Tag: Consulting

Brandon Quinn is an MBA2 specializing in Strategy and Business Analytics. Prior to Stern, Brandon worked in financial regulation where he examined some of the largest US brokerage firms. At Stern, Brandon serves as a Graduate Ambassador, Career Fellow, VP of Admissions for the Management Consulting Association (MCA) and VP of Marketing for the Business Analytics Club (BAC). 

Consulting recruiting is a time consuming process that begins as soon as you step on campus to start the MBA program – or in a pandemic, as soon as you log into Zoom for that first class. Students attend various corporate presentations, coffee chats, and case workshops to learn about the different firms and to prepare for the case interviews. We put in all this effort to land a coveted consulting internship, which will hopefully turn into a full-time post-graduation offer. 

I spent my summer at EY-Parthenon in their strategy summer consultant program. I was assigned to the New York office, but the internship was almost entirely virtual. There were a few days I decided to go into the office to see where I would be working, to meet some colleagues face-to-face, and to attend some in-person happy hour events. 

The first week of the program was comprised of various training sessions to help us get accustomed to the firm, learn about the different types of projects, and build our consulting toolkit. After the first week of training, all the interns (including me) were eager to find out which consulting project we would be working on to start the summer. I was assigned to a working capital engagement at a large cosmetic company. Coming from a finance background, the cosmetics industry was a bit foreign to me, but this is what excites me about consulting. Consultants solve some of the most complex problems at some of the largest corporations and work across various industries that might initially seem foreign to them. 

A typical day as an intern on a project consisted of a daily check-in call with the team where we laid out all our objectives for that day. After this call, we split into our workstreams to accomplish the goals for the day; I spent time assessing and prioritizing new markets for expanding one of the client’s programs globally. There was also a daily call with the client where we would present recommendations and make sure everyone was aligned. 

In addition to the real-world project assignment, interns were put into case teams where we worked on two mock projects with EYP practitioners as coaches. This was a great experience to get a flavor of the different types of projects offered at EYP—this also aided in building comradery among us interns and helped us feel more engaged and connected in the virtual environment. The work was challenging and EYP offered an abundance of support through functional training, mentorship, coaches, and sector spotlights. Overall, this was an incredible experience and made the time-consuming recruiting process well worth it!

Arthur Heitz is an MBA2 specializing in Strategy and Entertainment, Media and Technology. In addition to serving as a Graduate Ambassador, he is also a VP of Academics and Case Competitions for the Entertainment, Media and Sports Association (EMSA) and a Teaching Fellow for Pr. Matthew Lee’s core Strategy. Arthur was born in Dayton, OH and graduated with a BA from Boston College in 2013. He spent the majority of his career pre-MBA in client services roles at GLG. 

Most choose to pursue their MBA to progress in their career, but getting into business school can feel like a job all in of itself. You study for the GMAT, research schools, speak to alumni, attend presentations, update your resume, write essays and interview all in the hope you end up at a school that’s right for you. Then, what feels like immediately, you get to school and you reenact that process ALL OVER AGAIN: you recruit. You choose your industry(s) of interest, research firms, network, update your resume (even more), and interview all while taking in your class work. All told, upon eventually receiving an offer, it occurred to me I had spent nearly two whole years of my life preparing to become a consultant. I had spent so much time working to get the job, though, that I spent precious little time thinking about the job itself. And with the approach of my internship, it was time, I realized with a mixture of exhilaration and anxiety, to actually consult. Eager, excited and with undeniable nerves, I approached the first week of my internship this summer with a question I dared not ask out loud: So what does a consultant actually do?

Turns out, they do a lot of things. First and foremost, they do what their clients ask. Consulting is ultimately a service business so interacting with and advising clients is required. These are professionals, mind you, whom if they are not former consultants themselves have built a life in their industry or company. This makes learning as much as possible about your clients and their projects essential, both to instill confidence and reassure your client that they are in capable hands. You obviously cannot become an expert overnight, but consultants have a pithy phrase that describes the bar to which you must strive: “know enough to be dangerous.” Furthermore, it turns out those hours (read: days) ((read: weeks)) you spent practicing case studies for consulting interviews actually come in handy. Consulting is also about assessing situations in the moment and problem-solving on the fly. That could mean practicing effective time management, working in Excel or Powerpoint, or figuring out the story being told by a set of data. It could even mean navigating the mine-filled landscape of scheduling a meeting among stakeholders who have a total of zero common availability in a given week. Some problems take days to solve, others may take just minutes. Each day is invariably different in consulting, which can be exhilarating or harrowing, depending on the day.

Reading this, you may think I have reached a place of comfort in the role. More comfortable than when I started, certainly, but I still have a long way to go. Luckily, I work for an organization that understands my plight and is dedicated to supporting me. I was fortunate and humbled to receive an offer to intern at ZS Associates, a firm that works across industries but specializes in consulting for healthcare clients. Despite this focus, they work on as wide a breadth of project types as you would expect to encounter at other leading firms. They understand you are an intern, so try not to push you directly into the deep end. You’re brought onboard for a reason, though, and are given the opportunity to contribute directly to live project work. To help, ZS provides you with resources in the form of trainings, coaches and peer-buddies to help you wade slowly but surely into the oceanic waters of consulting. I’m learning that becoming a great consultant does not happen overnight, so am constantly reminding myself that improvement can come but one day at a time.

