EPT
What I learned as a Consultant at PwC Part 1
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
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d_so
Korea (South)3262 Posts
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cascades
Singapore6122 Posts
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besiger
Croatia2452 Posts
 Also I was wondering, do you still play BW, and would you like to play a game or two here and there? - Armin | ||
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
But I've made the switch to SC2 already, so if we play, we'll have to play SC2 when you get here. ^^* | ||
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besiger
Croatia2452 Posts
Also my email has been giving me some trouble, so next time when you are on msn, I have a question or two it thats ok. Cheers | ||
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hifriend
China7935 Posts
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Entropic
Canada2837 Posts
Well, consulting really does attract really driven and ambitious types of persons. When I hear stories of people cutting their teeth at PwC, it's usually a soul-sucking experience, nice to see someone that actually liked it. | ||
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gchan
United States654 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 01:37 hifriend wrote: I would be very interested to see the actual presentation if you still have it. :O Omg, I just went through flash back shock going through my emails to find it and see it wasn't to embarrasing to post, but it was on my hotmail account and ..its been automatically deleted, ㅡ.ㅡ wow I don't use hotmail any more, but wow. Anyway, I'm sure it was quite embarrasing anyways to review it because I do remember looking at maybe a year after the nuttiness of it all and I thought it was definately a bit of madness. ^^ | ||
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 02:06 gchan wrote: You have a very interesting blog (the one on typepad). Some of your insights into life are things I've been realizing myself as I come of age (I'm almost 26). I'm glad to see my own reasonings, observations, and struggles are things that other people have gone through as well. We all just geeks together, I'm just the grandpa geek. keke. ^^ | ||
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NickC
233 Posts
In the few jobs I've had, myself and my colleagues have generally worked our asses off, in my opinion. You ask anyone who's been digging a hole all day or running around on their feet all day or caring for the sick all day if their job is hard and they'll say yes! But we earn only 10,000. So can anyone honestly explain what exactly "business people" DO to earn 3x+ a normal hard-working person's salary? Is it all about applying some complex knowledge you've learnt through your studies? Is it simply about finding people who are reliable in that they WANT to take on financial responsibilities (since, though a nurse would never poison someone, she can still walk out on her employer without causing much distress)? Would you ever consider working for a few months doing a housekeeping job in a hotel, just to see how stressful, hectic, tiring and unpleasant "normal" jobs are for their comparitive salaries? I'm totally clueless and you seem like the kind of person who could understand what I'm saying and might like to write about it :3 | ||
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san-tokie
Korea (South)185 Posts
On August 27 2010 02:31 NickC wrote: I've always wondered about the actual practical work and "difficulty" of the jobs of these "high earning" business people (anyone earning over 30,000 in my eyes). So can anyone honestly explain what exactly "business people" DO to earn 3x+ a normal hard-working person's salary? Well, according to his blog it's because they sacrifice their liver! I had an opportunity to go into marketing, at the time I thought it was dumb, but reading your stories is making me question my choices.. ahh!! ;o; | ||
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 02:31 NickC wrote: I've always wondered about the actual practical work and "difficulty" of the jobs of these "high earning" business people (anyone earning over 30,000 in my eyes). In the few jobs I've had, myself and my colleagues have generally worked our asses off, in my opinion. You ask anyone who's been digging a hole all day or running around on their feet all day or caring for the sick all day if their job is hard and they'll say yes! But we earn only 10,000. So can anyone honestly explain what exactly "business people" DO to earn 3x+ a normal hard-working person's salary? Is it all about applying some complex knowledge you've learnt through your studies? Is it simply about finding people who are reliable in that they WANT to take on financial responsibilities (since, though a nurse would never poison someone, she can still walk out on her employer without causing much distress)? Would you ever consider working for a few months doing a housekeeping job in a hotel, just to see how stressful, hectic, tiring and unpleasant "normal" jobs are for their comparitive salaries? I'm totally clueless and you seem like the kind of person who could understand what I'm saying and might like to write about it :3 Actually business isn't all that difficult, but its more of a mentality about understanding what is money actually. If you work for your money, you've missed the point about what money is in the capitalistic society, but the main thing is, money is for investment to make more money. Now when you work are you actually making money via an investment? No, but the people who hired you are, the construction firm, the hostipal, they are paying you with money that they got from their clients, but of course they pay you less or charge their clients more and make