Question from a med student asking about consulting

What’s going on, folk. I think I’m setting a recent record for speed in responding to user emails with my third in a few days. The message below is from a medical student who is interested in consulting as a possible path after she finishes med school. Her primary question about what consultants do has already been answered on here before, so I gave her a quickie response to that, but I did address her other questions.

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AK wrote:

“Hello Marquis,

I am currently a 3rd yr medical student about to begin my 4th yr and I have decided that residency is not for me. However, I would like to put my MD to use and have begun exploring other options out there for this degree. Apart from the obvious ones like healthcare reporting or research for big pharma, the one other option I keep hearing about is consulting. What exactly does consulting involve? Do I need anything other than an MD? what is the job market like?

I understand these are very general questions but I am really lost and am looking for some advice on the whole idea of “consulting”. Any input would me highly appreciated 🙂

Looking forward to your reply,

Thank You,
AK”

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My response:

AK,

Congratulations on making it through your third year in med school. I’m sorry that it’s taken me a while to respond to your message, but, as you can imagine, I have a ton of emails to address. Anyways, let me get to your questions:

– “What exactly does consulting involve?” –> I wrote a pretty long blog entry on this a few months ago, so I’ll leave it to you to search through the archives to find that entry. At a high level, consulting involves a team going into a client environment with the task of addressing a given issue. Then, through the process of team problem solving, analysis, and stakeholder interactions, the team works together to develop a recommendation for how the client can resolve the issue(s) it is facing.

– “Do I need anything other than an MD?” –> I know several consultants whose only graduate degrees are MD’s, so you wouldn’t need anything more than that…except for strong problem solving skills to tackle the case interviews. I’d guess that most consulting firms understand that you wouldn’t be coming in with a background in business, but they’d still want you to prove your ability to solve problems in a structured manner.

– “What is the job market like?” –> I wish I could answer this question, but it is a bit more complicated because of the current economic downturn. if you’d asked this question last year, I would have said that the job market was great with a lot of companies trying to bring in talented candidates. Now, with companies potentially tightening their purse-strings in response to the market, things are a bit more undetermined in the consulting industry. One school of thought says that the industry takes a hit during a down economy because clients are reluctant to spend money on consultants. The opposite view is that the industry can thrive in this situation because clients are focused on improving their businesses to weather the storm. I’m not sure where I stand on the issue, but I do believe that the firms will hire talent when they see it. So, I believe there is a decent market for jobs in consulting, but the bar will be high (as always) for candidates to earn one of those jobs.

I hope these responses are helpful as you consider making the move into consulting. You’ve still got a couple of months until the recruiting cycle for the consulting firms, so you might want to invest in a good consulting case prep book to wrap your mind around how to do the interviews. Take care and good luck.

-Marquis