including client employees as integral members of project teams. By working with the consultants from the inception of the project, they help shape the solution and are generally more receptive to implementing it. Some firms interact with the client staff members in a limited capacity. Other firms may integrate them in such a way that they are central in defining the project and its outcome. Regardless of the degree of direct involvement, most consultants play a critical role in training clients in new ways of thinking or running their business. This relationship works quite well, and client firms frequently offer consultants full-time positions within their organizations.

Lifestyle

The consulting lifestyle is intense. The work is arduous and deadline driven.
Your schedule will be completely determined by your clients needs. Because of the nature of consulting work, which usually involves developing an intimate knowledge of a clients business, most projects are done at the client site. For consultants, this means extensive travel. In general, you can expect to spend an average of three days per week out of town, have most of your meals provided
by room service, and get home late most weeknights. While on a client engagement, youre likely to spend four days a week on site, working from the home office on Friday. As consultants are necessarily social animals, youll also find yourself spending your nonworking hours with your engagement team members while on the road.

Compensation

Consultants are paid very well for their work. In addition to high salaries, employment packages usually include a signing bonus, comprehensive insurance benefits, paid expenses for relocation, and reimbursement of school tuition which is more standard for MBAs than for other advanced-degree candidates.
Some firms include other perks such as stock options, annual meetings at posh resorts, and assistance in helping a significant other find a job. Be aware that firms award bonuses differently; some put a lot of emphasis on meeting goals established by the manager, while others focus on the performance of the firm as a whole. In 2000, the elite firms offered associates between $80,000 and $100,000, with some offers as high as $110,000. Signing bonuses varied on average from $10,000 to $20,000, with reported bonuses as high as $45,000.

These ranges still hold true today. Some firms bring certain advanced-degree holders in as an industry hires to offer them a higher base salary. The holy grail of consulting, however, is making partner; partners at major firms can earn well over $500,000 per year. Three cheers for lucre.

Vacation

Most firms offer associates about three weeks of vacation per year. However, it may be a career-limiting move to take that vacation in the middle of a project.
Moreover, its unlikely that youll be able to use all of it at once unlike academia, consulting doesnt take the summer off. The break between projects, time on the beach in consultant parlance, provides a good opportunity to get away, and you will have enough frequent-flier points to travel to and stay anywhere in the world provided you feel like getting on a plane. Insiders say that you can often take a day or two for personal reasons after a particularly grueling period of work.

Hours

Consultants work about 60 hours in a typical week. But as anyone in the profession will tell you, there is no such thing as a typical week. Before a deadline, its not rare to put in 80 to 100 hours of work. But downtime between projects can be relatively slow to the point where you can consider picking up your dry cleaning or having a pedicure in the middle of the day. Insiders say there is some variability in how firms handle the hours. For example, in some
firms, a managers bonus is affected if a consultant on the team is working more than 65 hours a week consistently. In other firms, consultants are discouraged from even having a sit-down dinner on weeknights. Its a good idea to ask about a firms standard-hours policy during the interview process.
Regardless, most of your personal life will be on hold until the weekend.

Travel

As an associate, youll travel extensively, averaging 175,000 frequent-flier miles per year. The primary factors affecting the amount of travel are the location of the client and the nature of the project. Each firm has its own policy on travel requirements. Some firms have whats called a 3-4-5 plan, in which
consultants fly out to the client site early Monday morning, spend four full days at the site, return on Thursday night and spend Friday in the office (three nights and four days at the client site, five work days total). While travel policies promising more days at the home office are well intentioned, the best laid plans of consultants often go awry at the insistence of the check-writing client.

Expect 3-4-5 and similar plans to fall through at least some of the time, says an insider. Between projects, you may spend one or two weeks working at your office on the beach doing internal projects. Other firms relocate consultants to the client site for several months. In any case, be prepared to travel extensively and on short notice.

Career Path

In general, consulting has a clear-cut hierarchy, from analyst to associate to manager to director to managing director to partner. Firms usually use the analyst role as a pre–graduate degree training ground and then bring back newly minted graduate recruits as associates. However, the rigidity of that hierarchy depends on the firm. Firms such as McKinsey and the Big Four affiliated firms
adhere to some variant of this hierarchy. Other firms have developed relatively classless organizations. Wyman and Monitor have a flat organizational structure with only two title distinctions: consultant and director. You should note that
while flat organizational structures are appealing, the canonical organizational structures of the consulting world are well understood throughout the industry and beyond; the lack of distinction could be a hindrance if you try to move
around within the industry. For instance, youll have more difficulty selling yourself to another firm as a manager if your last title was consultant.

While you may work for a famous firm with plenty of name recognition, chances are small that youll become famous in the consulting industry although you will gain skills that should make you highly employable throughout your career. Corporate America is scattered with former consultants: Morgan Stanleys CEO, Phil Purcell, was a partner at McKinsey; Jim Koch, founder of Boston Beer (Sam Adams), worked at Boston Consulting Group (BCG); former IBM and RJR Nabisco CEO Louis Gerstner ranks among the McKinsey alumni, as does, more infamously, Enrons CEO Jeff Skilling, a one-time senior partner at the firm. A more recent addition to the
legions of consultants is former first daughter Chelsea Clinton, an analyst at McKinsey.

Not only do firms prescribe the route of career progression among their kind, they also dictate the speed with which consultants should ascend. Though the velocity of the career track differs from firm to firm, the time to rise from associate to partner runs from five to eight years. Firms often uphold a strict up-or-out policy regarding promotions; given the ratio of analysts to partners,
nearly five-sixths of associates leave without becoming a partner. Leading firms do not necessarily view the “out” of up or out as a failure. All of the elite strategy firms McKinsey, BCG, and Bain maintain formal alumni networks for their former consultants. An insider says, its not unusual for me to look in
the BCG alumni directory I keep by my desk and call someone up out of theblue for a piece of market data. The relationship between the firms and their former consultants is symbiotic; the firm provides a networking environment for former consultants to find positions in Fortune 500 companies, and the former consultants, now embedded in Fortune 500 companies, provide a
beachhead for consulting firms hoping to win new or greater business with corporate titans.

Variety of Opportunity

Exactly where in the consulting world would your skills and interests best be appreciated? In this section, we describe the main segments of the consulting industry and the skills that are most desirable within each segment. Keep in mind that a firm may fit into more than one category.

Elite Management Consulting Firms

These firms provide executive officers in Fortune 500 companies with strategic and operational advice, charging the highest fees and enjoying the most prestige and the biggest attitudes. The elite consulting firms McKinsey, BCG, and Bain are the best known fight for the top graduates of the top universities. They are also the firms that helped invent management consulting:
James O. McKinsey, a former University of Chicago accounting professor, brought management theory to client companies in 1926 when he founded the company that bears his name. The elite firms seem to remember their roots and accordingly provide some of the best opportunities for non-MBA graduate degree holders. Although the elite firms try to differentiate themselves by specializing in certain industry types, functional practices, or business models,
most consultants employed by them are generalists who work on a wide variety of projects across a variety of industries. The competition to get interviews and offers from these firms is intense. Because of their prestige and emphasis on strategic thinking, most are at the forefront of hiring PhDs and other advanced-degree holders. If you decide to focus on strategy consulting, research the senior partners and affiliated business school gurus at your favorite firms. Not only will you learn more about strategy consulting, but you will get an excellent feel for the work the firms do.

