Hi all,I am thinking of breaking into management consulting,but not sure about my education/background fitI am 28,just got a Fulbright Award for masters study in Management Information Systems (either Carnegie Mellon MISM or Berkeley MIMS),previously I had a professional chess career for around 15 years (won several tournaments and titles etc. on both national and international level),then worked for a year in UN AIDS agency as an IT specialist,then worked for 2 years in my home country as an Organizational Capability specialist in BP(different projects in technical development) -can someone evaluate if I have any chances for top 10 mc companies upon graduation?Thanks.

A CV like that certainly will get you a job. Job market sucks right now though.

well it's certainly interesting and stands out. debateable whether the selection processes of most MCs would be equipped to map you into the business though - you would do far better to identify hiring managers and approach them directly, and you should start doing this during your Masters to build some contacts/relationships ahead of graduation.Something tells me you are probably just a bit too interesting for big firm MC though, you might thrive more easily in start up or smaller firm where you'll be more intellectually challenged more quickly imho.

ah, thats great to hear,I was initially a bit sceptical about my chances

Hi,I'm not particularly qualified to evaluate the credentials of someone coming in at your age/experience bracket, but I thought I might make a suggestion.Most of the top 10 will have a "technology" subset which suits your background. While you might go into general management consulting just fine, you might find more success in the application/interview process in one of these subsets since you're more uniquely qualified for them. Depending on the firm, this sub-set could deal with things from CIO-level IT strategy for non-tech companies to IT cost improvement to general business strategy for technology companies. You can also edge into the "general" group from the other positions a lot of the time. I have an MIS background as well, and I had much more success applying to these sub-sets than I did to the companies in general.Examples of these groups include McKinsey's Business Technology Office (BTO) and Booz's IT Strategy practice.Hope you found this helpful!David

David,Thanks for your response!Could you advise which other big10 consulting companies have this technology subset worth applying?I have read a lot about Accenture,Cap Gemini etc - and most people say that they deal with package solutions,SAP etc boring stuff...While if I wont get into management consulting, doing IT strategy/Governance stuff would suit me.