MarquisParker.com // Business Strategist, Speaker, Advisor, and Coach

Question from a college Soph targeting a technology management career

Published on February 17, 2012 by Marquis in About Marquis, Business, career, career path, consulting, Education, IT consulting, pre-MBA grad degrees, professional advice, Technology, Technology management, Technology-related

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The email below was written by a student from the Indiana University group that I mentioned a few entries ago. I met him during a student trip to Chicago held in mid-January. He and I chatted a bit about his desire to move into IT after his college graduation and, since I used to work in the industry, he thought I’d be able to give him some good advice. Please read below for his questions and my answers to those questions and a key question that he didn’t ask but that I thought would be important.

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AK wrote:

Marquis,

… Read the rest

High-level overview of the Management Consulting industry

Published on February 8, 2012 by Marquis in consulting, management consulting, strategy

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Recently, I’ve received several emails asking me to provide an overview of the Management Consulting industry and, in those cases, I’ve referred people to my archived blog entries, where Consulting is discussed at length. Given the interest in this topic, I thought it would make sense to present a single big “Here’s what Consulting is all about” perspective. Normally, this perspective would take a long time to create, but, fortunately, I’m able to leverage something that I created back in 2009, which may be a little old but is still largely relevant to the current state of the industry.

A … Read the rest

Most important traits for an undergrad in this economic environment

Published on February 1, 2012 by Marquis in About Marquis, career, career path, Education, professional advice

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The email below comes from a Freshman student at Indiana University who I met during MLK Weekend. She’s part of a program for the top students in IU’s undergrad business school and I spent some time hanging out with them on the Saturday of the weekend and organized a panel discussion with some of my Aon colleagues for them on the Monday morning. After returning to Bloomington, this student contacted me for advice on some issues that are top-of-mind for a lot of college students.

The student asked me 2 separate questions, but, as I was responding, I realized that … Read the rest

Reader wondering how to get into McKinsey from a school with less brand name

Published on January 18, 2012 by Marquis in Business, career, consulting, management consulting, professional advice

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Long-time visitors to this site are probably used to seeing folks ask me questions about how to get into McK (or one of its peer firms). In this case, the author of the email below was seeking advice on how he could position himself to get into McK’s Philippines office. He believed that his situation was complicated by the fact that he comes from an academic institution that doesn’t have a top brand in his country, which, according to him, can have great impact on one’s chances at the top firms. Because I don’t know the policies in his office… Read the rest

Moving from government work to Management Consulting

Published on January 3, 2012 by Marquis in Business, career, consulting, management consulting, mba, Networking, professional advice

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Happy new year, everyone! Hopefully, you all had a great holiday season and a safe entry into 2012. Now that I’ve had a couple of days to recover from the holidays, I figured that I should get back to posting truth and wisdom

The message below is from a reader who currently works as an intelligence analyst for the government and wants to make a transition into Management Consulting. He’s wondering whether he has a shot of making this move without having to go off to business school. As my long-time readers know, I’m a huge fan of the MBA … Read the rest

Question from a recent LBS MBA grad starting at McKinsey London

Published on December 20, 2011 by Marquis in Business School, career, consulting, professional advice

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The message below is from a longtime reader of this site who recently graduated with his MBA from London Business School. Also, he scored a post-MBA position with McKinsey’s London office, which is a huge feat given the office’s popularity. Now that he’s started the job, he asked for some tips on how to position himself well at the start of his time at The Firm. Hope he finds the following advice to be useful.

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AH wrote:

Hi Marquis!

Thanks a ton for the fantastic blog you’ve run the last few years. It inspired and guided me a lot

… Read the rest

Question from a Freshman studying business and seeking career guidance

Published on December 10, 2011 by Marquis in Business, career, Education

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Hey, everyone. I can’t remember if I mentioned it earlier, but, back in September, I was invited to give a talk about optimizing one’s career and education at Indiana University. The audience was a group of freshman who were part of a special residential program for top students in the undergrad Kelley School of Business called the Kelley Living Learning Center. This was my first professional speaking engagement, so it was a pretty big deal for me.

The email below is from one of the students who attended that speech. Although he is majoring in Business, he isn’t sure which … Read the rest

Question from a college junior targeting a Management Consulting internship

Published on November 27, 2011 by Marquis in Business, career, career path, consulting, internship, professional advice

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Hi, everyone! For those of you in the United States, I hope you’ve all had a great Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

The email below is from a Junior at Stanford University who is seeking my advice on how to best position himself to get an summer internship offer from a top Management Consulting firm. He emailed me at the end of the summer, but I didn’t have a chance to respond to him until a couple of weeks ago. I’m pretty sure that I got my advice to him in time for it to be useful for the upcoming summer internship … Read the rest