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Posting for a friend. A lot of the talk re: consulting on here is about McKinsey or other top firms, but I'm wondering what it takes to get an entry-level job at a less prestigious consulting firm. Do you still need great undergraduate grades and an MBA or are the standards considerably lower? What do these firms look for? Thanks!

PS - I realize this is a "Legal Employment" firm, but some of us have to or want to consider non-legal jobs too. Thanks in advance for your help.

Anonymous User wrote:Posting for a friend. A lot of the talk re: consulting on here is about McKinsey or other top firms, but I'm wondering what it takes to get an entry-level job at a less prestigious consulting firm. Do you still need great undergraduate grades and an MBA or are the standards considerably lower? What do these firms look for? Thanks!

PS - I realize this is a "Legal Employment" firm, but some of us have to or want to consider non-legal jobs too. Thanks in advance for your help.

I think the main problem with getting a job at these "lesser consulting" firms is that they do not actively recruit JDs.. so you re going to have to hustle/convince them that you are serious about the job.

Well my friend is seriously considering dropping out of law school based on his first-semester grades, and is wondering if a consulting job, even with a non-prestigious firm, is a decent safety net option. Assume he went to a reasonably prestigious undergrad (a step below HYP) but had a low GPA (~2.75). Is he screwed or could he find an entry-level job somewhere?

Anonymous User wrote:Well my friend is seriously considering dropping out of law school based on his first-semester grades, and is wondering if a consulting job, even with a non-prestigious firm, is a decent safety net option. Assume he went to a reasonably prestigious undergrad (a step below HYP) but had a low GPA (~2.75). Is he screwed or could he find an entry-level job somewhere?

I feel like it is going to be an uphill battle since IBD/consulting recruiting out of the cycle is pretty rough.. but if he networks hard (looks like at least he has a good base to work with) I bet firms are willing to overlook his low gpa. Oh and he better come up with a really good story why he decided to drop out of law school and pursue a career in consulting.

Consulting is not a safety, not at all. You need MBA or good undergrad to hit consulting. JD ironically only helps with the MBB cause the other ones do not actively recruit JDs.

Anonymous User wrote:Consulting is not a safety, not at all. You need MBA or good undergrad to hit consulting. JD ironically only helps with the MBB cause the other ones do not actively recruit JDs.

Depends on where you want, somewhere like Deloitte does not require a great undergrad or MBA. They likely require better than a 2.75. I doubt he would meet most firms grade thresholds.

i still don't know wut the fuck do consultants do....why do companies need them exactly?

crazycanuck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Consulting is not a safety, not at all. You need MBA or good undergrad to hit consulting. JD ironically only helps with the MBB cause the other ones do not actively recruit JDs.

Depends on where you want, somewhere like Deloitte does not require a great undergrad or MBA. They likely require better than a 2.75. I doubt he would meet most firms grade thresholds.

Do not agree with this at all. At a minimum you would need a quant background. Deloitte btw gets a lot of crap but they are by no means a bad firm.
As to the person wondering what consultants do... it depends. They might look at operations and try to lower costs, increase profitability.
In relation to strategy, they might be able to provide niche type expertise, example, I am a US company thinking of expanding in Spain. Should I go about it and how? The CEO might know a ton about the business in USA but not as much about the best ways to expand. Generally, the question here is to decrease uncertainty in the decision making of management. If making a billion dollar decision, with the information I have now, there is a 60% chance of A outcome, and 40% chance of B outcome... I pay a consulting firm $1 million so that they provide more details in the likelihood of outcome.

Anonymous User wrote:

crazycanuck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Consulting is not a safety, not at all. You need MBA or good undergrad to hit consulting. JD ironically only helps with the MBB cause the other ones do not actively recruit JDs.

Depends on where you want, somewhere like Deloitte does not require a great undergrad or MBA. They likely require better than a 2.75. I doubt he would meet most firms grade thresholds.

