Summer, Revisited (The Consulting Edition)

Linda, Management Consulting  
A.T. Kearney, Chicago

Friday, 06/13

First day of work, and I’m not even done with my last final. The new Chicago office is gorgeous but my brain is otherwise engaged in trying to figure out how much I don’t know for Lubos Pastor’s Portfolio Management class. Answer: too much. Second answer: it's ok, it was worth doing for the experience.

Key Takeaway: Don’t take morning AND afternoon Friday classes Spring quarter.

Wednesday, 06/18

Training, Day 2. Starting to remember peoples’ names. I’m in a group with two associates from the New York office, one in Toronto, and one in San Francisco. We're trying to figure out how much we can save in transportation costs. Our slides look pretty good for a bunch of people with zero consulting experience and negligible artistic skills. 

Key Takeaway: Listen to the full-time associates when they tell you the slide makes no sense. It doesn’t, even if you break out the fancy graphics.

Monday, 06/23

First day at the client site; first day getting up at 4:30AM to catch a 6:30AM flight out to Connecticut. This is the stress-test for career switchers—can you handle life on the road? I am armed with three apps, a Monster energy drink from the 7-11 across the street from MPP, and the ability to pass out on any moving vehicle in under 5 minutes. Verdict looks good.

Key Takeaway: Apply for Global Entry before your consulting internship.

Tuesday, 07/01

My manager is God’s gift to new consultants. I’ve been assigned to a workstream of my own (!) and am learning how to structure a well-reasoned hypothesis and analysis around investment income for the client. The transition from financial services is a little weird—whaddya mean we have to wait for data? Not having a Bloomberg is making me a little sad.

Key Takeaway: Structure your case and figure out what data you absolutely need, before you ask for it.

Saturday, 07/12

In New York, at LAF (Learn About the Firm) to get a better sense of the firm as a whole and get to meet Kearney folks outside of your case team and your office. On Friday, I had some great chats with the heads of the E&P (Energy and Processes) and PE (Private Equity) practices—the E&P teams who won the Client Impact award for their work in Saudi Arabia definitely had fun. Then the real fun began: afternoon cruise in the harbor around the Statue of Liberty followed by Top of the Standard followed by a great night in New York City.

Key Takeaway: Always remember to take something fancy to a firm outing in case you need it. 

Saturday, 07/21

Midterm Review! I would have spent the morning quaking in my boots except I was too busy building my new slides on international competitors in a new market segment. I’ve gone through a truly ludicrous number of historic annual reports and investor presentations in the last week.

Review is totally in line with what I expected. Everything’s great, I’m on track to getting an offer, but my slides still need to be improved. My manager: “They are…just a little bit ugly. Hahaha.”

Key Takeaway: By Week 5, you should know exactly where you stand. If you don’t, that’s Trouble with a T.

Thursday, 07/31

Cannot believe the end is in sight! The last two weeks have really started to ramp up. Gone are the leisurely team dinners—our key deadline is soon, our deliverable to the CEO is beginning to expand in scope, and the Head of Strategy is scheduling many, many meetings. Working past midnight most days at the client site; have eaten my way through 85% of the room service menu.

Key Takeaway: Make friends with your Information Services counterpart. They are very nice, and you get better, faster data when crunch time comes.

Friday, 08/15

Last day of the internship; went to salon to get a blowout for my final presentation. Hair looked awesome and presentation looked even better.  My fellow interns had amazing summers, and it was really something to see all the impactful work that they did in ten weeks. Are we really the same group of people who sweated through Excel Training 101 earlier in the summer? Unbelievable.

Key Takeaway: Work hard, work smart. Crush that internship.

Wednesday, 08/27

In Shanghai!!! Living with my aunt and uncle, and seeing my grandparents on a daily basis. The food is so amazing I nearly cried when I bit into my first xiaolongbao (soup dumpling). My grandparents did cry when I showed them all the pictures of my first year at Booth—dinners with friends, Chicago outings, hiking the Inca Trail with 25 awesome Boothies and partners during Spring Break.

Key Takeaway: When the work’s done, when the slides are in, remember how to take a step back and embrace the important things in life: your loved ones and your community. 

Scotch, Depilatories, Viagra, Leather, and Hipster Glasses

The next few posts on The Booth Experience will be written by first-year students as part of the Career Trek Series. Career Treks at Chicago Booth usually take place during winter break and allow students to visit firms outside of the Chicago area. The treks are coordinated by student groups and expose students to some of the top firms around the world. The first Career Trek Series post is by Ying Liu, who recently attended the Marketing and Retail career treks.

Dana
***

What do the above items have in common? No, they’re not accessories featured in one of Rihanna’s music videos. They’re products made by just a selection of the companies which the Marketing and Retail career treks visited in NYC over winter break.

