The world of consulting - Page 2

On June 27 2011 11:45 Doraemon wrote:


i think one thing people should realise is that over-qualification is a reality. you want to focus on the most basic skillsets that match the requirement of the employer. cover letter is important, don't bs on your resume (it will haunt you) but do embellish during interviews. i suppose it comes with practice, hope you get there mate, the market is picking up from what i heard.

On June 27 2011 12:03 phosphorylation wrote:
To the OP:
How difficult would it be for a guy with a bad-terrible GPA (think 3.3 ish) to break into a decent consulting firm (I am thinking ZS associates et al.)?

I am from a top school (think HYPS) and have bit unusual resume (no real internship though..)

I am pretty confident I can do well in interviews though.

On June 27 2011 12:03 The_LiNk wrote:
So in terms of travelling. Where have you consulting guys on TL gone to?

On June 27 2011 12:09 Ryshi wrote:

Thanks for the reply. By basic skill sets, do you mean soft skills listed like "Attention to detail", "Analytic", "Communication", etc.? Should I specifically list these on the resume? I do mention these in the cover letter by relating to an experience or in the description of a job of resume. Sorry for asking this question, I'm sure many websites would answer this if I just googled, but I would be more confident from your answer.

Can I just ask if you know whether HR reads applications at all? I sometimes feel they don't even look at my application when I apply online. I feel my resume is quite impressive because whenever I go to a network event that looks at my resume, 70% of the time I get a call. Thanks!

On June 27 2011 12:50 Cambium wrote:
My GF is a consultant based in Toronto, working for one of the top five you mentioned. She recently flew me to Beijing and soon to Mongolia because that's where her current project is.

It is nice that she gets to travel around and collect Starwood and Aeromile points, but it really sucks in that we so rarely see each other. IMO, it's really hard to have a stable relationship if you are a consultant because of the nomadic nature of the work, and it can get terrible "lonely" (according to her) because you don't have a real home, nor a proper network wherever your home may be.

On June 27 2011 13:02 Endymion wrote:
Consultants, for when your employees are under trained or untrustworthy. You guys have the most interesting jobs, a friend of mine joined a consulting firm and one month he was working with Halliburton, and the next he was working with Walmart. Never a dull day in the life of a consultant, plus you get a LOT of experience and contacts for when you want to become upper level management. I'm jealous!

On June 27 2011 18:51 Doraemon wrote:
ahhaa. you are right sir we promote ourselves as all-knowing but in many instances some of us never had experience in that particular industry

On June 27 2011 12:03 The_LiNk wrote:
So in terms of travelling. Where have you consulting guys on TL gone to?

On June 27 2011 19:16 Endymion wrote:


Which is why I never understand why your industry exists, you would think "well-educated" people would already be at the top of the food chain and wouldn't have to outsource for opinions on ventures or investments. My limited experience (from professors and my parents) with your brethren is that you're paid an exorbitant amount of money to come in to an exec's office after 2 weeks of learning an industry, then present a business plan (which more or less usually coincides with the exec's plan before he hired you). I mean I know it's always great to get a second opinion, but why not just ask lower down on the food chain in the company rather than asking some random person with a Harvard or Princeton education. I guess some executives use consultants more than others, I couldn't see myself hiring one though (when I'm in a position anywhere close to that power of course, this is like consulting a business student on a consultant's role in the corporate jungle t.t)

Do you find that most companies rehire consultants, or would they just prefer to hire the consultant straight onto staff?

Also, are you planning on sticking with the consultant track, or are you planning on eventually accepting an invitation to a big corporation? Why?

On June 27 2011 20:07 Kukaracha wrote:
A coworker at my past job got hired at Gemini Consulting. He was celebrating non-stop, even automatically got offered a Visa Infinite card (minim salary advised: 100 000€/year). Not bad at 28 years old.

On June 27 2011 21:10 Morfildur wrote:


This is the same impression i got from the consultants i met (software industry). Zero practical knowledge, zero experience but excellent in marketing themselves and their company. One of my predecessors left me several horribly developed projects when he got another, highly paid job as consultant and i can only feel for those that take any suggestions from him and drive their projects/companies into the next wall.

Too bad i'm an honest person -.-

On June 27 2011 21:53 Morfildur wrote:


That is where the "honest person" comes into play :p

If my superior or one of my colleagues has a stupid idea again, i suggest better solutions, even if it is in front of the other programmers. Doesn't make me friends, might cost my job someday, but it helps keep my professional pride intact and brings the company forward.
In the time i work here, the number of new bugs was reduced by a lot and we developed more features with a better architecture than in the years before i was in the company. I also started several initiatives to improve quality (development systems/free programming book library/a dedicated tester/...) eventhough i constantly run into a wall when i argue with my superiors about giving the programmers training because their 10-15 year old knowledge is almost useless these days.

I sometimes wish i was a consultant so they would listen and do the stuff i suggest instead of me having to introduce everything through the backdoor. Now if i only had a say in the recruiting so they wouldn't hire people who don't know the difference between "for" and "if", who don't try to link javascript into the website by using PHPs "include" and who don't try to assign a javascript variable to a PHP variable (real example i fixed a few weeks ago: <?php $url = document.href; ?>).

Sorry for the almost completely off-topic rant, having an annoying day at work again and the arguments i wanted to bring when i clicked on "reply" got eaten by anger -.-

PS: Can some of you consultants recommend the company i work for to promote me so i can fix this stuff? :p