The email below came in from an undergraduate who is about to finish up her Computer Science degree but doesn’t really have a passion for programming…familiar story, right? Well, she’s interested in moving toward consulting, so I tried to give her some advice to move in her that direction. Too bad I didn’t have this much forethought when I was a senior in college because I might be a Partner at my employer by now if I had…
——-
PP wrote:
Hello Marquis,
I just came across your blog today, and was amazed at how helpful
some of your answers have been. I guess, I have been “googling” all
the wrong terms this summer.
I am about to graduate from my undergraduate degree in computing
science. During my education, I worked as an intern for an on-campus
software development team, and did a couple of programming stints
during summer breaks. I am pretty certain at this point in time that
I really don’t have a great passion for programming, and have
realized that consulting comes close to where I want to be.
My graduation is coming close and I am looking for jobs. If you could
give me some pointers as to the type of jobs I should look for post
graduation, to move towards business end, that will be great! I am
not too sure that a programming job will help me gain much valuable
experience as far as my future goal of consulting is concerned. Also,
what kind of skills should I try to highlight in my resume if I want
to avoid being categorized only for programming jobs.
Thank you for all your help!
PP
——-
My response:
PP,
Thanks for checking out my blog and for the positive feedback on my content. I do what I do to help people, so it’s good to see that I’m accomplishing that mission.
Now, let’s get to your questions. First, there are a lot of jobs that you could pursue with a Computer Science degree because the rigor of such an academic program implies that you are sharp enough to take on a tough new job function. An immediate option that comes to mind is investment banking because I’ve heard that folks with technical backgrounds do well as Investment Banking analysts. Something about the analytics that we develop seems to translate well into that sort of environment and you could learn a lot there. Another somewhat direct route into business is work in the IT department of a bank or financial services firm. By working with their systems, you could learn about the nature of their business and may be able to transition over to a more business-focused position after putting in some time in their IT function. You might also want to consider a job as a Business Analyst at a technology firm or software company, where you would work directly with clients to develop solutions and system requirements for their technology or functionality needs. For you, the most direct way to move into consulting might be to get a job for an IT consulting firm because your CS undergrad degree would make you a good fit. In that role, you would leverage your technical skills to add value to the client, but would be able to pick up the business skills to make a transition in another career area later on once you’ve gone to graduate school.
Moving to your other question, you’ve probably got your resume finished by now, but, if you’ve got time to work on it, you might want to think about emphasizing the following:
- Analytical/Structured thinking skills: Analytical and structured thinking is a must-have to be a consultant (and to get through case interviews) and coming from a programming background leaves you with plenty of credibility in that. Setting up the collections of algorithms and data structures that make up a program help you develop a structured way of thinking through problems, so be sure to call that out in your resume.
- Team interaction experience: If your Computer Science program is anything like mine, you probably had a lot of class project experience where you had to team up with other students to get something done. This experience is a good preparation for the sort of team working environment that you would see as a consultant one day and it could position you well for that kind of work in the near-term.
- Detail-orientation: The nature of programming requires attention to detail due to the need to ensure correct functioning of programs, find bugs, and linking together pieces of functionality and data. This attention to detail would serve you well as a consultant in analyzing data sets and creating or reviewing documentation for clients. This could serve as a point of advantage for you.
There are other skills that one would need as a consultant (which I’ve written about in several of my past blog entries), but the ones above immediately come to mind when I think about what I gained in my own undergrad CS years.
Take care and good luck with your job search.
-Marquis
——-
PP wrote:
Hello Marquis,
I just came across your blog today, and was amazed at how helpful
some of your answers have been. I guess, I have been “googling” all
the wrong terms this summer.
I am about to graduate from my undergraduate degree in computing
science. During my education, I worked as an intern for an on-campus
software development team, and did a couple of programming stints
during summer breaks. I am pretty certain at this point in time that
I really don’t have a great passion for programming, and have
realized that consulting comes close to where I want to be.
My graduation is coming close and I am looking for jobs. If you could
give me some pointers as to the type of jobs I should look for post
graduation, to move towards business end, that will be great! I am
not too sure that a programming job will help me gain much valuable
experience as far as my future goal of consulting is concerned. Also,
what kind of skills should I try to highlight in my resume if I want
to avoid being categorized only for programming jobs.
Thank you for all your help!
PP
——-
My response:
PP,
Thanks for checking out my blog and for the positive feedback on my content. I do what I do to help people, so it’s good to see that I’m accomplishing that mission.
Now, let’s get to your questions. First, there are a lot of jobs that you could pursue with a Computer Science degree because the rigor of such an academic program implies that you are sharp enough to take on a tough new job function. An immediate option that comes to mind is investment banking because I’ve heard that folks with technical backgrounds do well as Investment Banking analysts. Something about the analytics that we develop seems to translate well into that sort of environment and you could learn a lot there. Another somewhat direct route into business is work in the IT department of a bank or financial services firm. By working with their systems, you could learn about the nature of their business and may be able to transition over to a more business-focused position after putting in some time in their IT function. You might also want to consider a job as a Business Analyst at a technology firm or software company, where you would work directly with clients to develop solutions and system requirements for their technology or functionality needs. For you, the most direct way to move into consulting might be to get a job for an IT consulting firm because your CS undergrad degree would make you a good fit. In that role, you would leverage your technical skills to add value to the client, but would be able to pick up the business skills to make a transition in another career area later on once you’ve gone to graduate school.
Moving to your other question, you’ve probably got your resume finished by now, but, if you’ve got time to work on it, you might want to think about emphasizing the following:
- Analytical/Structured thinking skills: Analytical and structured thinking is a must-have to be a consultant (and to get through case interviews) and coming from a programming background leaves you with plenty of credibility in that. Setting up the collections of algorithms and data structures that make up a program help you develop a structured way of thinking through problems, so be sure to call that out in your resume.
- Team interaction experience: If your Computer Science program is anything like mine, you probably had a lot of class project experience where you had to team up with other students to get something done. This experience is a good preparation for the sort of team working environment that you would see as a consultant one day and it could position you well for that kind of work in the near-term.
- Detail-orientation: The nature of programming requires attention to detail due to the need to ensure correct functioning of programs, find bugs, and linking together pieces of functionality and data. This attention to detail would serve you well as a consultant in analyzing data sets and creating or reviewing documentation for clients. This could serve as a point of advantage for you.
There are other skills that one would need as a consultant (which I’ve written about in several of my past blog entries), but the ones above immediately come to mind when I think about what I gained in my own undergrad CS years.
Take care and good luck with your job search.
-Marquis