Career treks are self-funded student-led trips to major cities, typically held the first week of winter break, and last about 4 or 5 days. The treks are divided by careers and intended to give students additional exposure to companies outside of Chicago. Treks include (but are not limited to) careers in Investment Management, Investment Banking, Marketing, Retail, and Sales & Trading in locations such as New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, London, Hong Kong, and Singapore. Students recruiting for careers in these locations choose to attend to get a feel for the company culture, meet Booth alumni working at the firms, and evaluate overall fit.

Even though I’m primarily focused on recruiting for consulting, I’m particularly interested in marketing strategy so I attended these treks as a great way to learn about how marketing departments operate at some top NY-area companies. It was an amazing opportunity to go behind the scenes and hear about companies’ strategies, how they’re adapting to the consumer landscape, and most important to Booth’s marketing approach, how they’re thinking about and planning to use data to better understand their customers. It was also a great way to get outside of the consulting bubble and get to know some of my other classmates.

I got exactly what I was looking for and more in the 4 days we spent visiting 8 companies (American Express, Pfizer, Campbell’s, Warby Parker, Diageo, Coach, Reckitt Benckiser, Kantar). Students on the trek also had the option to visit companies like David Yurman, Quidsi, Interbrand, Kurt Salmon Associates, Macy’s, and Bonobos. I was surprised to learn that American Express encourages their Marketing Managers to rotate groups about every 18 months to allow for cross-fertilization while also allowing employees to try something new. Across the board, the established companies talked about international exchange/rotation opportunities for MBA graduates, indicating the increased global scope of the marketplace.

The most informative and interesting presentation about the role of the Associate Brand Manager (post-MBA entry-level) came from Campbell’s. They walked us through a case study of a recent product extension starting from opportunity identification all the way through to product development and marketing strategy. Representatives from each of the different functions involved in the development process came to speak about their roles; this included people from market research, consumer insights, product development, and package design. It was an interactive presentation and I walked away with a very clear understanding of how an Associate Brand Manager coordinates and makes decisions through the process.

It wasn’t all business on the trek: we were allowed to preview the spring collection at Coach (I see lots of coral as the weather warms up!) and given access to the Campbell’s company store where we stocked up on Pepperidge Farm cookies and Goldfish. The best part was when Diageo made us some yummy whiskey cocktails from their on-site bar and invited us to taste various Johnnie Walker labels at their exclusive SoHo House of Walker scotch education and tasting experience – one of their many grassroots marketing tactics.

All of the companies were very excited to discuss their businesses with us and to recruit new talent from Booth. For example, American Express told us that they see some of the highest retention and performance/promotion rates from Booth graduates. The week not only gave participating students a chance to get to know the companies, but for the companies, it also cemented the fact that Booth is a great source of marketing talent.

It may technically be fall, but with the start of the school year the Winter Garden is still abuzz with talks of summer travel so our series continues. This week, first year Misho Ivanov discusses his Random Walk to Vietnam and Hong Kong.

Beth
***

Once I decided to enroll at Booth, I knew I wanted to go on a Random Walk trip. I chose the Vietnam / Hong Kong Random Walk because I have a long-standing fascination with Asia and plan on venturing out there in my second year of school through Booth’s International Business Exchange Program (IBEP). Hong Kong is at the vanguard of many developments in the financial sphere of China and is a great launching pad to explore big parts of southeast Asia – hence, the Random Walk was a perfect reconnaissance mission for me. I found Vietnam interesting because of its peculiar colonial origins and the exotic food options available to tourists (ask me about a video of our tour guide explaining some local delicacies).

The group in front of the night lights of Hong Kong.

The trip was very exciting culturally as we were exposed to the Asian worldview – both destinations had a lot of local flavor to offer. Still, the main thing all of us took away was the relationships we formed during the trip experience. Few things make a group bond stronger than exotic and otherworldly experiences. Whether it's tasting chicken feet, riding around in a crammed donkey cart, or exploring the nightlife of Hong Kong (extremely western) or Saigon (where our group stuck out tremendously), each experience brought us together and opened us up little by little to the rest of the group. Many friendships were made, some were broken over a 4 hour game of Risk, but the result was clear – no one wanted to sleep on the 16 hour plane ride back to Chicago so that we could continue getting to know each other and reminisce about our weeklong adventure.

Wearing rice hats while traveling down the Mekong Delta.

There are now plenty of pictures of the crew in bamboo hats riding sampans up the muddy Mekong waters, many fond memories of the marquee night at the Crazy Buffalo Bar (look it up), and a few smuggled bottles of cobra and scorpion flavored rice wine, which customs should never find out about. All of this culminates in some of the strongest relationships you'll ever make.

The Crazy Buffalo – one of the expat hotspots in Saigon and a landmark experience during our Random Walk.