Big Four–Affiliated Consulting Firms

Deloitte Consulting Group, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, BearingPoint
(formerly KPMG Consulting), and Accenture: These firms trace their lineage to their famous bean-counting siblings. (PriceWaterhouseCoopers exited the management consulting world with the sale of PWC Consulting to IBM in 2002.) Nonetheless, the consulting practices associated with the Big Four of the accounting world are legitimate and thriving entities in and of themselves. They provide a range of strategic and operational advice, information systems support, and other more specialized services. Most have strong IT capabilities on projects requiring heavy implementation work. These firms tend to be larger, more complex, and more bureaucratic than the elite firms. Although they compete for the same clients, they are considered slightly less prestigious than many of the elite firms. This lack of prestige stems in part from the quotidian accounting roots of the firms and in no small part to the amount of less sexy roll-up-the-sleeves implementation work that they perform. On the positive side, they offer a wide variety of consulting experiences, are less intense, and far less hung up on themselves than the elite firms. Some have even undertaken successful programs to make the consultant lifestyle more livable, especially for women interested in combining career and family. The Big Four–related firms have their fingers in a lot of pies, and youll want to research thoroughly the specific groups and offices youre interested in before applying the culture and workload can vary significantly within a particular firm depending on the office and practice area. The desired skill sets for a candidate will also vary across practice areas.

Information Technology Consulting Firms

These firms and practices AMS, IBM Global Services, and Computer
Sciences Corporation (CSC) typically work on behemoth projects that involve designing, implementing, overhauling, integrating, and managing information and computer systems for a client. Youll find none of the executive-suite ambiance of strategy consulting; IT consulting takes place in the trenches. An IT project might require everything from analyzing the clients informational requirements to buying new hardware systems to writing code to running the
new system. In general, such projects require large, specialized teams to complete the work. As a result, IT consulting provides more opportunities for people with technical backgrounds. Even nontechnical roles in these firms tend to be colored by the dyed-in-the-wool technical culture of the firms. In most cases, the baseline salary for an IT consultant is less than that for an elite
strategy consultant. IT skills in consulting include:
* Programming in a variety of languages (Java, HTML, C++, Visual Basic)
* Familiarity with computer hardware and network infrastructures
* Experience working across different platforms (UNIX, PCs, MACs)
* Understanding of network protocols
* Experience with major software applications such as SAP, PeopleSoft, and Siebel
* Technology project management skills

Financial Services Practices and Firms

If you dream of finding yourself seated next to Bob Rubin on the Amtrak Acela Express speeding between New York and DC, you might be very happy working in financial services consulting. Consultants in this segment work with all flavors of banks (retail, investment, etc.) and, in some cases, insurance companies. Financial services consulting requires a heavily quantitative skill set and tends to suit PhDs coming from economics, engineering, physical sciences,
mathematics, and statistics backgrounds. Some specific skills include:
* Monte Carlo analysis
* Familiarity with statistical data and time series analysis
* Knowledge of nonlinear optimization techniques
* Familiarity with risk-management techniques such as CAPM, VaR, and RAROC

Health Care Consulting Firms

These firms advise all players in the health care industry: providers (doctors, nurses, and other service personnel), payers (HMOs and government agencies such as Medicare), and suppliers. Projects range from strategy to operations to reengineering to IT to program-evaluation work, depending on which area a firm chooses to focus on. In health care consulting, the hours and travel
requirements can be intense, especially among the elite strategy firms with welldeveloped health care practices. In general, health care consulting firms favor advanced graduate training in the life or medical sciences. Knowledge of statistics and information management is useful to firms that work primarily in the payer or supplier areas.

Litigation Consulting Firms

These firms provide support to law firms that primarily work with antitrust or securities lawsuits. Consultants work with attorneys to construct case strategies and provide economic analysis. As a litigation consultant, you might be called on to do anything from assessing damage claims to analyzing key economic and financial issues to being an expert witness in these areas. Travel demands tend to be light, with consultants averaging five to seven travel days per month.

Although litigation firms are mainly interested in hiring consultants with legal training, they also hire academics with backgrounds in economics, finance, statistics, and applied mathematics. In addition, PhDs from the hard sciences or engineering could translate their quantitative skills into litigation consulting. The compensation in litigation consulting tends to be lower than in management consulting.

Human Resources Consulting Firms

These firms, such as Watson Wyatt, Towers Perrin, Mercer Human Resource Consulting, and Hewitt Associates, specialize in providing human resources advice. This can include anything from designing an employee evaluation and compensation scheme to conducting organizational effectiveness training. Often, HR consulting firms work with the clients senior people because of the importance placed on HR issues. The travel requirements and hours can be similar to those of the elite strategy firms. Although HR consulting firms predominantly hire MBAs and undergrads, they also have an interest in candidates with graduate training in the social sciences, particularly human resource management and organizational design and effectiveness.

Market Research Firms

Boutiques specializing in market research provide opportunities for academics with a background in statistics or mathematics. People who have computer skills and who understand organizational behaviors can find jobs in change management. A PhD in a social science, coupled with basic computer skills, is valued in this area.
Types of projects include:
* Market segmentation and segment-assignment modeling
* Conjoint analysis and choice modeling
* Demand, value, vulnerability, and purchase propensity modeling
* Price modeling
Dont despair if your background is in one of the softer social sciences. You may be a perfect fit with a change management competency within a large or small firm. Change management deals with people issues associated with technology such as organizational design, communication issues, and training
employees to use new computer systems.

Boutique Consulting Firms

Within the category of strategy and operations firms, there is a group of firms that specialize in a particular industry or process. If a specific industry interests you, boutique firms are an excellent career option for PhDs and other advanced-degree holders. In general, boutique firms are smaller and have more specialized clients than the elite firms do. This often translates into more
personalized career development and the opportunity to work with a client whose business interests you. The turnover rate at boutique firms tends to be lower than the industry average. Insiders say that experience with these firms tends to translate into a more marketable experience should you chose to leave consulting many boutique consultants go work for their clients. The following
is a list of representative boutiques by industry specialization:
* Financial services: Broadview, First Manhattan Consulting Group, Mercer Oliver Wyman, National Economic Research Associates (NERA)
* Strategy: Mars & Co., Navigant Consulting, Strategos, Strategic Decisions Group
* Market research: National Analysts, ZS Associates
* High technology: Gartner Group, Pittiglio Rabin Todd & McGrath
* Human resources/organizational change: Mercer Delta

Major Consulting Firms and Boutiques

To give you an overview of the consulting landscape, the major firms and boutiques are listed below. Firms known to hire PhDs or other advanceddegree candidates are noted with an asterisk. If a firm interests you, get in touch with a recruiter, even if it doesnt have a history of hiring advanceddegree candidates.
Keep in mind that these firms are only the tip of the iceberg. For a more thorough list of consulting firms, see www.WetFeet.com.

