| Topic Name: |
Starting out in consulting |
| Message Name: |
well, don't begin as you just did |
| Date Posted: |
11/28/2002 |
| In Reply To: |
I am interested in management and/or strategy consulting, but my academic background is liberal arts with a BA in literature.
Is my consulting career already doomed?
Otherwise, where on earth do I begin?
I feel in some respects as though despite my initial researching efforts, I don't even have enough information to be able to ask the right questions. A clue, a general direction, specific pointers, any such things, thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Michael |
| Message: |
Michael,
If you've already done research and still feel that you can't ask a reasonable question, then you'd not be a good consultant. Knowing the right questions to ask at the right time is a core skill of a consultant. I spend much of my day around people who have worked in their particular business for longer than I've been alive. I have been at their offices for couple of days, and I have to ask senior managers questions to elicit the information I need to help them make key decisions. Often I do this with little more background information than knowing the person's title... a client VP or someone else has told me to talk with person X to help me figure out problem Z.
The answer to your questions are as follows:
1) No, your career is not doomed--there are lots of LA majors in consulting. But declaring yourself helpless is not the way to begin. A consultant who tells his manager "I've done research and I am still clueless" would find himself fired quickly.
2) You begin by determining what you want in a life, and then what you want from a job. Only at that point can you start thinking about companies and industries.
Here's a place to begin thinking, David Maister's Laws of the Job Search:
http://www.davidmaister.com/ArticlesBy.asp?fldStoreGUID={8BC21CE2-4B57-4FC0-99D5-288EFCAD72FC}&fldProdID=20359&intCatID=122&intPageNumber=2
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