Every year, between a quarter and a half of all Tuck MBAs are hired by consulting firms. Tenures vary, but the benefits are long lasting.

The Constant of Change

Eric Spiegel T'87 will always remember his first consulting job. Working on a team in the early '80s tasked with figuring out how to restructure Bethlehem Steel, once the largest steel producer in the United States, Spiegel was struck not only by the access he had to top-level executives, but by the degree to which his work influenced their decisions. He was barely out of college and already weighing in on complex management issues with global implications. "I essentially worked on ways to help save the U.S. steel industry," says Spiegel, "and I was 21 years old."

Now senior vice president and managing director of the worldwide energy practice at Booz & Company, Spiegel is offering similar career-changing opportunities to Tuck MBA graduates. By recruiting at the school, Spiegel also plays a pivotal role in a cycle of talent discovery, development, and deployment that has made success possible for generations of Tuck students in dozens of businesses and industries. "Recruiting is very expensive for us, both in partner time and money," he explains. "So every year we come to the same few schools—10 or so—and know we're going to find the best talent."

Exposure to the highest levels of strategic decision–making is just one reason why nearly a third of Tuck graduates join the ranks of consultants each year. The profession is also an effective springboard to a multitude of post-consulting career choices. Many of these are exciting—whether it's starting an entrepreneurial venture or taking over strategy for a booming global corporation. Regardless of where their careers take them, however, Tuck's consulting alumni are never far removed from their time in the industry, a proximity that benefits both Tuck and its students.

For Spiegel, each year presents a staggering new demand for capable young MBAs. "Each partner at our firm is responsible for, on average, 1.5 new MBAs. So in some ways, we think of these top MBA programs as distribution businesses," he says. "They screen talent very well: exceptional students who received good grades at the best undergraduate schools, many of whom have already worked at the kinds of companies we consult with on a regular basis. These they pass on to us. But Tuck in particular offers graduates who know how to approach unstructured business problems by working on teams, the great value-add that only a few business schools can claim."

Bill Achtmeyer T'81, chairman and managing partner of The Parthenon Group, suggests another source of consulting's appeal: ROI. "Consulting offers students the most value for the work they've done and what they've learned," he says. "It's a really good challenge for those who have excelled across the board, a capstone to one's experience in an MBA program. Consulting integrates coursework from throughout the curriculum—from finance to organizational behavior—but instead of another course, it's the real thing. We give new graduates an immediate chance to ‘scratch the itch.'"

DIFFERENT BY DESIGN

Of course, not every Tuck graduate who enters the consulting industry has careers like Achtmeyer, who worked for Bain & Company when it had 25 employees and left to start his own firm, or Spiegel, who, since Tuck, has worked solely for Booz Allen Hamilton (now Booz & Company). In reality, only a small proportion of those entering consulting out of business school stay in it for more than a few years. Which is the way it's meant to be—a talent development process of intentional design. While specific numbers and titles differ from firm to firm, approximately one-third of MBA entry-level associates leave and do not move up the next career step. Of those who enter the field, only one-quarter continue to become a principal, while just one in eight achieve partnership after six or (many) more years.

"It's just math," explains Gary Smith T'94, who became a partner at McKinsey & Company in 1999 after only five years with the firm. "Consultancies are pyramid organizations, and there are a lot fewer places at the top than the bottom." MBAs entering consulting understand and accept the high probability that it won't be their career. Indeed, many of them don't want it to be. Spiegel says the decision to leave is often more the employee's than the employer's. And Achtmeyer says firms "don't begrudge an exit after two or three years."

WHY CONSULTING?

While tenures in consulting may be short, they are filled with important experience. By learning how to talk people through problems and do analysis, consultants develop into effective team leaders and project managers. They also learn how to deliver bad news to clients. Eventually they take on responsibility for managing relationships and developing new ones—in other words, how to sell. Ultimately, says Achtmeyer, "partners become distinguished for their expertise, for their skill at coming at the world from a different perspective and creating insight, and for their skills at relationships—reading the client, delivering the message, and getting the client to move. Partners at every firm are extraordinary people."

"Consulting has to be seen as a continuation of the general management career path," says Tuck Senior Associate Dean Bob Hansen. "The truth is that we can't teach it all in two years. Young consultants learn a tremendous amount about industries, and, of course, about strategy. And as they're learning on the job, they are also delivering value to their employers."

