This presentation is summary of Webinar conducted at ePoise on educating B-School students on Consulting as an Industry and Careers in Management Consulting.
The Webinar was presented by ePoise mentor Mr. Rajeev Menon, Senior Managing Consultant and General Manager at IBM India.
This session will provide an overview of the management consulting space including key players in and nature of consulting work in each sub-segment. The mentor will share insights about MBA career paths and focus on entry level MBA roles, growth opportunities and expectations. The mentor will also provide a general sense of opportunities in the sector and guidance on interview preparation.
Registering with ePoise will not only provide access to video recording of all webinar session, but also:
-- Invite to attend all the upcoming webinar sessions
-- Resources related to various career avenues
-- Access to directory of students from various B-Schools in India
-- Forums to get your questions answered
-- Opportunities - Internship and job postings
-- Coaching package comprising of
-- One to One Mentoring
-- Resume Drafting
-- Interview Preparation and much more!!
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ePoise moderator introduces the mentor for the session. Mentor greets everyoneand shares his background
Sachin: Rajeev! The overall consulting space is extremely vast. On top of that every company seems to call themselves as a consulting company which makes it confusing for students. I would ask you to explain our audience in a simple manner as to what consulting business means, what are the diff types of consulting work which companies do this.Rajeev explains what is Strategy Consulting , Operations & Technology Consulting means and where does IT services fit into the picture. Illustrations of the three pillars. How the nature of work differs in each area. And how consulting firms choose which campus to visit (pedigree etc. to be put in a politically correct manner)Sachin : So what do the dotted lines represent? And what are these green arrows all about?Rajeev explains how these are not watertight areas and how Consulting firms are expanding themselves along the value chain.Sachin : One thing which confuses studentsis that one consulting company (say an Accenture or Cap Gemini) hires both MBAs and engineers?! What is the job that an engineer or an MBA have in the organization. Are they same?
Q: What is Vault? Rajeev explains. Q: Is this specific to the US/European market? What’s the equivalent in India?http://www.greatplacetowork.in/best-companies/indias-best-companies-to-work-for and http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/best_company_2012.cms http://businesstoday.intoday.in/coverage/139/1/best-employers-2012.html
Q: Rajeeev, so is everyone a consultant in a consulting firm? Or are there typical functions such as sales, marketing, operations, HR and finance?Q: Can you please explain these functions within a consulting firm?Q: Which of these is the one where maximum recruitment happens for fresh MBAs?Q: So what does it take to do BD in a consulting firm? Is it the same as sales in other service industries?A: Consultative selling, relationship based, repeat business
Q: What’s the nature of work for a consultant fresh out of MBA? How does it change over time?Q: What’s a typical day like for a consultant on a project? Could you please share your own experience from McKinsey?Q: How does this work differ between various consulting companies – lets say in the broad categories that we discussed earlier – strategy consulting firms, operations and technology consulting firms & IT Services firms.Q: Rajeev you have worked in McKinsey, Deloitte and IBM – some of the best global consulting firms in their categories and you have also worked in the industry with both leading Indiana and MNC companies such as Mahindra, Bharti and 3M. How would you compare a consulting career vis-à-vis a corporate career. Please share the pros an cons of both with our audience, again recounting your personal experiences wherever applicable.Take the poll
Q: Rajeev, is the growth fast track in consulting compared to jobs in other corporate sectors? Can you pleae share a perspective?Q: There is a common perception that consulting industry is in general more demanding than the corporate jobs in industry; One has heard of phrases such as up or out – which means either you move up fast or you move out of the company? What do you have to say.Q: What about specialization? Does everyone become a specialist in consulting as one grows?
Q: Rajeev, What about the opportunities in other corporate sectors for consultants who want to move out of consulting? Is such a move difficult?
Q: Rajeev, now coming to the very important part. How does one prepare for these jobs. I know that you have been involved in recruiting fresh MBAs while you were with McKinsey and also now with IBM. What do organizations look for? What do you look for?Q: How do you measure these criteria? Any tests? What are the questions that you ask? And what are you looking to hear?Q: Let me ask it the other way: What is a big no for you? What kind of responses put you off?Sachin : You have mentioned case interviews. This is a selection method which we know that strategy consulting companies employ and increasingly others too. Can you share with our young friends what this is about?Rajeev – Goes to the next slide and explains.
Q: Will ask depending on what Rajeev explains on this slide
Q: Rajeev, can you please suggest any resources for our friendswhich help them gain knowledge, stay up to date and be better prepared for careers in consulting.