Online Company Profiles give you an idea of how firms differentiate themselves, Recruiter Interviews tell you what specific firms are looking for in candidates, and our discussion boards give you a chance to compare notes with insiders at various firms and with fellow job seekers. Firms marked with an asterisk are known to hire PhDs or other advanceddegree candidates.

On the Job

* Consulting Roles
* Real People Profiles

Consulting Roles

Though titles vary throughout companies and practice types, the roles within consulting firms are surprisingly similar; the subject matter or content changes, but the form is more or less the same. Consulting firms employ a relatively small number of roles that are assembled to form ad hoc project teams. The general career trajectory moves from a position of carrying out the work to
actually building relationships with clients and winning new business. Within small practices, there is less division of labor and roles tend to be compressed.

A principal at a boutique firm may spend a good portion of her time rolling up her sleeves compared to a partner at a global firm.
Analyst. Generally a pre–graduate degree role. Sometimes firms will place PhDs in analyst roles. In strategy firms, analysts spend most of their time conducting analyses, developing hypotheses, and synthesizing data under the direction of
partners or more senior project members. In an operational firm, analyst activities skew more toward performing training, conducting interviews, participating in workshops, and developing processes. In both cases, analysts participate in presentations to hone their client presentation skills.
Associate. Also frequently called a consultant, a post-MBA or graduate degree role. Similar to analysts, associates perform analyses, develop hypotheses, analyze processes, and implement change. Unlike analysts, associates lead the direction of those activities. Similarly, associates lead presentations and
workshops and begin to take a role in managing client elationships.

Project manager. Project managers typically exist in operational consulting firms, where project teams are large, often numbering more than 50 people, and consist of many functional groups. A project manager manages not only the timeline of a project, but client expectations. The project manager coordinates the activities of different functional groups within the team and ensures that the client meets its obligations.

Engagement manager. An engagement manager typically leads a consulting engagement for a client. An engagement manager often helps sell a project in addition to being the primary client contact during the project. Additionally, the engagement manager leads a team of associates and analysts through an engagement, providing both mentoring for junior team members and high-level direction of the project.

Practice manager. Similar to engagement managers, practice managers operate in firms that have little involvement in the client firms operations, such as a market research firm. A practice manager oversees a group of analysts and consultants in a particular field of study, acting as both mentor and manager. Practice managers also serve as the thought leaders in their fields.
Partner. Often equal with a managing director in some firms, partners divide their time between clients and the firm. In their client work, partners lead highlevel sales efforts in client organizations, often calling on contacts at the CEO level. During engagements, partners work to ensure quality control of the firms
work and that the engagement is well received at the highest levels of the client organization. Within the firm, a partners activities might include developing the companys strategic direction, approving promotions, and ensuring that projects are delivered in a manner befitting the firms reputation.

Real People Profiles

A Day in the Life of a PhD Consultant
Position: Associate at a strategy consulting firm Background: PhD in German Language and Literature
Age: 30

Sunday Night

New York: Theres a midproject client presentation Monday morning so I fly out to the client site Sunday night. I take a cab to JFK and board the plane to Houston. My frequent flier miles are accruing so fast that I feel compelled to use some to upgrade to First Class. While in flight, I turn my electronic device a.k.a. laptop back on, review the presentation, and then check out the movie.

Houston: I go to the rental car counter (feeding the frequent flyer account), drive to the Hilton Houston Plaza and check in, then go to the pool and swim a half mile. Ive logged more miles (in the air, not in the pool) in the first month of this project than I did the entire four years getting my PhD.

8:00–10:00 p.m.: My engagement manager and I review the presentation for any errors or inconsistencies, even down to the placement of commas.

Monday

7:00 Arrive at the clients office and check to see that the conference room we booked for our presentation is clean. I check the projector and plug in my laptop to ensure that everything is working properly.

8:00 Meet with my engagement manager to prepare for our presentation. This is the interim deliverable, an assessment of market and major competitors as well as next steps for the team and client.

10:00 My engagement manager, another associate, and I present our findings to the senior VP of strategic planning (our project sponsor) and his team. We divide up the presentation, each taking a third. Im in charge of the competitive landscape. The meeting goes well. After the presentation I meet with a manager in the strategic planning group I need him to pull the companys annual sales data for me.

12:00 A real lunch today. The meeting was successful and we go for a casual lunch with the client team man-to-man coverage. Developing
relationships with the client is as important as coming up with a killer recommendation.

1:00 Spend the afternoon heads-down crunching numbers, looking for any insights that the data will yield. Call a colleague, the guru of new product introduction in the firm, to ask for his opinion.

3:00 Meet with the strategic planning manager to pick up the numbers I requested.

3:30 More number crunching.

4:30 Team status meeting. Client is happy with our work. We map out our plan for the rest of the week.

5:00 I log onto our company Intranet to research some of our companys previous work on clients in similar situations. I download two relevant presentations.

7:30 I head back to the hotel, flip on a Seinfeld rerun, then meet my fellow associate and engagement manager for dinner at the restaurant across from the hotel. Its a challenge to find interesting meals near the hotel, let alone the city, after a month.

A Day in the Life of an MD/PhD Consultant

Position: Principal in a medical consulting practice
Background: MD, PhD Psychiatry
Age: 45
As a consultant to hospitals and HMOs, my main job is to get doctors and hospitals to comply with regulations. Its also a matter of getting hospitals to operate efficiently in an environment where many of them are losing money.

Its an extremely difficult job doctors are by nature cowboys who like to work independently. They expect the system to work for them. That is, they want to do their job, perform their surgery, and have everything else fall into place. So, my job is twofold: I must get doctors (and administrators and support staff) to comply with regulations, and, more interestingly, develop a system that makes compliance easier.

7:30 Working breakfast in the hospital cafeteria with the head administrator to brief her on the latest regulatory changes and my proposal for changing the organizational structure of the hospital.

8:15 Meet with the head of the pharmacy to discuss training in that
department.

12:00 Working lunch, again, with the head administrator.

1:00 Meet with the pharmacy committee to discuss the prescription writing process.

3:00 Go to the medical offices to observe physicians writing out patient prescriptions.

4:00 Meet with the CIO of the hospital to discuss an electronic prescription writing solution.One of the most rewarding things about my job is that I get to develop a system that is intrinsically better that reduces errors and therefore saves lives.

A Day in the Life of a JD Consultant

Position: Engagement Manager
Background: JD, MBA
Age: 36

8:00 Silicon Valley. Life seems normal again now that the dot-com dust has settled and been swept into the bin. I walk our daughter to school while sipping java from the local coffee roasting company.

9:00 Meeting with the strategy team at the client site. This is the first phase of the project that will eventually include a full-blown development team. Right now, the team consists of two consultants and an analyst.

