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VC wrote:
Hi Marquis,I have looked through your website and many other websites now and have not found an adequate answer to this question.
I am a recent graduate in chemical engineering and am currently employed at a mid-sized pharmaceutical company. I have been working for a few months now and am finding that I am not as interested in the technical engineering skills as I once was. I developed an interest in consulting and business during my senior year in school (but did not pursue it as I felt I was incapable of obtaining a job in consulting then) and am now seriously considering a change into the consulting industry.
How can I get into this industry? What kind of consulting companies should I target? And is this a pursuable task or should I just wait to get an MBA and then pursue consulting?
Thanks in advance!
Regards,
VC
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My response:
Hi VC,
Thanks for reaching out to me with your question. I’ll try my best to answer your questions based on the information that you’ve provided, but you didn’t really give me a lot to work off of in your email.
Based on what you’ve told me about your experience, I think you could have a shot at a position in a management consulting firm as an experienced hire candidate, but please know that I’m making that assessment without very detailed information about you. Also, the biggest roadblock for you if you were to look at a transition in the near-term is that you’re a recent graduate with little professional work experience. If I were a recruiter at a consulting firm, I’d probably look at your profile and wonder why you were trying to make a transition so soon after entering the workforce. Further, I’d wonder why you didn’t try to apply for consulting jobs right out of school. I understand the reasoning given in your email, but a recruiter isn’t going to have that context simply from looking at your online application and resume. Be ready to face that as an obstacle for the change that you’re considering.
With your academic background in Chemical Engineering and Pharma industry experience, you should look into either large management consulting firms that have Pharma practices or smaller boutique consulting firms with a Pharma focus. In terms of specific firms with those characteristics, I’ll leave it to you to do the research to figure out who they might be. You should understand that applying to a larger consulting firm as an experienced hire is not an easy process and you’d be competing with a LOT of people attempting to make a similar transition. Those candidates may have stronger profiles than yours, so you should go into the process knowing that you would be facing an uphill battle of sorts. For you, the boutique firm route could be your most straightforward route into management consulting if you want to make the move in the next couple of years. Your industry experience and likely analytical skills (as evidenced by your undergrad course of study) could make you a great candidate for a boutique firm focused on the Pharma space. For more information on the difference between large firms and boutique firms, check out my blog archives. I’ve written about that a few times in the past.
In general, you don’t NEED an MBA to make a transition to a management consulting firm as an experienced hire, but it certainly doesn’t hurt your chances, especially since firms usually focus more on recruiting out of graduate schools than recruiting from the experienced ranks. Since you are currently pre-MBA, you would likely have to go in at the Analyst or Senior Analyst level, but, as long as you understand that and are OK with it, you should be in good shape. Given that it seems like you don’t have much professional work experience yet, applying to business school could be a good option for you as a general benefit to your career profile, so don’t overlook that as a possibility for the future.
I hope my comments here have been helpful to you.
Marquis
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