Consulting is, on one hand, a natural progression of everything I’ve learned during my career and at school. But on the other, it can be really, really hard. You could say something similar about business school, by the way. Ultimately, like getting into school or recruiting, I see it as another obstacle to overcome, another problem to solve. With some help, determination, and maybe a little bit of luck, I may just yet learn enough to be dangerous.

Lanesha is an MBA2 specializing in digital strategy and marketing.  Prior to Stern, she worked within Accenture’s federal practice as a technology consulting analyst, helping different government agencies implement and maintain technology systems.  At Stern, she serves as the VP of Treks for the Association of Hispanic and Black Business Students. Lanesha graduated from Howard University in 2015 with a B.B.A. in Supply Chain Management.

NYU Stern’s “Summer Internship Series” sheds lights into Sternies’ internships. Posts are written by rising MBA2s who are currently working at their summer internship.

This summer I’m interning at Kalypso, a boutique consulting firm that specializes in digital projects.  I had a unique recruiting experience; I recruited at the Consortium conference last summer and received a couple of offers before starting school.  Prior to signing for my internship, I made it crystal clear what type of work I did and did not want to do.  Pre-Stern I worked for Accenture in their federal practice as a software implementation analyst.  My roles were very tech-heavy and I was intent on trying something different for my internship.  I expressed to the recruiter that I wanted to work on a strategy focused project within the retail sector and they delivered exactly what I asked for.

My client for the summer is a 60-billion-dollar department store and we are helping them launch their digital product creation program.  Instead of having physical clothing samples that are shipped around the world, everything will be created digitally.  It’s actually pretty cool to see a designer’s sketch of a hoodie turned into a 3D creation that looks realistic.

The hardest part of my summer has been to integrate with teams that I haven’t met in person.  My team is close knit and they have built strong relationships with our clients.  It took me a little bit of time to figure out how to best communicate with my team and what unspoken standards existed for deliverables.  I looked at these obstacles as a learning opportunity.  I pushed myself out of my comfort zone to speak up when I was confused, set up virtual one-on-ones to ask questions, and attend zoom happy hours to network with my colleagues.

I’ve been given several different parts of our project to own and have had considerable face to face time with our clients.  I’ve been pleasantly surprised with the amount of trust my team has in me to execute different tasks – I feel like a full-time employee on our team.  I’ve also been able to be involved in different internal initiatives such as the launch of a new Employee Resource Group and the creation of a recruiting strategy for diverse candidates.

Working remotely was not the vision I had for my summer, but I consider myself blessed to have still had a full 12-week internship experience.  Since I am at home all day long, I’ve had to develop new routines to keep myself focused such as having a dedicated workout schedule, an organized workspace, and a planned-out to-do list for the day.  Although I was looking forward to traveling this summer and racking up the loyalty points, working virtually gives me a glimpse into potential post-COVID changes in the consulting industry.  I think the future consultant lifestyle will still include a significant amount of travel, but there will definitely be more opportunities to work virtually.

I am excited to get back to Stern this fall and hear about the experiences my classmates have had at other consulting firms.  This summer is not what we were expecting, but I know my fellow Sternies have done their best to make lemonade out of lemons.  This summer has given me more perspective as to what I want to do post-MBA and I plan to spend my last year at Stern taking advantage of every opportunity that comes my way.

Emily Glaser is a rising MBA2. Prior to Stern, she spent four years at Restaurant Brands International in communications and marketing for the Burger King brand. At Stern, Emily serves on Student Government and the Graduate Marketing Association. She loves dogs, musical theater, and hiking.

NYU Stern’s “Summer Internship Series” sheds lights into Sternies’ internships. Posts are written by rising MBA2s who are currently working at their summer internship.

This summer, I’m interning at BCG as a Summer Consultant. And that is a sentence I never expected for myself.

When I came to Stern, I was intending to recruit for brand management at a traditional CPG company. My background was in marketing at a fast food chain, and I was interested in continuing to grow my skillset as a marketer. But throughout the fall semester at Stern, I learned about the mysterious world of consulting and found work that truly interested me. I decided to challenge myself and took a leap of faith into a completely new career path!

But what do consultants do? What do YOU do, Emily? Great questions, Mom.

At the base level, consultants find opportunities for improvement at companies across the world and build them a path forward. We help when clients are too close to an issue to see things clearly or too busy driving the bus to fix the exhaust and carburetor at the same time. We’re problem solvers, guiding our clients hand-in-hand toward success.

And as for me specifically, this summer I’m staffed on an end-to-end transformation for a global personal care company. We want to help them listen to their customers better, interpret their needs, and efficiently deliver products that will improve their lives.

My portion of the case has been to analyze and improve the process they use to launch new products across their vast portfolio. I was incredibly nervous to come in as a new summer consultant and be given a topic to own from the first week – how should I know how they should launch personal care products? I only know about burgers and chicken nuggets! But the team has been incredibly helpful in guiding me through my research and analysis, and in only 5 weeks (so far) I’ve already learned an incredible amount. I’ve learned how to frame a high-level ambiguous problem and break it up into digestible questions that can be tackled individually. I’ve developed insights that spurred meaningful discussions with the client about strategic change. And I’ve learned the humility to always ask questions when you feel unsure.

The advice I’d give to MBA1s or those applying for business school is to always be open to learning. You may come to Stern knowing exactly what you want to be, but that can be upended in a moment. And that’s a good thing. There may end up being several different career paths to help you achieve your goals. You may even find new paths and opportunities that excite you! Being open to new paths led me to BCG, which has been one of my greatest learning experiences thus far. I’ll be returning full-time after graduation, and my goal throughout my career here is to always be open to listening and learning.