My consultant updates me on the market and competitive analysis
basic stuff at this point.

11:00 Meeting with a client, the head of the bio-informatics venture of a large pharmaceutical company. Our team is developing a strategy for the company to enter into the clinical trials market. We are also leveraging our IT expertise to build a large portion of their product. I brief him on our project status, where we think competitors are going, and the best product with which to enter the market.

He asks me to look over a draft of a contract that one of their business partners sent them hes miles away from the firms corporate attorneys and their turnaround time is painfully slow. I gladly agree. I dont bill for this, but it does help cement a relationship with the client. We are helping them succeed. On other occasions, I give my opinions (off the record) on what legal services should be brought in house versus outsourced and how to best structure the business.

12:30 Quick bite to eat with my lead consultant on the project. The place is oo small for a cafeteria and the roach-coach is just plain unappealing.

We quickly narrow the choice to Indian food. Over lunch, we toss
around ideas on which product is best with which to enter the market.

1:00 I join a sales call with a managing director from the New York office as a company expert in the pharmaceutical business. If we win the project, Im the engagement manager.

2:00 Another sales call with a health care company in Los Angeles. I offer some pointed comments after hearing the clients thoughts on the direction of managed care. Though little if any of my law school knowledge is directly applicable to our projects, the analytical thinking I learned gives me a distinct edge in these meetings.

3:00 I dial into a promotion review for a consultant in my group. Shes worked on my project teams, and I have nothing but good things to say about her.

3:30 I drive up to San Francisco to check in on my other client yet another biotech firm. I meet with the client to gauge her interest in another phase of work. Shes interested but asks if my firm is best suited for the job.

How do we measure up against other firms? I schedule a meeting for the following week I plan on bringing some of our implementation gurus to shock and awe them into the next phase of the project.

6:30 A rare warm evening in San Francisco. I pull the roof down in my convertible and head back down the peninsula to my family. Ill eat dinner with the family and then check e-mail that piled up during the day.

Decision Making

* What Kind of Consulting Should I Do?
* Academia Versus Consulting
* Law Versus Consulting
* Medicine Versus Cons

Academia Consulting

Loosely structured time constraints; you Intensely deadline-driven work; clients determine your schedule determine your schedule
Travel is negligible to moderate Travel is extensive
The daily life of most academics is similar The daily life of a consultant varies across the board from project to project
Emphasis on individual achievement Emphasis on teamwork Specialized knowledge base More generalized knowledge base Interact with homogenous group of Interact with diverse groups of people over
colleagues over long periods shorter periods Linear career path with few options; Flexible career path with multiple concentrated at later stages options at every stage Lousy compensation, scarce benefits, and Excellent compensation, great benefits, whats a bonus? and bonuses!

Extremely limited choice of where to live; Omaha Wide choice of where to live, but be prepared looks pretty darn cosmopolitan compared to to work in Omaha three days out of the week
Big Tuna, Texas Academia Versus Consulting
Decision Making

Law Versus Consulting

The legal profession has more in common with consulting than does academia. Lawyers work under rigorous time demands that are divided into six-minute intervals (they bill in increments of one-tenth of an hour). And lawyers are often comfortable working in a professional atmosphere especially in corporate law, where looking sharp and behaving with the utmost rectitude are virtues.
There are some differences: Though most defendants wouldnt believe it, most legal projects are generally shorter than consulting engagements, with shorter intervals between deadlines. And travel is negligible to nonexistent compared to that of a consultant. Moreover, consulting work will generally involve a different kind of teamwork than lawyers are used to. To use a sports metaphor,
the difference between consulting and legal teamwork is similar to the difference between basketball and baseball. In basketball, players often play out of position, continually adapting to what other teammates are doing; in baseball, players act individually, with discrete roles (i.e., the pitcher pitches, the
catcher catches).

As with academics, lawyers tend to possess a more specialized knowledge base than most associate-level consultants although the training in law school is less specialized than it is in a PhD program. Similarly, the career path for a lawyer reflects some of the linearity found in academia, and outplacement is much more rare in law firms than in consulting firms. Nonetheless, lawyers do
possess a certain amount of mobility in their profession; geographic location, firm, and even practice area can be changed provided youre willing to take the bar exam again in another state. Moreover, as with the career path for consultants, the career path for lawyers is a steady progression to partner. The
flexibility of an attorneys career path rests somewhere between the rigidity of an academics and the wealth of opportunities open to a consultant.

Compensation at corporate law firms is becoming more and more competitive, with first-year associate salaries at top firms approaching $140,000 per year. Many firms offer discretionary bonuses on top of that. Compensation increases are typically ten to 15 percent a year. Firms such as Cravath, Swaine & Moore, in New York City, use lock-step compensation: every lawyer of a particular tenure earns the same compensation. Other firms are more performance-based, determining compensation by the number of billable hours or the amount of business brought into the firm.

Consultants typically expect a signing bonus of $15,000 to $25,000 and earn up to $100,000 in salary alone their first year. Moreover, compensation is largely performance-based, with salary increases and bonuses varying widely by the third or fourth year. Performance is typically established by peer reviews, although some lower-tier firms base their measures around volume of work performed. Attrition rates in consulting (80 to 85 percent by the sixth year) and law are similar. In general, however, attrition in consulting may occur earlier because many entering consultants view it as a stepping-stone to other careers.

After about two years, a consultant has significant outside opportunities. Outside opportunities occur later in a law career, due to the necessity of building up experience in the practice of law before making a transition.
Deadline-driven work with short Intensely deadline-driven work; clients intervals between projects determine your schedule; duration of projects can last anywhere from one month to several years

Travel is negligible Travel is extensive Specialized knowledge base More generalized knowledge base Baseball-type teamwork Basketball-type teamwork Mostly linear career path with some flexibility Flexible career path with multiple options at every stage Compensation varies according to firm size, Excellent compensation, great benefits, location, and practice; at prestigious firms in large and signing bonuses cities, salaries are comparable to those of consulting Law Consulting
Law Versus Consulting
Decision Making
Medicine Versus Consulting
Given the profound impact managed health care is making on medicine, more and more physicians are pursuing the business aspects of health care. MDs fall into two categories: (1) medical students and residents and (2) practicing doctors engaged in clinical practices or medical research. Both MDs and consultants invest long hours in their work. Consultants, like residents, have very little control over their schedule. In contrast, practicing doctors have much greater latitude in determining how they spend their time.

Travel requirements are minimal for MDs and dont extend much beyond attending medical conferences. Consultants travel extensively, often on short notice. They also take a collaborative approach to teamwork. While a case manager may have seniority over a new associate, both may end up pulling an allnighter to meet a projects deadline. Teamwork in medicine is much more hierarchical, with far less emphasis put on reaching a consensus. Physicians are used to telling people what to do and expecting their orders be obeyed without question. MDs will have to take a less dictatorial approach toward consulting coworkers.

