| Topic Name: |
Career Change to Consulting |
| Message Name: |
I tried it - didn't work |
| Date Posted: |
02/06/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
I have 18 years of corporate experience working in aerospace & defense, possess a Top Secret clearance, and just recently finished my MBA from a med-sized university in Orange County California (Chapman University AACSB accredited). I am currently in my late 30's and looking at Strategy Consulting and changing my current career path. What are my chances of success in this weak economy and the fact that my Chapman MBA though respected here in the greater Los Angeles basin is not that well known in other areas outside LA. In other words how attractive do I look to a major firm
What are your thoughts?
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| Message: |
I too had 18 years of corporate experience, mostly in technology.
I completed my MBA from an Ivy League, top 5 school in May 2001.
After strenuous interviewing, I received exactly one offer, by the consulting arm of a Big 5 accounting firm. I took it.
Four months later, without ever having been assigned to a client engagement, I was laid off.
A colleague at the firm, who had also completed his MBA late in life, was also laid off after only 4 months.
Another colleague, who went to a top pure-play management consulting firm, told me his firm would never hire someone in their late 30's for a relatively junior position. It wasn't a formal policy, of course, but it just never happened.
The good news for me is this: I hated being an entry level management consultant, anyway. I was appalled at how little the consultants and managers actually knew about business or about technology. And they made it clear that they did not care how much I knew - as an entry-level consultant, my job was to create deliverables as directed, no matter how meaningless or incorrect.
My advise: look elsewhere.
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