Can I transfer to consulting if I do tax job before?
I majored in Accounting and now am doing tax jobs. I was wondering how can I transfer to enter consulting industry? Should I pursue an MBA first? #consulting
3 answers
Geoffrey Lennon
Geoffrey’s Answer
First of all, great advice from Jared. Given his experience at McKinsey, he certainly has great perspective to provide about management consulting.
In terms of additional advice, I might recommend that you focus in a bit more on what you mean by 'the consulting industry.' Consulting can mean very different things to different people and the various types of consulting each require unique types of skills in order to be successful.
If you are targeting a job at one of the major, top-tier strategy consulting firms (like McKinsey, Bain, BCG), then you'd be very well-served to heed Jared's advice.
That said, if you broaden your perspective of what type of consulting you are interested in, then you might find that your current experience / skills / education are sufficient to make a shift into other types of consulting.
As an example, many of the Big 4 Accounting Firms (and mid-market / regional firms as well) have consulting practices focused on improving the effectiveness of finance and accounting processes. They often also have Tax Practices that deliver consulting-like services, as opposed to just standard tax compliance services (something that likely wouldn't be of much interest to you given your question).
With that, if you are interested in consulting opportunities beyond 'strategic management consulting,' I'd recommend you broaden your search to see where your existing skills could be leveraged. Of course, to make resume as compelling as possible, a CPA or other relevant credentials (Masters in Accounting or Taxation) would certainly be a good place to start.
Hope this helps!
Jared Chung
CareerVillage.org TeamJared’s Answer, CareerVillage.org Team
Basis for my advice: I was a consultant at McKinsey for 6 years and was involved with recruiting new analysts and associates.
Assuming that you're talking about management consulting, here are some things to consider in your career switch. Your current experience is not going to make you a very competitive candidate for Consulting. You're going to have to expand your experiences in order to become an attractive candidate. While an MBA would be a good reset button if your heart is set on consulting, I would suggest that you try a different experience first to bolster your resume by the time your MBA has been completed. You need to get more strategic experience on your resume before you get your MBA and try to get into consulting. There are a few options here. You could join a lage company in the finance department (try not to get pigeon holed into doing tax all the time -- you're going to need exposure to more strategic projects). You might be able to be a member of a business development team at a big brand name, which would give you a good experience on acquisitions (I'm not sure how applicable your current skills would be in BD, but if you could swing it, it would be a good experience). You could also try shifting from tax into more general finance advisory by working at a financial services advisory firm. Generally, consulting firms are going to appreciate any brand names you can get onto your resume, and any strategic work you've done that might relate to their work. To stand out, you should start building up leadership experiences now -- this is an absolute must in order for you to get through the interview process. Then get your MBA, and try to get a summer internship in a field VERY different from accounting (it will show that you're exploring) or with a consulting company.
Caveat: this is my personal advice given the limited information I have on your situation. I can't tell what kind of skills you might need to develop, so I'm just focusing on what I would need to see on your resume for me to put your resume into the "interview pile".
Maria del Pilar’s Answer
Great question and awesome feedback from the experienced consultants above!
As you asked if you should study an MBA before attempting to transfer to consulting, I can definitely provide some insight about it as I just graduated from an MBA.
From my perspective, an MBA opens you many doors for a career switch. Many people in my class went from Law, Engineering, Finance, even Medicine, to consultant jobs, and the mba helped them with the transition. Having said this, the MBA will open you the doors but then you have to work your way up so you can differentiate from the large pool of applicants, many of them with excellent qualifications. So one way to show your interest and craft your story about why you want to make the change to consulting is showing that you have started taking some steps towards that goal before business school. It can be as simple as taking some strategy classes or more elaborated as changing jobs to a more general business type of role. Showing an interest in a particular industry is also a good one.
Overall, my recommendation is that an MBA is definitely useful when you want to make a drastic career move, but once you are there you need to differentiate yourself so that is something that you may start working on before business school. Hope this helps!
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