The career path of an MD is fairly linear and well structured. After medical school and residency, one typically enters into private clinical practice or academic research. A doctors training is fairly generalist in medical school and becomes more specialized over time. Though salaries for physicians in private practice approach $150,000 per year, a physicians salary does not increase very much over time. In contrast, consultants earn about $100,000 in salary plus bonuses in the first year, with a signing bonus that can range from $15,000 to $25,000 or higher.
The compensation of a partner in an elite firm will usually surpass the salary of the most successful physician in a private practice. Plus, the partner will not have to pay exorbitant malpractice premiums.

Practicing and academic physicians have a fair Intensely deadline-driven work; amount of control over their schedule; residents have clients determine your schedule very little control over a grueling schedule Negligible to moderate travel Extensive travel Specialized knowledge base More generalized knowledge base Hierarchical teamwork Basketball-type teamwork Linear career path with some flexibility Flexible career path Salaries are comparable with those of Consultant salaries increase substantially entry-level consultants; however, for MDs, salary over the course of a career; high increases are gradual over the course of a career signing bonuses and annual bonuses Wide choice of where to live Wide choice of where to live, but be prepared to be on the road four days a week
Medicine Consulting
Medicine Versus Consulting
Decision Making

Getting Hired

* The Recruiting Process
* Getting the Interview
* Some Final Considerations
* Interviewers Checklist
* The Getting to Know You Interview
* The Case-Study Interview
* Insider Scoop
* Grilling Your Interviewer
* Negotiating and Accepting an Offer

Getting Hired

The Recruiting Process

Most consulting firms follow a standard pattern for recruiting, both in terms of timing and format. The typical recruiting season for associates starts in the fall, generally in mid-September; offers are made by December. This schedule holds true for MBA candidates as well. As a PhD candidate, your interview cycle may start later mid- to late November and end in February or early March. In any case, you stand a much better chance of being interviewed by a firm if your cover letter and polished resume are ready to go by the end of the summer. Although some smaller firms may hire off-season, your chances for being interviewed improve significantly if your job search coincides with the standard fall recruiting schedule.

Hiring for a firm may either be done globally or locally. Some firms hire by geographic office, while others may recruit nationally but hire by office. For example, McKinsey recruits globally, but the offer will come from a specific office. Some office locations are more competitive than others. You generally
stand a much better chance of getting an offer with the Houston office than the Boston office. A note of caution: Some firms, such as Bain, will only hire PhDs as analysts, which is an entry-level position for undergraduate-degree holders. Given the substantial differences in job responsibility, learning opportunities, and salary between the associates and analysts, you should be aware of which position you are being interviewed for.

In general, the interview process has one to three stages. Round-one interviews often occur on-campus (actually, at chic hotels near campus dont worry, they usually remove the beds from the room before the interview). Round two may occur at the nearest office; round three will take place at the office you want to

Getting Hired work at. In most cases, the stages will be separated
by a week to ten days. In other situations, all the stages may be consolidated into two days of interviewing on campus, with the option to choose an office after you receive the offer. Moreover, some firms may simply place you in front of a partner for a one-hour breakfast interview at 7:00 a.m. In any case, be prepared to invest substantial time in the interview process.
Interviews tend to be one-on-one, although firms such as Monitor may have you watching videos and doing group case studies with your fellow candidates.

Typically, interview formats fall into two categories: (1) get to know you interviews, where you answer questions about your resume and explain why you want to be a consultant, and (2) the case study interview.

Preinterview Events

If you have access to a business school on your campus, attending the firms presentations is imperative. You will learn what type of consulting the firm does, to whom you should send your resume, when application deadlines are, and a bit about the firms culture. If a firm does not have an active PhDrecruiting process, you will increase your chances of getting an interview by working through the local campus recruiting mechanism. Most business schools
have postings for the firms presentations. However, some presentations may be restricted to groups such as senior undergraduates or MBAs. If so, you can probably still attend the event if you call the firm ahead of time and make arrangements. If you lack access to a business school, contact firms directly to find out about application deadlines and advanced-degree hiring policies.

Insider Tip
Your chances of being
interviewed improve
significantly if your job search
coincides with consulting
firms standard fall recruiting
schedule.

Elite firms such as Monitor, BCG, and McKinsey offer preinterview workshops for their advanced-degree candidates. Monitor holds a PhD preinterview workshop before the initial interview through its Cambridge office. BCG offers a limited number of case interview workshops at some universities. McKinsey offers an off-campus workshop before the second stage for both its MBA and
advanced-degree candidates. McKinsey has also developed two unique
programs for its PhD candidates: Insight, an introduction to consulting, offers 40 PhDs a three-day, all-expenses-paid insiders look at management consulting at McKinsey. Theres also a compact version of the traditional MBA program available to new hires that includes both orientation and direct involvement in a consulting engagement its held several times a year. Check with McKinseys
New York office for more information.

Discuss what attracts you to a career in consulting. How did you learn about the
industry? By entering it, what do you hope to learn?
The WetFeet Interview Coach

Getting the Interview

Your job search in consulting will generally require somewhere between six months to one year, start to finish. The preparation necessary for getting the interview can be divided into three parts:
* Becoming MBA transparent: prepare to crack the case interviews
* Networking: meet and connect with consultants
* Preparing your cover letter and resume

Step 1: Becoming MBA Transparent
Advanced-degree candidates who want a consulting job need to learn how to walk, talk, and think like MBAs. This involves educating yourself about the business world and acquiring some MBA-type skills. The first step involves reading the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, and other business publications regularly. This will help you learn the lingo of the business world and stay abreast of current events. Immersing yourself in current events is the first step in becoming MBA transparent; learning business basics is the second.

The best approach to learning business basics is to take a few courses in corporate finance, microeconomics, and strategic management. If you have time, courses in marketing or accounting will also be useful. Classes in these areas will help you talk the MBA talk, which will be key in your interviews. If you dont have access to a business school, buy or order some standard texts in these areas and work through them. (See the Recommended Reading section for specific titles.) Mastering business basics will also help you crack the case studies youll face in your consulting interviews. Case studies are questions that
deal with various strategic, operational, or marketing business issues a potential client company might face, and interviewers will want to see how you apply business frameworks. Frameworks are the thinking tools many consultants use to help them solve business problems. Many B-school courses involve doing case studies in a group setting, which will familiarize you with case frameworks before your job interview. Attending MBA courses will also give you a good feel for what business people are like and what the work will be like and whether or not its work youd like to do.

Step 2: Networking
The goal of networking is twofold: to gain a better understanding of a firm and to put yourself on its recruiting radar. Since networking is an important part of the consultants skill set, youll need to hone this skill early. Some MBAs maintain that the networks developed in business school are even more important than the knowledge they gained from their courses. That puts advanced-degree candidates at a disadvantage that networking should help overcome. Here are a few networking tips:
* Research consulting firms and the industry in general before you start networking. Youre more likely to make good professional contacts and find allies within a firm if you come across as knowledgeable about the career change you are making.
* Have a clear objective and specific set of questions in mind when you talk with a consultant. For example, you may want to know how many PhDs work within a firm and how their training or experiences differs from those of MBA hires. Or you may want to know how projects are staffed and what types of projects a particular office is known for. Dont waste consultants time; its their most precious commodity.

