| Topic Name: |
confused undergrad |
| Message Name: |
one more thing... |
| Date Posted: |
01/12/2000 |
| In Reply To: |
I agree with the previous poster. You will be spending a great deal of time at work (more or less, depending on which firm you end up working for). Of course, your choices may be more limited by where you get offers, unless you're one of those Wunderkinde who get offers wherever they apply.
First round is a little early to be getting choosy -- I would apply to a good cross-section of firms. Like college applications, you'll want your 'reaches,' '50-50's' and your 'safeties.' But when you do get to the time when you have to make a decision, the best source of information is friends of yours who currently work in the firm, if you have any. Anyone who is involved in recruiting will feed you the same old crap: "Yes, you will gets lots of responsibility, yes you will get client exposure, yes we have a good work-life balance, and the biggest reason I came to work here was the people, blah blah blah." The last one may actually be true, because similar types of people seem to go to the same firms (i.e. all the tools go to one firm or another).
Think about the lifestyle you want. Would you be happy working 60 hours a week? Hours vary a lot at consulting firms, so if 60 hours is average it means that you'll be doing 80 or more once in a while. Definitely ask what the hours are like, and GET THEIR OPINIONS ON THE HOURS. When I talked to th McKinsey folks, they said "we work 60 hours a week and lead a very balanced lifestyle." Now to me, working 60 hours a week is NOT a balanced life, although I know others feel differently, but helped me to understand that I would not fit into the McKinsey culture.
You may also want to consider some of the non-strategy firms. If you're not set on strategy but you still want to do business-stuff and not something like IT consulting, you may want to think about an HR consulting firm. While strategy firms are externally focused, attacking the marketplace, and that sort of thing, HR consulting firms are focused on getting things working on the inside, anything from systems, processes, compensation to a lot of really intersting organizational effectiveness and strategy alignment stuff. One of my friends works at the Hay Group and likes it a lot. I understand that PWC has a smaller HR consulting practice that they're growing, so that may be an opportunity to help build something up. The other players in HR consulting are Towers Perrin, Hewitt, and William M. Mercer. You may want to consider them as well. |
| Message: |
One more note on HR consulting firms -- their hours are typically lower than those of the big strategy firms, although they'll fluctuate a lot, as at any consultancy.
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