Do not agree with this at all. At a minimum you would need a quant background. Deloitte btw gets a lot of crap but they are by no means a bad firm.
As to the person wondering what consultants do... it depends. They might look at operations and try to lower costs, increase profitability.
In relation to strategy, they might be able to provide niche type expertise, example, I am a US company thinking of expanding in Spain. Should I go about it and how? The CEO might know a ton about the business in USA but not as much about the best ways to expand. Generally, the question here is to decrease uncertainty in the decision making of management. If making a billion dollar decision, with the information I have now, there is a 60% chance of A outcome, and 40% chance of B outcome... I pay a consulting firm $1 million so that they provide more details in the likelihood of outcome.

I work at Deloitte and participate in recruitment. To get hired as a consulting analyst you do not need an elite undergrad or MBA, it has to be a decent school that the local office recruits from. ITT Tech grads aren't getting in at Deloitte, but students with strong grades from what the local firm considers a strong school (strong, well respected, public uni's are usually good enough) is just fine. Quant backgrounds are not required, in fact, we look for non-quant majors as well as people with experience with Quants. It's nice to have diversity. However you do need to demonstrate you're not a complete moron with numbers. Do some practice cases before your case interview and you'll be fine. They aren't hard. Having a 2.75 GPA will be pretty hard to get an interview with though. We typically have a grade threshold, the first thing we look at is grades, if they meet the threshold then we start looking at other factors.

Consultants do a lot of stuff, you're pretty dead on with that example. Another place that consultants can provide a lot of value is with tech consulting. When a company is switching to a new tech system, such as SAP, consultants can provide a lot of value to their clients by guiding them through the design and implementation process.

Consultants are like lawyers. It's not that the work product they can create is so profound that it justifies their salary, it's that they have a pedigree that justifies what their firm is billing them out at.

Without prestige from at least ug or ls, consulting is not an option.

fathergoose wrote:
Consultants are like lawyers. It's not that the work product they can create is so profound that it justifies their salary, it's that they have a pedigree that justifies what their firm is billing them out at.

Without prestige from at least ug or ls, consulting is not an option.

I agree with the first part, but they do hire a bunch of other non/less prestigious consultants to bill hours. If you're not going for McKinsey, Bain, or BCG, you can be hired with a state university education. I know PWC, Deloitte, Accenture, E&Y, and IBM all hire from local schools as well.

fathergoose wrote:Consultants are like lawyers. It's not that the work product they can create is so profound that it justifies their salary, it's that they have a pedigree that justifies what their firm is billing them out at.

Without prestige from at least ug or ls, consulting is not an option.

Great point; CEOs of companies are super-idiotic and buy into the prestige talk of lawyers/consultants and pay tons of money for work that is not really worth it.

There are some consulting firms that care less about pedigree. I work for one of them - they recruit heavily at top 10 undergrad schools/masters programs but also hire people from Devry and University of Phoenix.

One thing I have found is that standards tend to be higher for those who want the "consulting" name positions. My firm requires a 3.5 GPA for hires in consulting. But they usually have other roles that you can try applying for that are non "Consultant" or "Analyst" roles. For example, you can work in human resources, finance, software development, etc.

I don't think dropping out of law school is necessarily going to look bad - there's an executive at my firm who did a semester at law school before being recruited to a consulting job, thinking he'd just take a sabbatical, and he ended up leaving school and staying with the firm.

I use to work in consulting. Even non Mckinsey firms look at grades. However, there are many firms. Huron Consulting, Accenture, PWC, E&Y, Navigant, FTI, Monitor, West Monroe Partners, Mercer, Triage Consulting.

Different firms look at different things. Having a quantitiative background is definitely helpful. But showing that you can do a case study or if you have a high LSAT/SAT, maybe that could compensate for the GPA. Personally, consulting is overrated. I find it sickening that so many undergrads want to work in the industry. The pay is not that high compared to other industries.

I worked in consulting at one of the Big Four for a year. The biggest drawback is that you have like a dozen guys trying to pass work on to you. Basically, anyone with a higher title than you can pass work on to you. While you may be hired into a division, anyone can pass work down to you. This can get pretty stressful. In my division, I worked like 40-50 hours a week most of the time. I was paid about $60K. It was a pretty cool job overall.