* Function at the speed of business, not academia. If youve been referred to a person at a firm, follow up within hours, not days or weeks. Be punctual in keeping appointments and following up with resumes.
Now youre ready to start networking. Heres how you go about it:
* Talk to friends and acquaintances within the consulting industry; have them refer you to other consultants.
* Talk to your MBA classmates; they may have worked as analysts or summer interns at a consulting firm or know someone who did.
* Ask your alumni association for a list of alumni working in consulting.
Contact the alums by e-mail or phone. After setting up a time to chat, send along your resume to give your contact an idea of your background.
* Attend a firms presentations and talk to the people there. Have them put you in contact with other advanced-degree hires. Ask them for their business cards and follow up with them.

Dear Fellow Alum

,
My name is Jane Doe. The alumni office at Harvard gave me your name as a contact in the consulting industry. I am looking for a job in management consulting and am interested in your firm. I would like to speak with you about its culture, practices, and policy of hiring advanced-degree candidates to see if it would be appropriate for me to apply. Would you be willing to have a brief, informal conversation with me? If not, could you refer me to someone else at your firm who would? Thank you.

Step 3: Writing Cover Letters and Converting CVs to Resumes
Your application to a firm will always include a cover letter and your resume.
The goal of both is to convince a firm to give you an interview in less than 60 seconds. Salespeople maintain that you have 10 to 15 seconds to get a persons interest; this is your shot to sell yourself. Brevity and clarity are of the utmost importance. Resumes are more important than cover letters, but neglecting the
latter could cost you. Craft both with care.

The Cover Letter

The ideal cover letter should be short, less than a page in length, with two or three concise paragraphs. The letter should include the following:
* The position for which you are applying (i.e., whatever the firm calls its associate position)
* Your qualifications for the position
* Your reasons for wanting to work for the firm
Use a standard business letter format. Mention contacts within the firm, if they have agreed to act as references. Tailor the letter to each firm; a fill-in-the-blank approach for each application will come across as bland and unconvincing. You might use the cover letter on the next page as a model.

Alexandra Lewiston (Cambridge) suggested that I contact you about applying for the consultant position. My
background as an engineer has given me the following skills, which would make me an excellent consultant at your firm:
* Excellent quantitative and analytical skills (PhD, Engineering, Columbia)
* Ability to apply those analytical skills to a business setting (MBA courses at Columbia Business School)
* Strong leadership and teamwork abilities (President of Graduate Student Organization at Columbia; founder of two tenants association in New York City)
* Good communication and presentation skills
I want to join Acme because of its specialized practice in environmental science and technology. Combining environmental concerns with business is very attractive to me. In addition, I view consulting as a career choice rather than as a stepping-stone to another industry. Acme has an exceptionally high retention rate for its consultants, and it devotes considerable attention to their professional development. I believe that I could have
a long-term career with your firm. Moreover, Acme presents many global opportunities that would make good use of my international background and language skills. Finally, it appeals to me that your firm has the flexibility of a small firm but the loyal and diverse client base of a large one.

Though I am flexible about geographic location, I have a slight preference for the Cambridge or Washington, DC, office. I hope that you will seriously consider my application and contact me with any questions.
CVs are resumes used by academics to find faculty or research positions within a university or scientific institute. CVs differ from resumes in two main ways:
* Length: Most CVs range from three to ten pages; resumes should be one to two pages. If you dont have much experience, limit your resume to one page.
* Content: CVs tend to be very detailed, providing information such as lists of publications, seminar engagements, and awards and grants received. Resumes are more general and emphasize work experience and skill sets rather than academic achievements.
To create a killer resume, make your CV much shorter and shift the emphasis from academic achievements to skills and experiences relevant to consulting.
Start by culling examples of general skills sought by consulting firms from your resume. For example, you might cite President of Kayaking Club at Stanford
University (150 members) under Leadership. Or you might cite being the founder of your chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Similarly, the data analysis relevant to your thesis work could be listed under Analytical Abilities and Quantitative Skills. If you are interested in a certain type of consulting, peruse your CV a second time for skills specific to that area. For example, programming in many computer languages would be attractive to an IT firm, while a health care boutique might find your PhD in molecular biology more compelling. Generate this list before you start composing your business resume. It will make composing your resume easier and help you identify skills and abilities beyond your academic niche.

Next, consider which type of resume format would work best for you.
Resumes come in two standard formats: chronological and functional, although a hybrid of the two is possible. A chronological resume starts with your present professional experience and works backward in time. A functional resume categorizes skills under separate subject headings such as Research and Writing or Management Responsibilities. A functional format works well for career transitions because it emphasizes relevant skills over a lack of direct experience in a field. To make a hybrid of the two formats, divide your resume into headings such as Education, Professional Experience, and Skill Sets.

As you write up your killer resume, keep the following in mind:
* Keep it to one or two pages and make the layout appealing. Avoid cute graphics and excessive text.
* Use capital letters and bold print for headings.
* Use bullets consultants love bullets but avoid jargon and undefined acronyms (which consultants use, but dont necessarily love).
* Proofread thoroughly; be grammatically correct and stylistically consistent.
* Present information in order of importance. If youre just finishing your PhD at a prestigious school, cite your education first. If youre applying to an IT consulting firm and have spent the last three years working as a programmer for a biotech company, list this first.
* Use high-quality white or off-white paper.
* If you decide to state your job objective, simply say associate.

Some Final Considerations

Although most firms only request a cover letter and a resume, others may ask for copies of your graduate and undergraduate transcripts. Be sure you know what your GRE, LSAT, or MCAT scores are. You may also be required to fill out a supplement, akin to the essays required for professional-degree-program applications. Find out about the requirements for a complete application package for each firm. Get your transcripts well in advance of the deadlines,
and block out ample time to complete supplements. Be prepared to generate several versions of your resume. You can tailor it to a specific firm. Finally, have your consulting pals review your resume before you send it to a recruiter.

If you have relevant work experience, you might consider sending your resume to a headhunter. Headhunters find employees for other companies by reviewing and prescreening thousands of resumes. When a resume passes the initial screening, the company is notified and may call the candidate in for an interview. If the candidate is hired, the headhunter will receive a fee based on the first-year salary. All of the well-known consulting firms use headhunters to
fill senior positions, but they generally dont use them for associate-level hiring.

The best way to find a headhunter is to buy a software package that contains a database of headhunters for various industries, including management consulting. You can create a tailored database and construct a mailing list for the headhunting firms you want to contact. Typically, you will want to contact between 50 and 200 headhunters.

