What’s up, y’all. I think I’m going to try to go for one entry every week or two from now on to make myself be more consistent with updates because I hate leaving people hanging waiting for responses to emails. I often respond to some emails immediately because they’re short, but, for ones that require thought, it always takes me a while to figure out what I want to say and how I can say it well.

Anyways, the email below is from a techie who has some questions about making the transition toward an MBA and doing consulting as a means to make that happen. It’s amazing how many folks there are who start off on the tech path and then find themselves stuck on it without easy options for moving out of it. I swear the IT industry is like “flypaper” in that respect.

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NV wrote:

“Hi Marquis,

I came across ur blog today and found a lot of voices that seemed to echo my own questions and hence decided to get your advice on the same.

Im an Indian IT Engineer presently working on a MobileBanking implementation project in Tokyo, Japan for one of the top 3 Japanese banks. I have 2 years of experience in the IT industry and this is my first major project. I am a java guy and I have been fortunate to be part of this project where I have learnt many things related to the implementation of a project at a client site.

Having been involved in this project from its inception (1 year back), now I have started thinking big and wish to someday implement the existing mobile infrastructure present in Japan (i-Mode) back home in India to provide reliable and affordable mobile data services over a stable and easy to use platform.

I am told by many people that at my age and level of experience, I should be concentrating on learning technologies and code and waiting for a while before considering other avenues, but I like coding upto a certain point and am deeply passionate about the business aspects of IT projects namely learning the market movements, trends, customer tastes and wish to be in a position to deliver the same to them. You can say that I am good at my job, but probably can do better in a more customer oriented role.

With this in mind, I would like to get an MBA someday in the future, when I feel that I need it, but before that I would like to get into consulting in order to have a background in business knowledge and to imbibe the work ethic of customer service and exposure to a wide range of markets that help me learn and identify good practices in different markets to apply in my own future.

I would like to get your views on the following:

1. Should I seriously consider consulting? I feel that it complements my love for problem solving and team work and gives me a great insight into business. Those are my reasons for considering it, but do you think, its too early for me to switch?

2. With my 2 years of experience, can I apply for an Associate role or will I be restricted to a BA role?

3. How would you suggest that I go about it? I am currently learning from Case in Point and online resources, but am open to an online discussion or any other forum where I can interact with people in real-time.

4. My views and knowledge of business is quite rudimentary, though I follow a lot of business news online. How do I learn to structure my thoughts and views inline with a case?

I appreciate your taking the time out to answer so many queries and helping people. Hats off and good luck.

Regards,

NV“

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My response:

NV,

Thanks for checking out my blog and thinking of me as a resource to help you with your question. As you noted in your message, your background sounds very similar to mine and, incidentally, I started questioning my passion for writing code at about the same time that you have. My perspective on this is mostly guided by my own experiences, so you might want to ask a few other people about it before making a decision on which direction you’re going to take your career from here.

1. If you’re not passionate about what you’re doing now career-wise, then you shouldn’t ever think that it’s too early to make a switch. You’d only be putting off the inevitable by not thinking about making this kind of move. It sounds like you’ve got compelling reasons for wanting to be a management consultant, but you are at somewhat of a disadvantage because of your lack of business background. This doesn’t necessarily kill your chances, but you do have to recognize that you’re not making a common switch (from software to consulting) and you’re making it at an unusual time (only two years out of undergrad). In addition to preparing to tackle the case interviews, you have to be ready to answer questions like “Why are you making this change now?”, “Don’t you think that you’re trying to switch without giving Tech a real chance?”, and “What can you provide to a consulting team with a non-traditional background?” These aren’t difficult questions to answer if you take the time to think about them, but some might not put in enough forethought to come up with decent responses.

2. With only two years of professional work experience and no terminal or professional grad degree, I’m pretty sure the firms would bring you into a Business Analyst role. Plus, with your experience being in Tech, you’re going to be starting off from ground-zero in consulting, so there is little chance that you’d be considered for an Associate position for a strategy focused firm. If you decided to go into IT consulting, there’s a shot you’d be brought in at a non-entry-level position though.

3. I don’t know of any online forums where people are actively discussing consulting case prep, but, if you find out about one, let me know so I can tell the rest of my readers about it Without that sort of resource, you sound like you’re on the right track with you self-study. One other option for you would be to reach out to the business school/department at your local college and university and ask if there are any student groups who might be practicing for the consulting job process. It might be a little more difficult for you to do in Japan, but it would be worth a shot.

4. Reading business news is a good start to getting your mind trained to “think business”. I had a slide on this in the case prep guide that I wrote a couple of years ago and there’s the content from that slide:

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Useful tactics for learning to “think business” include:

• Reading business-related periodicals and websites, such as BusinessWeek, the Wall Street Journal, CNN Money, Yahoo! Finance, Fortune, etc.

• Watching business-related television networks and shows, such as CNN Headline News, MSNBC, Bloomberg, etc.

• When learning about recent business events, figure out the full set of implications of the event, both direct and indirect

• Example: The OPEC nations decide to restrict the supply of oil

– Direct: Gas prices increase in the United States à Oil company revenues increase

– Indirect: Sales of SUVs decrease à Auto companies are compelled to offer more sales promotions on SUVs

– Indirect: Airlines raise fares for air travel à Some travelers choose to fly less; Airlines may pursue layoffs or salary cuts for employees

– Indirect: Use of public transportation increases à Revenues for businesses related to automobile use decline

– Indirect: US Federal Government faces pressure to resolve the issue à US Government may apply trade sanctions onto the OPEC nations”

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If you’re really interested in getting an MBA, why not apply to business school sooner rather than later? You can always get into a consulting position after an MBA and get all the learning that you want at that point. B-school would give you a better starting point for making the career transition that you desire and will give you the fundamentals of business that it sounds like you want. By the time you’d be starting school, you’d have three years of experience and should be able to contribute well in the classroom…you’ll just need to make sure you describe your experience and accomplishments well to form a compelling application packet.

As a gauge of whether to apply now or later, consider taking the GMAT now and see how you’re do…if you get a strong score, put some serious thought into applying in the near term. You could always pursue the consulting job at the same time and having taken the GMAT doesn’t hurt you because your score will last for 5 years. If I could do it all over again, I would have applied to Bschool about 2-3 years before I actually did, but I didn’t think my IT background would be strong enough to get me in at the time. Now, I know that I could have just positioned myself better, but I didn’t have anyone to tell me different…I guess that’s the role I’m playing now

I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any follow-up questions.

-M