Anonymous User wrote:I work at Deloitte and participate in recruitment. To get hired as a consulting analyst you do not need an elite undergrad or MBA, it has to be a decent school that the local office recruits from. ITT Tech grads aren't getting in at Deloitte, but students with strong grades from what the local firm considers a strong school (strong, well respected, public uni's are usually good enough) is just fine. Quant backgrounds are not required, in fact, we look for non-quant majors as well as people with experience with Quants. It's nice to have diversity. However you do need to demonstrate you're not a complete moron with numbers. Do some practice cases before your case interview and you'll be fine. They aren't hard. Having a 2.75 GPA will be pretty hard to get an interview with though. We typically have a grade threshold, the first thing we look at is grades, if they meet the threshold then we start looking at other factors.

Consultants do a lot of stuff, you're pretty dead on with that example. Another place that consultants can provide a lot of value is with tech consulting. When a company is switching to a new tech system, such as SAP, consultants can provide a lot of value to their clients by guiding them through the design and implementation process.

To the anon who posted this - would you kindly pm me and answer a couple questions about transitioning from law to consulting?

Anonymous User wrote:
I work at Deloitte and participate in recruitment. To get hired as a consulting analyst you do not need an elite undergrad or MBA, it has to be a decent school that the local office recruits from. ITT Tech grads aren't getting in at Deloitte, but students with strong grades from what the local firm considers a strong school (strong, well respected, public uni's are usually good enough) is just fine. Quant backgrounds are not required, in fact, we look for non-quant majors as well as people with experience with Quants. It's nice to have diversity. However you do need to demonstrate you're not a complete moron with numbers. Do some practice cases before your case interview and you'll be fine. They aren't hard. Having a 2.75 GPA will be pretty hard to get an interview with though. We typically have a grade threshold, the first thing we look at is grades, if they meet the threshold then we start looking at other factors.

Consultants do a lot of stuff, you're pretty dead on with that example. Another place that consultants can provide a lot of value is with tech consulting. When a company is switching to a new tech system, such as SAP, consultants can provide a lot of value to their clients by guiding them through the design and implementation process.

Does Deloitte and co hire JDs as associates? I know McK does... Can you provide more details in relation to JD recruitment for associate positions, if it exists.

Yes.

http://careers.deloitte.com/landing/us/ ... itions.asp

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

crazycanuck wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Consulting is not a safety, not at all. You need MBA or good undergrad to hit consulting. JD ironically only helps with the MBB cause the other ones do not actively recruit JDs.

Depends on where you want, somewhere like Deloitte does not require a great undergrad or MBA. They likely require better than a 2.75. I doubt he would meet most firms grade thresholds.

Do not agree with this at all. At a minimum you would need a quant background. Deloitte btw gets a lot of crap but they are by no means a bad firm.
As to the person wondering what consultants do... it depends. They might look at operations and try to lower costs, increase profitability.
In relation to strategy, they might be able to provide niche type expertise, example, I am a US company thinking of expanding in Spain. Should I go about it and how? The CEO might know a ton about the business in USA but not as much about the best ways to expand. Generally, the question here is to decrease uncertainty in the decision making of management. If making a billion dollar decision, with the information I have now, there is a 60% chance of A outcome, and 40% chance of B outcome... I pay a consulting firm $1 million so that they provide more details in the likelihood of outcome.

I work at Deloitte and participate in recruitment. To get hired as a consulting analyst you do not need an elite undergrad or MBA, it has to be a decent school that the local office recruits from. ITT Tech grads aren't getting in at Deloitte, but students with strong grades from what the local firm considers a strong school (strong, well respected, public uni's are usually good enough) is just fine. Quant backgrounds are not required, in fact, we look for non-quant majors as well as people with experience with Quants. It's nice to have diversity. However you do need to demonstrate you're not a complete moron with numbers. Do some practice cases before your case interview and you'll be fine. They aren't hard. Having a 2.75 GPA will be pretty hard to get an interview with though. We typically have a grade threshold, the first thing we look at is grades, if they meet the threshold then we start looking at other factors.

Consultants do a lot of stuff, you're pretty dead on with that example. Another place that consultants can provide a lot of value is with tech consulting. When a company is switching to a new tech system, such as SAP, consultants can provide a lot of value to their clients by guiding them through the design and implementation process.

Sorry to bump an old post, but if you ever see this, could you pm me? I have a couple of questions id like to ask before making rash decision haha.