Welcome
April 20, 2010Last week I was invited for lunch to what will be my office in a few months. As soon as I got an offer, they put me in contact with one of their consultants who has a background similar to mine: she is a woman and she has a PhD in Science. She was really nice to me and said that I was very welcome to drop her an email asking her any doubt I could have at any point. She said that she would love to meet me in person and perhaps I could come for lunch one day to meet her, so I did.
The experience was great. First of all because I got to see a bit more of the office. During the hiring process I only saw the reception desk and a meeting room, so I was curious to see what was beyond that line. Most importantly, it was great because I really got a feeling that everybody working there was sincerely happy with their job. I met people in different stages of their career and, although they did not hide the fact that they work long hours, they all seemed to love their job.
Also the things they said confirmed so far my expectations for the job. The dynamical enviroment, the huge amounts of training, lots of feedback, interesting projects with interesting people… I just can’t wait to start my new job!
The only thing was that I couldn’t tell whether they were being so nice to me just because they were trained to be or they really meant it. To be honest, it doesn’t really matter. If they do it because they are told to, it is already nice that someone takes the time an effort to tell somebody else that they should welcome new hires individually and make them feel “at home”. Nevertheless, I still wonder what your opinion is on this. Did you have a similar pre-job experience? What was your impression of the welcoming atmosphere, did it feel sincere to you? If not, did that bother you?
Congrats on the transition to the management consulting area! I have not seen too many blogs by PhDs entering the space, but it is an accomplished crowd so thanks for sharing your experiences and perspectives with others.
Thanks for your text and the advertising on twitter!
I hope this will be a place to start sharing experiences from other PhDs going into consulting. I’m sure there are lots of them out there. Since I took this decission I have certainly encountered many.
See you in the blogosphere!
Good luck sir.
My advice:
1) If you’re going to blog, keep it anonymous and from your consulting co-workers as well. That will make it an easier output to share the inanity you experience.
2) Nobody needs a “big picture” associate who can’t get their hands dirty. Deliver solid units of analysis in your workstream.
3) Always Be Synthesizing – distill your data/interviews/etc into key points. No manager wants to read 5 pages of interview notes – they want to see teh key 3-4 takeaways.
4) Remember that you basically don’t know shit about your client’s business. Neither does most of your peers. So, fake it until you do (typically “clicks” about 70% of the way through the engagement).
Good luck, and I hope you find time to write about it along the way. I’m glad I did.
Thank you so much for the advice! I certainly also hope to keep writing about it, as I very much enjoy this kind of discussions and reading your blogs has been extremely useful for me. Not only during the application process, but also during the time when I was trying to decide what to do with my future.
I hope we’ll have many interesting discussions in the future.
Just one thing: I’m a woman. Not that it really matters, but I guess that’s the thing in English: you can not make it obvious when you write in the first person and it leads to confusion.
Thanks again for your comments.
Welcome to the consulting blogosphere
First of all, I endorse all of Ninja’s comments above – its a good checklist to follow.
Second, having been on the sell side of the pre-job equation you mention above, I can say it usually is pretty sincere. We always have the objective of making sure the offeree signs (in fact we are pretty baldly called a sell team), but I always make a genuine effort to show the potential joiner a bit of our culture, so they can feel a lot more comfortable about joining. If you are feeling good about the co-workers you meet initially, its a really good sign you will enjoy the people aspect of work.
Thanks consulting insider! It’s intersting to know how it’s like from the other side. I thought maybe this was just something you were told to do and sometimes perhaps it could feel like a burden in a busy day… I had already signed the offer, but I guess they still wanted to “sell” me the place in a way. As you say, it’s in everyone’s best interest. I very much enjoyed the lunch and the people there, so I have a very good vibe about the firm (at least for now).
[...] the lunch I had there the other day, I am under the impression that this depends very much on the office. [...]