Before you throw in the towel and rush off to the nearest headhunter, remember that you may lack the background to be considered an industry hire. And even if you are attractive to a headhunter, the response time can be long: from three to six months. On the positive side, getting interviewed through this route usually saves you from case study interviews. Moreover, you
will probably start with a higher salary as an industry hire.
Some final points: Keep an eye on the job advertisements in The Economist for jobs at consulting firms. Again, a specialized skill set may land you one of these positions. MonsterTrak, an Internet search engine you can probably access through your career-services center, lists postings for consultant positions with many of the smaller firms throughout the year. Approach this stage of your job search with determination and patience.

Interviewers Checklist
The key to landing a consulting job is to convey to your recruiter that you have the following qualities:
1. Analytical and quantitative skills. The ability to analyze problems logically and methodically and to deal with a lot of numbers and data.
2. Teamwork capabilities. The ability to work well with people from diverse professional and educational backgrounds and adjust to playing many different roles on a project.
3. Leadership abilities. Leadership in the consulting world is more about motivating and persuading than it is about advocating or directing a course of action for a client. This type of leadership requires understanding the clients point of view and generating consensus around shared decisions with the client. You will also need to know when to be a leader and when to be a follower.

4. Good communication and interpersonal skills. The ability to present ideas clearly and concisely; the ability to listen and focus; exhibiting grace under pressure; being able to pass the Cleveland Airport test: Would someone enjoy spending six hours with you in the Cleveland Airport if your flight were delayed?

5. Strong work ethic, drive, and enthusiasm. The ability to work hard (60 to 80 hours a week) and remain chipper. In other words, be ready to plow through ten straight hours of Excel spreadsheets and still say with a smile, “More, please!” because you sincerely want to find the answers to your clients problems.

6. Creativity. The ability to look at a problem in many different ways. Typically clients will present problems in one way; part of a consultants role is to see if any other frameworks better capture the root of the problem.

The “Getting to Know You”
Interview
In this interview format, most of the interviewers questions will come from your resume. He or she will pay a great deal of attention to your background and professional experiences. Speak in a clear and convincing manner about any item in your resume. Give more details as the interviewer asks for them. Although questions will vary according to your individual experience, you can count on being asked the following:
* Why do you want to be a consultant?
* Why do you want to work for this firm?
* Tell me about your research/legal/medical work.
The first question has no right answer and it will depend on your own motivations. However, there are wrong ways of answering this question. For example, saying something that you dont really believe may backfire. Also, avoid being too negative about your reasons for leaving your field. Although your advisor may truly be an evil SOB, avoid stating so plainly. Keep in mind
that your interviewer is trying to gauge how well you understand consulting as a profession. Illustrating what consulting has to offer you is a good tactic for responding to this particular question.

The second question queries whether you have done your homework by asking why you specifically want to work at the firm. Know what makes the firm different from its competitors and why the difference attracts you. Finally, by asking you to explain your thesis or legal or medical work, for JDs and MDs the interviewer is testing your ability to explain a complex subject simply. Try to present your work in a way that a layperson could understand and stress any practical applications your work has. Practice by explaining your research to people outside your field. The interviewer may also assess your ability to present a topic at a level appropriate to a clients background. On the other hand, if the interviewer shares your background, youll be expected to pitch your explanation at a more technical level. You may also get questions along these lines:
* Tell me about a difficult experience you had in one of your leadership roles.
Would you change anything about how you handled this experience?
* How would your colleagues describe you?
* Teach me how to crochet, play badminton, or do whatever your hobby is.
When youre asked these questions, keep in mind that consulting interviewers
want clear examples in which youve shown leadership and made good
decisions while working effectively with a team; that you can work effectively with other people; and that youre able to describe complex information simply.

The Case-Study Interview

A case study is nothing more than a simplified business problem designed to test a candidates ability to think in a logical and structured manner. It is also something akin to pledging a fraternity. The people sitting across the table from you have gone through the same ritual and survived. They believe it necessary for you to undergo the ritual before joining the firm. Youll have to crack six to eight case studies during your two or three rounds of interviews with a firm.
The case study has two parts:

The Presentation

The case study can be presented orally or as written text. In either format, you will be given a brief description of the clients problem (“A telecom company provides software for e-mail services. Its revenues have been going down.”). You may be presented with background information or you may have to ask for it. Relevant information might include something along the lines of the following: “The company has a 12 percent market share and has three
competitors. What should the client do?”

The Process

Your first step should be to figure out what type of business problem the case study is. (If you dont know the types of case studies or the common frameworks used to answer them, you should check out WetFeets Ace Your Case series Consulting Interviews, Fifteen More Consulting Questions, Practice Makes Perfect, and The Latest and Greatest which provide a variety of case-study exercises and explain the various frameworks you might use to answer them.) After you determine what type of business problem the case study is and what framework
you will use to solve it, the interviewer will provide more details about the case and ask a variety of questions to probe your thinking process. During the discussion, the interviewer might coax you to pursue one particular line of reasoning or he or she may ask you to explain the reasoning behind your approach. In some cases, the interviewer may challenge your reasoning to see
how you would deal with a difficult client.

How to Crack a Case Study

Theres usually not a single correct answer for a case question. That said, some answers will be better than others because of the process used to derive them. A candidates ability to succeed in solving a case study depends largely on his or her ability to think logically and present a solution clearly. The best ways to prepare include
* Learning about the different types of business problems presented in interviews and studying the analytical frameworks used to crack them.
* Doing some practice case studies with your MBA or consultant buddies.
* Attending preinterview workshops and signing up for mock interviews offered by firms.
* Composing your own case studies from stories in the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Business Week, or Fortune.
* Finding out whether your local university offers workshops designed to familiarize academics with the case-study interview (Harvard offers a business management study group for graduate students in all fields).
* Exploring the websites of firms, such as McKinsey and BCG, that offer online practice cases.
Here are a few things to keep in mind when actually doing the case study in an interview:
* Pay close attention to the material presented. Feel free to take notes and ask questions if you need more details or are unclear about the information.
* Do not rush. You are not expected to have a brilliant solution in five minutes.
* Try to use a framework to answer the question. Be sure your interviewer is aware of which framework you have chosen.
* Try to focus on the key issues. Many interviewers will check to see if you apply the 80/20 rule. Devote most of your time to issues that let you get 80 percent of the solution to the problem.
* Make sure you close with a concrete recommendation. Remember: The whole point of consulting is to provide the client with an actionable recommendation.
* Be clear and concise in communicating your answers. Make your thought processes as transparent as possible. Sketch graphs to illustrate points when possible.
* Be creative. For example, if part of the case involves choosing between two options, think about generating a third or fourth option. If you are asked to describe the best way to commute from New York City to Philadelphia, ask the interviewer what is meant by “best.” Does the client want to optimize time, money, or comfort?
* Keep cool. Interviewers at some firms may antagonize you by withholding information or belittling your approach. Use the information available and dont lose your temper.

