Want to Work at a Consulting Firm? One Recent Grad's Experience

**Renee Paradise hails from Chapel Hill, NC and graduated from Harvard College in 2004 with a BA in Biochemical Sciences. While at Harvard, she captained the women's swimming and diving team and was the Ivy League Diving Champion on the 3m springboard in 2003. After college, Renee took a job with a top-tier consulting firm in New York and is about to complete her first year of a two-year commitment.** **Describe your position and day-to-day responsibilities, as well as the overarching goal(s) of your firm.** My general responsibilities as a consultant at my firm include leading client meetings (personal rule: if it's my meeting, there WILL be refreshments), interviewing employees of the client company, interviewing people within my firm who have dealt with similar problems, and interviewing outside physicians who specialize in whatever area I am assigned to research. My day-to-day activities vary tremendously based on project, and the goals of the projects are incredibly variable as well. For example: In the fall I was in New York City working as a research analyst in the field of women's health. My assignment was to gather all of the information I could on you guessed it Herpes. So I read about Herpes, everything I could get my hands on: internet, primary science articles (if I could understand them), scans of all the drugs out there, all the drugs that might be coming, and what those drugs were designed to do. I conducted research in an effort to understand every company (or "player," as they are often called) in the lucrative Herpes market and what their angle was. After the research, came the hands-on portion. Yes, there was a hands-on portion. I went to CVS and tried out Herpacin, along with other medications. My team then "synthesized" and presented some of this information to the client in a larger strategy document that was representative of all the work my team did. My team consisted of 5 to 7 people who were sick, sick, fun by the way. You can only be so serious when you are all studying depilatory creams all day. I then went to Scotland, where I facilitated the management of the site board of directors at a fast growing manufacturing plant. What that basically means is that I sat in on their board meetings and figured out how to best capture their ideas and get them to work together to develop a strategy for their site. Another one of their goals was to get everyone working at the plant excited about the strategy and have them rally around it. Because the directors of the plant were not used to having a succinct strategy, I guided them through a lot of thinking and reading about "change mindset" as we worked toward understanding how to spark a change in their workplace. To do this, I led a five-member client team that drove the project at the site. I basically coordinated our interaction with the board of directors, tried to make sure all conclusions were being challenged, and brought some of my firm's knowledge from similar cases into their thinking. The general goal of my consulting firm is to try to "super-solve" an issue our client is dealing with. So far I have mostly dealt with strategy, but Scotland was what is called an "operations transformation." We push thinking, offer perspectives on cross-industry similarities, and provide our own objective perspective on how a client can best maximize their efficiency and productivity. **How did you find your job? Tell us about the recruiting process and how you dealt with the challenges and pressures of it.** At first, I thought I wanted to take a year off before med school, and I was very open to different possibilities of what to do during that year. However, I participated in Harvard's on-campus recruiting program because it was accessible and encouraged by faculty and advisors, and because I did not want to miss the opportunity to explore consulting. It did not hurt that nearly everyone I knew was doing it. I figured I needed a resume anyway, and this seemed like a good excuse to put one together. The recruiters' presentations were flashy and made me feel important, so I did it. Once the process started, the opportunities in some of the jobs just sounded more interesting than other things I was dealing with at the time like trying to plan a service project abroad. I was also intrigued by the idea of doing something very secure and "established" for another couple years, to get on my feet in the real world. To be honest, like many decisions in my life, I had no idea what I was doing. Recruiting seemed like a good, responsible thing to do, so I decided to take the job at the firm where I currently work. I like traveling, which they give me the opportunity to do, and I like New York, where my firm is based. But, I am very, very lucky that I like my job because I did not make an informed decision. **How did you ultimately decide to take your job? What about it appealed to you the most? What reservations did you have?** My big reservation was that I would be "selling out to the establishment." I wasn't sure that the motives of a big consulting firm were as altruistic as I view mine to be. It also was kind of a boring decision I felt I was launching into the typical Harvard student's life plan. My boyfriend Leif was a big factor at the time. I wanted to do something were I could travel to see him, and I probably wanted him to be impressed with me a little. **What kind of hours do you work?** I basically submit Monday through Thursday, and Friday is often very slow. Monday through Thursday varies; ideally I would work from 8am to 9pm. However, I have a tough week about one week out of four. On those weeks, it is more like: get up (~6-6:30am), start working in my hotel room, change locations to office around 8am, no lunch (eat at desk), eat dinner with team around 8pm, maybe go back to the hotel around 9-10pm and work until I fall asleep! Remember it is highly concentrated Monday through Thursday. Often Thursday nights will be a bit slow as well, and I work lazily most weekends (1-3 hours Saturday, 3-4 hours Sunday in front of the TV.) **Now that you've been at your consulting firm for almost a year, what do you think your greatest experience/contribution has been?