| Topic Name: |
AF Officer Transition to Consulting |
| Message Name: |
Go to school... |
| Date Posted: |
02/26/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
This is a long message, sorry. I've posted on Craigslist, BWeek forums, and elsewhere; just trying to get some answers.
I'm just about at the end of my four year commissioning commitment to the Air Force. I've been considering changing careers to a top tier consulting firm... My educational background is a 3.7+ GPA double major in logistics and economics with honors from a respectable Big Ten school. I also have minors in political science and international business. I studied abroad in an economics exchange at a top UK school my junior year of college. I have yet to actually take the GMAT, but my background is very math intensive so the quant section should be a breeze, and with some studying I should be able to swing around a 700 (For any comparative purposes I got a high 1300s on my SATs).
My officer specialty was in finance/cost analysis. Basically I was analyzing the cost effectiveness of major air force acquisition projects and helping to determine a decision whether or not to buy/continue/not buy/cancel contracts with major companies. I have also worked in the (similar to) 'corporate finance' side in which I analyze budgets for a large section of bases at a time, and my input gets directly tied into Base Realignment and Closure Decisions, Recruiting Goals, Pay Table Increases, etc. I have significant management experience of over 100 people at a time by age 25... Finally, I have been deployed to such places as Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, and am conversational in Arabic as well as Spanish.
I'm wondering, with this kind of background, do I absolutely HAVE to go to MBA school to make it even as an entry-level position with one of these firms? Could I apply cold via the "experienced hires" section of most of the consulting companies' websites? Could I apply as an undergraduate and hope to excel relative to the other newbies fresh out of school? Or would I be better suited to going to the (what I might consider unnecessary schooling) MBA program that would set me up for the networking leading to an associate position? My choices would be Harvard, Stanford, Chicago, UPenn, Columbia, NYU, UPenn, and Tuck.
Any advice is appreciated. |
| Message: |
Guessing your age at 25 - at best you're a very junior captain. From my viewpoint, companies don't get all that excited about pure military experience (without something else like an MBA) until you hit Lieutenant Colonel.
Without an advanced degree (MBA, PhD, JD,...) you don't have much of an argument for anything but an analyst position, and this would be a step backwards for you.
You may be able to swing something with a more government-related firm such as Booz-Allen, but again the MBA would help you, and would probably be in your future anyway.
On the plus side, your experience in the military should drastically help in interviews, which tend to focus on leadership and personal impact...
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