their own margin. Now, are they really working for their money? No, because they use part of the money to make you work for it. A freaking long time ago, the main basis for 'capital or money' was property. So it went, if you worked for someone, then you could eventually save enough money to buy your own property (usually a farm) then you could do the same thing. But what ended up happening was that the cost of property and business infrasture went up and the labour was relatively the same. So, now many people think, working for your money is the correct thing to do, when in fact it is not at all. Now in professional business, we also work for our money, but since we make the people we work for gobs and gobs more money, relative to the amount we make for them, its a tiny percentage, but it is still a lot relative to the normal salary, in fact it would more than some small companies make in profit. You should read, 'Rich Dad, Poor Dad' it is an excellent book for introduction and exposing the correct mind set, but IT IS NOT ABOUT COMPLEX KNOWLEDGE, but it is about being focused and understanding how money fundamentally works. Sam Walton, owned 1 store, one discount shop and if he were still alive today, his total worth would be about 70 Billion dollars. Now Sam Walton founder of Walmart, he didn't have his MBA or whatever, but he understood how money flows and what customers wanted and how to continue to grow his business. And in terms of working hard, about labour, lets say you have 100 guys, all 100 of the can dig a hole, but only 80 can drive, and only 50 can paint and only 20 can do electrical work and only 10 can cook. In terms of skill level and demand, its a determining factor. But that is still all babor, but lets say you and me dig holes and some guy says, i need one guy to dig a hole and we both want the job and you say, I'll dig your hole for 10% cheaper than this fellow and I say the guy, if you tell me why you're digging a hole lets fill it with water for a bit and put some live shimp in it and charge people for fishing the shrimp and we can do this all for 200 USD and figure we can make at least 600 from this so that would be 400 profit and I'll manage this for you, including digging the hole for 50% of the profits. So I take his initial 200 and give you the digger 50 bucks, get other stuff, then did no real labour and made 200 while you made 50. Now the point here isnt that i had some great idea and you didn't, but was that I was in a position to make more money for the employer so by making him more money, I could get more money. So for professional business, its more like that, my job is to take money and make more money with it and then charge the money based on what I could earn more for you. By the way, a lot of guys in finance die of heart attacks in their early forties from nearly 18 hour days every day managing other people's money, so its ain't no rose garden. But just read the rich dad poor dad book to start. ^^ Cheers! | ||
tofucake
Hyrule19101 Posts
You can't just leave us in suspense like that!! | ||
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YoonHo
Canada1043 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 03:53 tofucake wrote: wtf...post day 7... You can't just leave us in suspense like that!! MACHINE is going to bed, sorry for the additional suspense ^^ | ||
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Gnial
Canada907 Posts
It is great that you are giving this down to earth, basic explanation of business that the vast majority of us don't get to experience. Anyone who grows up with family in law, medicine, politics, accounting, marketing, business etc. has this familiarity, or an understanding of the "know how", that opens the field up to you. Trying to get into a field that you don't have this "know how" for can be so intimidating, and often-times appear completely unattainable. For myself growing up in a law family, I've grown up with a relatively sophisticated understanding of the legal profession, and it has been a fairly simple and easy journey to law school. However, I've always had this fascination with business, stock markets, debt management, venture capital investments, etc. I have just never had a sophisticated understanding of it - the "know how" has eluded me, and without that know how it seems difficult, and intimidating, to pursue it. I really appreciate the effort you put into making business "real". | ||
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 08:25 Gnial wrote: Wow, thanks for the awesome read. (I'm referring also to everything at your site, I just spent entirely too much time browsing through it) It is great that you are giving this down to earth, basic explanation of business that the vast majority of us don't get to experience. Anyone who grows up with family in law, medicine, politics, accounting, marketing, business etc. has this familiarity, or an understanding of the "know how", that opens the field up to you. Trying to get into a field that you don't have this "know how" for can be so intimidating, and often-times appear completely unattainable. For myself growing up in a law family, I've grown up with a relatively sophisticated understanding of the legal profession, and it has been a fairly simple and easy journey to law school. However, I've always had this fascination with business, stock markets, debt management, venture capital investments, etc. I have just never had a sophisticated understanding of it - the "know how" has eluded me, and without that know how it seems difficult, and intimidating, to pursue it. I really appreciate the effort you put into making business "real". Hey, thanks, I'm so glad that the blog actually comes across as that. ^^ But, yeah, that 'knowhow' is just so crucial. When I spend time with my uncle, its like I'm his favorite child now lol. Small things he says just always point in a certain direction that I fully understand what the significance is now, whereas I think when I first started in business, I would have never even picked up that his musing was something other than just an off hand comment. But I hope I can get all my geek juniors to build a geek empire of domination. ^^ Cheers! | ||