Heads Up for PhDs
Lost in the details. Because of their training, academics tend to focus on specialized details, often losing sight of the big picture. PhDs often forget that the case is ultimately about helping a client in a business situation; they pursue the trail of a particularly interesting, but not very important, set of details. PhDs can also forget to relate their general insights back to the clients goals.
Keep the 80/20 rule in mind and focus only on the details necessary to get the bulk of the problem solved.

Lack of commitment in the face of uncertainty. Academics are taught to distrust their common sense and to ask for more data when they are uncertain. Interviewers perceive a distrust of common sense as a lack of common sense. In the case interview, and in a real consulting situation, you will never have all the facts in hand. You will have to make decisions and recommendations based on incomplete information. Make a recommendation and be committed to it, without going into the possible deficiencies of your decision.

Lets get explicit. Academics tend to interact with colleagues who have similar training and a shared knowledge base. Ideas can be presented without giving too much background information because colleagues can follow along without much explanation. When PhDs make decisions in a case study, they tend not to reveal their assumptions. Being explicit about assumptions is an important part of being a consultant. Make sure you explain both your choice of framework
and your reasoning as you work through a case study.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. Because academics live in selfcontained subcultures that have specialized languages, they can be less than comprehensible when speaking to people outside of their fields. Be sure you are clear and concise in your explanations. Clearly communicate your reasons for wanting to be a consultant and your general interest in the business world. Lose the attitude. Although emulating the arrogance of your famous advisor
may serve to advance your academic career, displaying an attitude during an interview is the surest way of getting dinged. Interviewers are very concerned with gauging a candidates attitude. They want to know that you are prepared to pay your dues by doing entry-level work that wont make use of your academic training. According to insiders, demonstrating a good attitude is one of the most important factors in succeeding in interviews and in making a good
impression. Lack of quantitative-qualitative balance. PhDs can be divided into two main
categories: science and engineering, and the humanities. In general, scientists and engineers excel at quantitative skills, while the humanities folks tend to be stronger in qualitative abilities. To become a consultant, you need to demonstrate a balance between the two areas. Identify your area of weakness and work on it. If you want to sharpen your quantitative skills, buy a GMAT practice book or try doing market estimates with friends. (“Calculate the number of bags of dog food sold in the United States every month.”) Scientists and engineers should spend time working on their presentation skills by describing their work or hobbies to a friend outside their field. Heads Up for JDs Juggle those numbers. JD candidates need to clearly demonstrate their ability to handle basic business algebra, because the LSAT lacks a quantitative section. It may have been a few years since youve done calculations involving fractions, decimals, or percentages. Brush up on quantitative skills by doing marketestimate cases or working through a GRE or GMAT review book.

Equating law-firm interviews with consulting interviews. Avoid this temptation, as the two are diametric opposites. Law firm interviews are one-shot deals that require almost no preparation. If you have a reasonable GPA and can briefly explain why you want to work for a certain firm, you stand a good chance of landing the position. Consulting interviews test your analytical, verbal, and social skills. You will need to do research on each firm in order to explain why you want to work for them and how they differ from their competitors. Equating law-firm and consulting case studies. Although MBAs and JDs dissect cases as part of their training, the process and structure of doing case studies in the two fields are very different. Legal case studies come prepackaged with frameworks torts, liability, and so on and involve recognizing patterns
within the case and drawing different meanings from the facts. Business case studies have no such structure. The case cracker must choose a framework, use it to derive solutions, and support his or her recommendation with information relating to the business case. Familiarity with legal case studies is not adequate, in and of itself, for cracking case studies in a consulting interview.

Speak English. JDs are taught to speak legalese. Remember to state things clearly and simply in your interviews. An effective practice technique is to summarize the main points of a case or project to someone outside the legal profession. If you can quickly encapsulate and convey the importance of the case, your communication style will probably be effective in a consulting
interview.

Dont forget your bedside manner. Good consultants are good listeners. You need to demonstrate this ability during your interviews. Although there may be more drama in saving a life than in saving a dollar, let your interviewer talk to you about his or her experiences as a consultant.
Be very explicit. MDs usually interact with colleagues who have very similar backgrounds and professional training. Consequently, MDs tend not to reveal their assumptions when they make a recommendation for a case study. Being explicit about assumptions is an important part of being a consultant. Make sure that you explain both your choice of framework and your reasoning as you work through a case study.

Mind both Qs: quantitative and qualitative. MD candidates tend to be stronger in quantitative than qualitative abilities. To become a consultant, a doctor needs to demonstrate a balance between the two. Make sure your verbal explanations are as concise and clear as your business algebra. Spend time working on your presentation skills by describing your work to someone outside of the medical field. Good communication skills, written and verbal, are part of being a good consultant.

Grilling Your Interviewer

You will be given the opportunity to ask your interviewer questions. Part of being a good consultant involves asking probing questions. The following questions will work in most interviews. However, you should prepare additional questions tailored to the firm with which you are interviewing.
Rare
* Why did you become a consultant?
* Is there any difference between the initial training for MBA and other advanced-degree hires?
* What do you like most about consulting? What do you like least?
* Why did you choose this firm?
* How are your projects staffed?
* What was your last project and what role did you play on it?
Medium
* What is the turnover rate at your firm? Does it differ for PhDs and MBAs?
* What is the utilization rate at your firm? Does it differ for PhDs and MBAs?
* What is the revenue per consultant at your firm?
* What is the ratio of support staff to consultants at your firm?
* What do you like most about your firm? What do you like least?
* What was your worst experience with a project? What did you learn from
that experience?
* What do you think youll be doing in five years?
* What percentage of your partners is female? What percentage are minorities?
* Has consulting met your expectations?
Well Done
* Do consultants really add value to companies that hire them?
* How do you make sure your recommendations get implemented?
* Is there an Ivy League bias at your firm?
* What are the main reasons consultants leave your firm? Where do they go?
* Pretend I am a client. Why would I hire you over your competitors?

Negotiating and Accepting an Offer

After the final interview, a firm will generally contact you in two to ten days with its decision. If you receive an offer, you will get a phone call from the recruiting coordinator or a senior firm member. (If you dont get an offer, you will probably get a “Dear Candidate” letter in the mail.) The congratulatory phone call is followed by a written employment contract that spells out the
baseline salary, signing bonus, and other standard benefits and perks Once you have added all the numbers up, you may be tempted to accept immediately, but firms typically give two to three months to respond to their offers. This will allow you to complete interviewing with other firms. As you receive more offers, youll be able to negotiate more effectively for perks that may be missing from the initial offer. You can even leverage your offers with firms that have been dragging their feet about interviewing you. You should use the two to three months to explore the firms and their offices in detail. Do on-site visits and speak to as many consultants as possible. Ask all the hard-hitting questions you were reluctant to bring up during the interview
process. Pay attention to how forthcoming, organized, and responsive a firm is toward your requests. (Chances are if they are disorganized at this stage, they will be that way during your employment.) When you reach a decision, notify the firm both verbally and in writing. Be courteous and professional by notifying the other firms as soon as you have made a decision.
Now, take a deep breath and exhale. Youre a consultant.
cruiting process and tips for getting hired.