Consulting Clamor

Be totally objective in formulating a case approach. Bring lateral creative thinking to the subject at hand. Provide confidential counsel to client executives.

Sound easy? These are some of the convoluted phrases used to describe the jobs of hundreds of Harvard graduates who pursue employment as consultants.

Although the descriptions may be laced with business jargon, undergrads from various backgrounds will be surprised to discover that a career in consulting may lie somewhere in their future.

Why is Harvard a consultant breeding ground? Let's examine "Management Consulting in 1997," a Harvard Business School (HBS) handbook that lists the following consultant qualifications:

* "Numeracy, or quantitative analysis"--the QRR?

* "Good writing skills"--Expos?

* "Conceptual Ability"--a core program including Social Analysis/Moral Reasoning?

Although Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 contends in an e-mail that "No particular profession or calling led to the structure of [Harvard's] curriculum," all of the above qualifications could have been read verbatim from the course catalog. Coincidence? Think not.

Knowing that Harvard students are at least marginally qualified for these positions, the allure of consulting is obvious.

A pay scale starting at $35,000 to $40,000 and a signing/year-end bonus that makes the package about $50,000 to $60,000, leads many students who don't know their average variable costs from their indifference curves to embrace recruiting.

Consulting recruits concentrate in everything from religion to history of science.

Although these concentrations don't offer the practical skills necessary for a business environment, firms say that students gain a unique perspective from their non-business classes.

"Firms are realizing that people with a science or arts background bring a different sort of analysis to the table," said Christopher Aisenbrey, a recruiter for McKinsey & Co., one of the largest consulting firms recruiting at Harvard last week. "That diversity lends itself to being successful as a consultant and learning the way we think."

Harvard students are quick to agree that they're a consulting firm's dream.

"Our most marketable skill is the ability to learn quickly," said recruit Emily A. Allen '97. "Consulting firms recruit from Harvard and other Ivy League schools because they want people they can train fast, people who learn quickly."

But students, beware. Most firms recruiting at Harvard require long hours and extensive travel for the financial reward they offer. In the eyes of the firm, first-year para-consultants "perform mechanistic repetitive tasks, more cost effectively," according to the HBS management consulting handbook for 1997.

"First-year analysts are always at the low end of the food chain," according to Harvard Business School Consulting Club Co-President Alex R. Miller.

But if you're the type who likes to calculate pi to 400 places on a Friday night, or enjoy plugging numbers into Stata, consulting is for you.

At the same time, if you enjoy studying Kant and Foucault, don't rule the job out.

As Miller said, "Firms aren't just looking for great business minds, they're looking for great minds."