** Greatest experience: I have mentors like I never, ever had in college. They are people who are truly invested in developing me and care very deeply about how I am doing, what I am learning, how to help me make the experience better, what I REALLY want to do next, and how to get there. For example, one man who is a mentor of mine met Leif once and tried to help him get a job at a really prestigious company where his friend was a top administrator. I have also found that "age" goes away after college, such that 22 to 40 is a very gray area. This allows for partners at my firm to be my friends as well as my colleagues. That is probably one of the most important things I'll take away from this consulting experience. Greatest contribution: blood, sweat, tears...just kidding. As I come up on my second year at the firm I am looking to take the time to invest in the new kids (the analysts) and to show them the ropes, just like the older mentors did for me. I think this is where I will be most successful. As far as my best client work, it is hard to say. I think that one of the greatest insights I have gained is that I have decided who the heck I want to be in the corporate world. And that person is: "the fun girl." So in stressful situations where people are taking things too seriously, here comes "the fun girl" with some cookies and a joke. I honestly think I am much better at being "the fun girl" than I am at the actual analysis we do for our clients. I have learned about making people feel good in a professional setting, having fun, getting along, and coming together. **Has there been a time that you've felt intimidated by your work environment/co-workers? How did you deal with it?** This is the first time in my life that I have ever felt "being female." It is a very sensitive topic, but the partners in the firm who are nearly twice my age are almost entirely male. I have had difficulty finding female mentors, especially women whom I can interact with on a social level as well as a professional one. I think that women executives today, who are around the age of fifty, had to work twice as hard as their male counterparts to get to where they are now. The corporate culture at the time they joined the business world was not conducive to women rising through the ranks of senior management. As a result, I have a hard time breaking through the tough exterior of the few professional women at the firm. My goal is for people one day to comment on my intellect by saying: "She could crack you in half." But I would also like to maintain my status as "the fun girl." **How do you feel about the travel that your job requires of you? What are the upsides? What has been most difficult about it?** I am totally down with traveling. I loved, loved, loved being in Scotland, learning about cultural differences in a way that is possible only after you have lived and worked there for more than a month. That was actually another one of the most valuable things I will take away from this consulting experience. When I arrived in Scotland, people looked and dressed the same way I did, worked in the same little office building, and made similar business decisions as everywhere else I had worked. But it was only after I had spent a month there that I started to really grasp the differences in culture and mindset - something I never would have been able to truly understand or recognize by traveling or reading. I needed to work closely, intensely, and stressfully side-by-side with these strangers to grasp the small differences between us. The most difficult thing about traveling so much is that it is incredibly lonely. It was nice to take Euro weekend trips, but I worked so much during the week that when the weekends came around it seemed less and less exciting to hop on a plane and drag luggage around in the heat. I know that sounds ridiculous, but sometimes it can be true. Otherwise the trips to Madrid and Prague are pretty exciting. **Students who consider going into consulting often wonder about the work/life ratio. How has your social life changed as a result of being a consultant? Do you find you have enough time to yourself away from work?** I feel like my social circle has expanded in a big way. We have a "class" of analysts at the firm, all fresh out of college, looking to understand the real world, make new friends, and have similar experiences. The firm also does a lot of really flashy stuff, spending money on our social experiences such as fancy happy hours or dinners. I could care less about that stuff, but I have really appreciated meeting so many new people and their friends. I have had a set network of people ever since I arrived at the firm. It reminds me of the Harvard swim team. I have still had time for working out, reading, and seeing movies. I do not have a lot of time to sit around, but the work has been interesting. At times I have been in despair over working so much, no doubt, but there is a lot you can do to manage it. **What was the hardest part about transitioning from college life to the working world? Which part(s) of college best prepared you for your job?** Working all day was hard. Not having a lot of time to do things I wanted to do was hard. Teamwork in sports such as learning how to encourage, motivate, and work with others was the part of college that best prepared me for my job. **What are the pros and cons of working with colleagues who are significantly older than you?** Mentorship is a pro, especially among 30-ish females I have found, who are really cool and give me personal advice. Also, for every career path I can possibly think of, there is someone at the firm who has done it and is ready to give me advice about it. A con is realizing at 10pm on Thursday night that everyone you know is at happy hour somewhere and you are sitting around a table with three 45+-year-old males who are not wanting to chat in the least and are not in a good mood. **What are your plans after your two-year commitment ends at your firm? How has this experience changed or reinforced what you hope to do in the future?** I think I will still go to med school. It has opened my eyes to the fact that I don't want to be a clinician; I would rather work in health management or development. **Where do you see yourself in five years?** In a nice apartment with good clothes, independent, reading, doing yoga, exploring post-med school options, wanting to do crazy travel for international development, and exploring until my early 30s. delicious | digg | technorati
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