Management Consulting Discussion - Page 26

i wouldn't get into consulting if you want to "travel."

I do a lot of cost savings & business process analysis (requires a lot of travel) for a large company, which isn't like consulting (i don't travel every week for instance)... but even when you travel 40% of the time... it gets old.

also, working long hours or working weekends sucks ass... one thing i would say that IB has that consulting doesn't is that according to some wall street guys i know, you aren't displaced every week so it's a little better...

Haha. Traveling's not the reason. I just thought it'd be interesting to fly around the country, but as you said, I'm sure it gets a little dull. What would you say is a more 'versatile' major? Something that would be useful for a wide range of careers in business? I'm only considering consulting/IB right now, but they seem to be really life-consuming.

Well if you read GreenFrog's posts in the "Pissing you off" thread, I think you will learn that the travel sounds cool at first but really starts to get old when the travel plans stop correlating with where you would prefer to be traveling.

It is more of something you learn to deal with...and you do it while you are young and don't have other shit to get in the way (or when you are old and your kids are off to college).

you go to some nice places... (ie. i was in chicago for 2 weeks) but you go to some not so nice places... (ie. boonies in Canada)

For most entry level jobs in finance, consulting, IB, and the like, you are expected to give everything you've got to the job, 24/7. It's part of paying your dues, and it ain't easy. Some people thrive in such an environment, but most who start, don't. The key is to figure out whether you're cut out for it, and modify your career plans accordingly.

I'm just jaded from having to deal with more politics and the likes than I'd normally have to and it's been burning me out lately.. but just in terms of the job:

- Entry level consultants aren't doing any breakthrough analyses and driving recommendations
- 95% of your time will be spent on powerpoint slides with a focus on aesthetics and formatting
- Expect to re-work a single slide at least 4-5 times as it gets passed around various levels of seniority, all of whom have their own respective input (read: opinions) on how the slide should look; the way a slide looks at the end is dictated by how senior the last person to have reviewed it is
- In terms of the actual content on the slides, sure, you may have some wiggle room in terms of what to put on it, depending on your manager and what kind of relationship you have with him/her, but for the most part, you're being told what the slide should look like and what needs to go on it. Essentially, you're just executing.
- Travel: this can be a tricky one, as I know people who absolutely love being on the road, my current project manager being one of them. But that's absolutely the exception and not the norm. I've been doing it for about 8 months now and while the travel itself isn't that annoying, it's the city you go to that gets to you. I've been going to the same freaking place for 8 months and to have a project last 8 months is very unusual for my group.. so I'm ready to start a new project.. yesterday
- Lifestyle: you're on the road 4 days a week, and this DEFINITELY impacts your quality of life. The fancy hotels and steak dinners stop making up for it, quick, especially when you feel like you're missing out on cool things to do with friends.
- Remember when you were younger and went on vacations, staying at hotels felt nice? It was a nice change of scenery and the rooms were nice, etc. Well that novelty wears off after you've done travel. Hotel rooms are boring, sanitized places that are designed to minimize the angst a traveling businessman must endure while he's away from home. Yearning to sleep in your own bed becomes a pervasive thought as you sleep on hotel beds with pillows that just aren't like yours back home.
Pay: for most consulting firms, an entry level analyst can expect to make base 60-70K with a signing bonus typically in the 5K range and an end of year discretionary bonus of up to $10K. So all in, it's a nice, lucrative job to have out of college, but most people stick around for a year or two and do something completely different after or go straight to B-school. You'll also save a SHIT TON of money by being on the road.. For the first time since my project started, we're allowed to work in our offices and not have to travel for the next two weeks, but I've already come to resent the money I have to spend on food, gas, etc everyday. It adds up quick. So you're essentially making another 5-6K a year by not having to pay for 70% of your food for the week.

What does it boil down to?
If you can break into consulting, by all means, go ahead and take the job. The pay and exit opps are worth it. But stop glamorizing all the travel (OMG FIRST CLASS UPGRADES AND $50 STEAKS FOR DINNER!) and just focus on what job really is: a springboard to an even more stressful job, but with higher pay

Good post, GF, and you're so right about travel. Even if you travel to exotic places, it gets old real quick.

The travel does seem pretty exhausting. Well, it looks like regardless of what I do I'll be busting my ass the first few years. It's just a matter of finding something that interests me. What did you analysts/consultants/etc. major in and what job did it land you?

I don't know how it is for you, but our daily per diems when traveling adds up to about $10k extra per year (on top of what you're actually saving except for the fact that you're eating out). That's really about the only good thing I see about traveling though.

If it interests you, go for it. There's no better time to bust ones ass than when you're young. I suppose once again the caveats to my answers that being from Australia and Europe - my quals etc may not be directly comparable but my background is commerce (marketing/management) and business information systems.

I agree with the others in that you shouldn't over glamourise it because there's nothing I hate more than a cocky young consultant pretending he knows business more than anyone else.

Haha. Definitely gonna try to not let it go to my head. My ideal would be something that mixes computers/finance-business, without being necessarily as technical as IT.

To be honest, it's fundamentally impossible to avoid technology and finance on any consulting gig unless you work in a spectacularly narrow field or expertise

Also, slide jockeying seems to be a strategy house kind of thing to do. It depends what kind of firm you join and that defines what type of work you'll do.

RTC831 if you're in the U.S., I think you'd be interested in Management Information Systems (MIS). When I was considering majors I understood that to be an intersection of business and technology. Personally I pursued Economics and International Studies (but i knew I wanted mixture of business and intl' affairs plus I hated math so no Finance major for me).

People always say I do not like math then go into economics

Economics is essentially math though ... abstract as well