Comment by astrofinch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by astrofinch | Hacker News Reader

I'm 20, and one thing I'd like to do at some point is to get a job as a management consultant so I can get a cross-section view of the economy and see what lots of industries look like from the inside. I'm hoping that this will give me enough domain knowledge in enough different industries to identify a boring but profitable business idea and then chase it.

Can anyone older and wiser give me feedback on my plan? Is there an easier way to gain a lot of domain knowledge about how different industries work? I like the idea of working as a management consultant because

(1) it pays well

(2) my vague impression is that the job consists of having people give you the lowdown on the problems their business is encountering

but I'm certainly open to trying something else if it seems like a better idea.

Maybe instead of being a consultant, I should identify a single industry that seems both corrupt and profitable and take aim at it more directly? Any tips on finding such an industry?

What exactly would you be consulting on, when by your own admission you don't seem to have much background in anything in particular?

Remember, "a consultant only has to be one page further ahead in the book, than the customer." :-)

There seem to be some consulting firms (Deloitte in particular) that are interested in hiring students from UC Berkeley just for the prestige factor. In the worst case I could get an MBA or do IT consulting. (I do have a background in software development, but what I'm really interested in doing is roaming across the economic landscape and finding an industry-specific need for software that hasn't been written yet, and IT consulting doesn't seem like the best way to do that if it's mainly about helping businesses maintain existing systems--although correct me if I'm wrong about that.)

Management consulting will give you a great view of the problems a company has in the industry. It probably won't give you a great lens on problems the industry as a whole are having trouble dealing with. As you can imagine, consulting firms have a vested interest in making sure that the companies that they deal with remain giant behemoths rather than nurturing ideas for disruptive innovation.

That being said, I do think it's a great way to shape up your general management skills, and an excellent post-college option.

Hm. So if the consultant's job is to improve the company culture somehow, or do a random chore like improve software security as timtadh suggests, I can see how that probably wouldn't provide much industry insight. But what if the goal is to help management make some strategic decision, or improve some business process? Are there consulting firms that help their clients with this stuff?

Even in the "improve the company culture" case, it seems like you could still get a lot of behind-the-scenes information about a variety of industries just by chatting with your clients over lunch.

take a look at Cigital or similar. Computer security consulting could give you the insight you are looking for and dole out some technical challenges along the way.

People on HN will generally not agree, but I personally don't think it's a bad way to go. The problem is that you don't have a lot of control on what you do/where you go. 2 of us at FeeFighters worked at BCG immediately before joining FeeFighters full-time. We both did work in the banking/credit card industry there and had an insiders view on how f'd up the industry is, which definitely has helped out - I've even seen former clients at conferences and the like. That being said, there is a lot of luck involved on the types of projects and the types of industries you get to work on.

If you can get a job at a top tier consulting firm out of undergrad, it sounds like it would be good for you. Given your background you can certainly make it happen and leave after a short amount of time with better contacts/perspective on business. For you, it would be like getting paid for business school.

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