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Ciryandor
United States3735 Posts
On August 27 2010 10:33 MightyAtom wrote: Hey, thanks, I'm so glad that the blog actually comes across as that. ^^ But, yeah, that 'knowhow' is just so crucial. When I spend time with my uncle, its like I'm his favorite child now lol. Small things he says just always point in a certain direction that I fully understand what the significance is now, whereas I think when I first started in business, I would have never even picked up that his musing was something other than just an off hand comment. But I hope I can get all my geek juniors to build a geek empire of domination. ^^ Cheers! Living in the Philippines makes it look a bit similar and dissimilar to how things work there in Korea. Lots of places here put a premium on who you know and studied and worked with, but for everyone else, it's a virtual rat race like what you'd see in the West; only with the problem of a misfit in people skills and competencies. It makes me really appreciate how damn hard it is to break into the upper echelons of management nowadays. You can have everything; best school in the country, perfect course to take advantage of it, graduate early, have an excellent non-academic record to go with it; but not having that two Latin words after your degree title = NO GO right there. Also, now I realize; a marketer has to just BS their way to get their foot in the door. If you want to make it right, once you get that foot in, you have to prove every bit of it yourself. I hate missing out on opportunities, but I feel like I've hit my quarter-life crisis a year or two too early, and in the worst position possible; that of having no cushion of employment to catch me if I ever do strike out on it. It sucks, being 23, 2 years in the work force and only nine months activity to show for it; while my friends are already being promoted, transferred; and one of them's already out of the country as a regional office guy. >,< | ||
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nayumi
Australia6499 Posts
(yes I get orgasm over successful businessmen) | ||
thedeadhaji
39489 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 12:52 Ciryandor wrote: Living in the Philippines makes it look a bit similar and dissimilar to how things work there in Korea. Lots of places here put a premium on who you know and studied and worked with, but for everyone else, it's a virtual rat race like what you'd see in the West; only with the problem of a misfit in people skills and competencies. It makes me really appreciate how damn hard it is to break into the upper echelons of management nowadays. You can have everything; best school in the country, perfect course to take advantage of it, graduate early, have an excellent non-academic record to go with it; but not having that two Latin words after your degree title = NO GO right there. Also, now I realize; a marketer has to just BS their way to get their foot in the door. If you want to make it right, once you get that foot in, you have to prove every bit of it yourself. I hate missing out on opportunities, but I feel like I've hit my quarter-life crisis a year or two too early, and in the worst position possible; that of having no cushion of employment to catch me if I ever do strike out on it. It sucks, being 23, 2 years in the work force and only nine months activity to show for it; while my friends are already being promoted, transferred; and one of them's already out of the country as a regional office guy. >,< | ||
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foeffa
Belgium2115 Posts
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goldrush
Canada709 Posts
That said,I am going back for another semester and think that it's been a great learning experience for me. I have nothing but good things to say about how I have been treated so far. | ||
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MightyAtom
Korea (South)1897 Posts
On August 27 2010 23:02 goldrush wrote: Working as a coop student in PwC's Advisory office here, I think that the experience greatly varies depending on where you work, which team you work with and the people in the office. That said,I am going back for another semester and think that it's been a great learning experience for me. I have nothing but good things to say about how I have been treated so far. For the Advisory side it is extremely different, as you know all firms are connected by a network structure to limit liability, so it depends on how much your firms and consulants are participating along the lines with PwC Global. But the Canadian firm is very solid from all accounts. But I'll give you an example, Samil PwC has had a number of exchanges with the PwC located in Taiwan because they don't make any money with their consulting division whatsoever. And I think about 5 years ago there was a scandel with the Japan PwC office, so the entire brand had switched firms. But regardless of what country firm you are at (and most of the uniquiness of the story here is because it is Korea and the market position at 50%, here people don't know PwC as PwC, they know it by its Korean name of Samil), I have always appreciated the level of professionalism our firm has exhibited and I've a very proud graduate of PwC as well ^^ I have a friend in the vancouver office now- In koo. you should say hi to him, if you are in vancouver. Tell him that Dong Sup says hi. kekeke | ||
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