Becky Rice, who served as senior associate director in Tuck's Career Development Office, notes that early encounters with consulting can keep doors open and opportunities alive. "Many new MBAs don't know what they want," Rice says, "except that they don't want to get pigeonholed. Consulting serves as an opportunity to take their careers in another direction." For students intent on corporate leadership, their best alternative is to work in an internal corporate strategy group. "But they're still limited to one company and one industry. And strategy groups may not always be the path to a top leadership position. That may be through sales, like at General Electric, or marketing, like General Mills."

QUANTUM LEAP IN NETWORKING

Consulting's benefits go both ways. Firms benefit from having the best and the brightest on their teams, while young consultants gain career-changing skills, a broad view across industries, and even a clearer perspective of themselves.

But having such a large number of people move through the industry brings an additional benefit to all parties involved, including business schools: a quantum-leap increase in networking. "Everyone who comes to us is smart, talented, and ambitious. That means everyone who leaves us can become a good client," says Spiegel. For Tuck, every student who enters consulting also enters what might be the most extensive business network in the world, a web of contacts spanning across industries, levels of management, geographical boundaries, and the consulting firms themselves.

Every increase in a network's scope represents an increase in opportunity for those in it. This includes Tuck's graduates, now and in the future. Each year, as Tuck MBAs move up in consulting or out into the world beyond, they become part of a virtuous circle that looks back to the school for talent. This relationship helps ensure students' future success and, ultimately, that of the school itself.

NETWORKING YOUR WAY OUT

Not all career relationships in consulting are forever. And when a high-level consulting executive parts company with his or her employer—a new professional opportunity is a typical catalyst—the decision to leave is seldom easy.

"I love McKinsey," says Cuong Do D'88, T'89. "It's a unique institution with exceptional people and clients." But, he says, "everybody leaves." For Do, it was a matter of realizing that sooner was better than later. McKinsey was Do's only job; by 40, he had spent 17 years with the company. "As much as I loved my work, I couldn't imagine doing the same thing for another 17 years." Do says that those who leave consulting at the top of their game—he was a director—usually want to "go and do" rather than continue to counsel and give advice.

Tuck in particular offers graduates who know how to approach unstructured business problems by working on teams, the great value-add that only a few business schools can claim.

In late 2006, Do left McKinsey to be senior vice president and chief strategy officer of Lenovo Group Ltd., the booming Chinese computer manufacturer. He reports being "ecstatic" in his new life. "I should have done this years earlier, and now I know why people say that so often."

To find his new path, Do availed himself of the fabled McKinsey network as well his contacts at Tuck and other parts of his life. "I realized again that the ‘virtuous circle' Dean Danos likes to talk about is very real and very valuable. Just as a virtuous circle worked for me, one works for Tuck students hired by Tuck alumni. The problem is that, while we are conscious of valuable networks when we're young, we don't fully appreciate them until later in life."

LESS PIE, PLEASE

According to Gary Smith, "succeeding in consulting is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie. It leaves you wanting something else."

A last-minute call from a client on September 10, 2001, meant a change of travel plans for Smith. He took a roundabout route from Boston to Los Angeles the next day and didn't fly on the United nonstop that never made it to its destination. His near-miss "was a cause for pause and soul-searching. I realized that it was a good time to make a change. Before I joined McKinsey, I had worked in a competitive environment, and I decided that I was ready to survive or fail by my own choices."

After a "dynamic conversation" with Jeff Swartz T'84, CEO of The Timberland Company, Smith left McKinsey and joined the outdoor apparel company in late 2001. During six years there, he recast its operations into a competitive advantage while driving tremendous growth. Within two years, Industry Week had named Timberland one of its Top 50 Manufacturing Companies. Smith became president of the outdoor business unit in 2004, achieving double-digit growth and presiding over an M&A program that expanded the brand.

In December 2007, pledging that "the next thing I do will change the world," Smith left Timberland and embarked upon an entrepreneurial course. With investments and management interests in two companies in the bicycle industry—both of which manufacture their products in New England—Smith and his wife, Toni, are "trying to sustain green-collar jobs in the local economy and simultaneously enable petroleum-free travel."

It's a decided departure from the industry in which he spent the majority of his professional life. But by going the entrepreneurial route, Smith is, in his own way, expanding upon the very network that helped get him to where he is today. New opportunities—for Tuck and its students—may not be far behind.

This article appeared in the Fall 2008 issue of Tuck Today.