|
According to MBA admissions consultant, Kent Harrill, management consulting is
beginning to experience a long overdue rebound. The following is a quote from
Kent reprinted with permission from the June 2004 Admissions Consultants
Insider Edge newsletter.
***********************************************
Expert Thoughts on the
Consulting Industry
The following information on
the prospects for future MBAs in the management consulting industry comes from
one of our MBA admissions consultants, Kent Harrill. Kent is a Cornell MBA who
spent two years on the Johnson School's admissions committee, and also has
degrees from Johns Hopkins and NC State. In addition to working as a full-time
MBA admissions consultant for us, Kent also authors reports and books and speaks
at numerous conferences about the management consulting industry and related
topics for Kennedy Information, publishers of
Consulting magazine and
Consultants News.
Prior to joining
AdmissionsConsultants, Kent was a Director and Senior Consultant for numerous
healthcare-related consulting firms such as PA Consulting Group, The Advisory
Board Company, The Wilkerson Group, and CSC Healthcare.
Just as management
consulting is among the first areas to go bust during an economic downturn, it
is usually also the first industry to rebound during good economic times, as
we're now witnessing. Even the leading MBA programs saw the percentage of their
graduates going into consulting go from 35% to 50% in the early 2000s to just
20% to 25% last year, while second-tier schools saw consulting nearly evaporate
as one of the leading recruiting areas.
Now the top schools are
seeing consulting firms return at full tilt, especially for internships as the
industry prepares for strong growth over the next three years, at the least.
Overall, the consulting industry should expand by at least 5% annually through
2006.
Still, first as an MBA
applicant and then a student searching for a consulting career, certain areas
are booming in the industry while others continue to suffer. According to
comprehensive research reports I wrote about two sectors of the industry and
published by Kennedy Information – The
Global Healthcare Consulting Marketplace (2003)and
The Global Government and Public Sector
Consulting Marketplace (2004) – those two sectors of the marketplace
are expanding the fastest, with healthcare consulting growing by 13% annually
and public sector consulting by 8% annually. So if you're a scientist or medical
professional looking for healthcare consulting after your MBA, or a military
officer considering government consulting for a post-MBA career, you're in great
shape and will be in high demand by both the schools and their recruiters. The
utilities and manufacturing areas of consulting will also grow above the
industry average, and financial services consulting is just now rebounding.
However, other sectors are
to be avoided either as a post-MBA career or for your MBA applications, unless
you have a very strong story to tell and passion for the specific area of
consulting. Areas such as communications, media/entertainment, and
transportation consulting will continue to shrink in the next few years, while
high tech and energy/oil/gas will remain flat.
Overall, I told my MBA
clients in the past two years to be very careful in describing management
consulting as their preferred post-MBA emphasis, as the admissions committees
were very worried about the possibility of placement after graduating. This
year, however, I think it's a much safer route for those candidates who have
significant work experience (not necessarily consulting) in a certain industry
field.
***********************************************
Click
here to read the entire transcript of this newsletter.
|
