Interested in Consulting? Have a Backup Plan

One of the most common phrases that the Career Team here in CSOM is “I’m interested in consulting”.  

No doubt that consulting offers a lot of appeal to bright college students but it’s important to realize that it has become a “default” career of sorts for a large percentage of students both in CSOM and MCAS. So it is also important to take a hard look at the likelihood of getting hired into the field before you commit the time to preparing.  

Some factors that will make your chances of getting hired in consulting very low:

• You have not been doing case prep in advance of the recruiting season which takes place in September. You should have 30-50 hours of case preparation under your belt for strategy.  
• You are focused on the elite 3 (McKinsey & Company, Boston Consulting Group, and Bain & Company). We are not a target school for them. They may hire 1 or 2 BC students a year but this is not typical.
• Your GPA is below a 3.5. Of all hires in the Class of 2021 for Deloitte consulting, the lowest GPA was a 3.5., which is consistent with prior years.  

See this graph to get a sense of hiring  numbers per firm and hiring timelines based on last year’s CSOM grads.  

Given the competitive nature of getting hired into consulting and the time needed to successfully prepare, you should be realistic about your chances and cast a wider net. 

Often students cite the interest in problem solving and exposure to different industries as their main reason for wanting to work in consulting. Here are some examples of other career options to consider that will provide you with much of that.   

Corporate strategy groups within a large company

Management rotation programs within a company

Business development groups within a company are a great way to help strategize a company’s growth. See more info here as well.  

Sales, if you want to rely on your ability to successfully build and maintain relationships with a wide range of people and you are motivated by money and goals. Sales opportunities are varied and every type of organization needs a strong sales force, financial services, enterprise software, startups. A strong foundation is sales is great training for anything you want to pursue. It is also lucrative and offers a more balanced lifestyle than other high paying jobs for college graduates. Examples of programs that recruit for sales training programs include: Dell, Oracle, GE (CLP) , Hubspot, Salesforce.  

—Contributed by Amy Donegan, CSOM Undergraduate Career Team.