A few weeks ago i received some material from the company to prepare myself for what is to come, including some confidentiality papers. After reading that it is not clear to me that it would be ok for me to keep writing this blog without checking with someone first. Being a junior at the office i dont want to get in trouble at least during my first few weeks on the job if i can at all avoid it so i have decided to put this blog on hiatus for a while.

After all, the reason why i started this blog was so that i could give some info from the inside, which i found was lacking on the web. Perhaps this is the reason why it is lacking in any case, i will wait a few weeks before taking the final decision. After i have seen for myself how things work inside i will be able to decide whether i should just shut this down or continue writing with someones guidance/approval. If there is anyone out there with some inside info from one of the big 4 perhaps you can provide some advice on what to do in this situation. In the meantime, thanks for reading, thanks for your comments and i really do hope we can continue having this conversation here or elsewhere.

When they invite a candidate with a phd in science for an interview, it is already clear that their analytical skills are what they need and they know that in a measurable way from your grades, schools you went to, etc. One question that i invariably got in every interview was how i felt about team working. They assumed that a phd student works in a very solitary way and wanted to know how i felt about working in a team and if i had had such experience in the past. They also wanted to know about instances where i had shown leadership, negotiating skills, where i had dealt with a conflict, etc. For these reasons i find that it is very important for phd candidates to complement their academic cv with other experiences that show these other qualities. If you have some work experience or have done something outside academia that is great. Also other things like leading a sports team, having some active role in a charity, etc.

However there are also plenty of experiences inside academia that you might have done and theyd be interested to hear. Some examples are: teaching experiences, seminar organising, student representation, conference funding raising and conference organising, writing for your university magazine, etc. At the beginning i was a bit hesitant to do it because i felt they were no real working experiences, but they do exemplify that you have some of the qualities they are looking for and you will get asked to elaborate on them during your interviews. What do you think? did you have any extracurricular activities in your cv that you feel helped you get through the interview? weve all heard about the up or out policy of many consultancy firms as well as other firms. This means that employers are expected to get promoted after a pre fixed length of time or else they are encouraged to leave the firm.

What does it exactly mean? perhaps this differs from country to country, but in europe, it seems to me that if you have an indefinite contract it would be quite hard to kick an employee out for no reason. If after the prescribed period of time an individual is not promoted, i supposed they would get some kind of negative evaluations, people wouldnt want to work with them so they wouldnt get interesting projects or perhaps no projects at all and probably one or more persons would have a chat with them about their opportunities outside of the firm. But, what if after all of this the person refuses to leave the firm? can the company make them leave or they would be stacked with that person? i guess that nobody really wants to be in that situation and probably anyone in that position would actually leave the firm, but i still wonder if the opposite ever happens. The reason why ive been thinking about this is because of the equivalent situation in academia.

The up or out approach is enforced quite effectively for the first years of the scientific careers by only offering short term contracts usually 1 to 3 years. However, once someone gets hold of a permanent position, no matter how many bad evaluations they get, it is very difficult to get them out of there. In general this is a good thing, because it gives stability to good scientist that are then able to focus on their science, but sometimes the system fails and allows people to stay in positions where they shouldnt stay, even if perhaps they themselves would be happy elsewhere. Therefore, if consulting companies have found an effective way to solve the problem, id like to hear it and pass it on to universities. It seems to me like they could benefit a lot from a few tips from management consultants.

In fact, a woman who dresses up a little bit or even wears make up to the department is sadly still frowned upon by some in the sense of she spends too much time worrying about her looks to be any good at science. So actually im looking forward to being able to wear nicer clothes and pay some attention to my looks. The bottom line is that im going to go out and buy myself a new wardrobe before i start this consulting job. If you are a man, it is relatively easy: buy a few suits, several shirts and ties and business shoes. People there were quite business casual style, but she did mention that the code in the office was more relaxed than in the clients site. Any ideas on what is a good shopping for at least the first month? here is my top guess. I think ill get smart trousers, a few shirts and jackets, business shoes then, once i see what people wear, ill be able to build and expand from that.

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What do you think? is there any thing that i will absolutely need that is not listed here? did you find your self totally wearing the wrong thing and realizing only once you were there? id love to hear your stories! update. In particular, she has a great post on how to build a basic wardrobe its for summer internships, but i think most of it applies to starting a job at any time. When i applied to consulting firms, i mostly did it as an advanced degree holder. This means that you apply for a position that is 2 3 years higher than the typical business analyst position that undergraduate students apply for. In some offices of consulting companies, they have special programs for phd holders, especially those not in economics.

Sure, you enter the firm higher in the but you also need some basic knowledge on business and economics. After consulting with me in the interview and then talking amongst themselves, they decided to make me an offer for the lowest position: business analyst. The reason they gave me was that, this way, i still have the door open to do an mba 1 or 2 years down the line paid by the firm, of course. If in the end i decided not to do it and things went well, i would be able to skip to the next level without the mba degree, because i will be an advanced degree holder. After the lunch i had there the other day, i am under the impression that this depends very much on the office.

Apparently, in this particular one, they dont have many phd consultants and they thought people wouldnt know how to handle me if i entered in a higher position that has more responsibility associated to it but i knew nothing about the business world. I think that, had this happened in another office, for example in germany where they are very used to this kind of candidates, they would have made me an offer for the higher position. Although in the interview i said i was open to the option of doing an mba, now i am not so sure anymore. The thing is that it does seem very interesting, especially for someone with a pure science background, but, how many degrees should a person have? i already have two undergraduate degrees, a masters and soon a phd. Is an mba necessary after all of this? so i started wondering, why do people do an mba? i think the main reasons are: educational. That is, to learn more about the business world, to get into one of the top four management consulting firms, to find better jobs and earn more.