{"id":8697,"date":"2015-05-25T16:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T16:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.prd.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/?p=8697"},"modified":"2015-05-29T16:56:30","modified_gmt":"2015-05-29T16:56:30","slug":"powerhouse-of-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/powerhouse-of-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Powerhouse of Support"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Kristen<\/a>
Kristen Stieger works with Sara Olson. Stieger is one of approximately 20 second-year consulting students who coach fellow students.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

After she earned her undergraduate degree, Cincinnati native Sarah Berhalter worked in the equestrian industry in Virginia, training horses and managing a stable. There she was surrounded by people \u201cwho were very passionate about what they did, but were at risk of failing simply because they didn\u2019t know business,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Berhalter decided to pursue an MBA and focus on consulting so she could develop the tools to better help people do what they love.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo me, ultimately, that\u2019s what consulting is\u2014working with clients and helping them face whatever challenge they\u2019re presented with, or helping their business to grow,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Kristen Stieger\u2019s journey followed a different path. After earning her bachelor\u2019s degree in mechanical engineering, she worked two years in a project management role at an energy company in her native California. \u201cBut I also wanted to explore the different opportunities that existed with an MBA,\u201d she says. \u201cI got interested in consulting because it\u2019s fast-paced, uses analytical skills to solve problems, and allows you to work with clients in a variety of industries.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Berhalter and Stieger are now second-year students and officers in the Owen School\u2019s Consulting Club, a student-run organization whose mission is to help students gain a better understanding of the work culture, required skills and career opportunities available in consulting-related fields. Though the club has existed for about 20 years, it\u2019s currently seeing a record level of participation, with more than 100 members.<\/p>\n

“Since the economic recovery in 2011, we\u2019ve seen an increase
\nin the percentage of our graduating student body go into the
\nconsulting area.”\u2014Emily Anderson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cSince the economic recovery in 2011, we\u2019ve seen an increase in the percentage of our graduating student body go into the consulting area,\u201d says Emily Anderson<\/a>, MBA\u201999, director of internal operations and coaching for the Career Management Center. \u201cAs companies have more money for discretionary spending, they hire more consultants to do things like work on special projects, change out software systems and help develop corporate strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cConsulting is also a classic MBA function,\u201d she explains, \u201cbecause it incorporates everything students are learning in the program\u2014whether it\u2019s marketing or finance or operations\u2014and how they all work together to strengthen a company or provide competitive advantage.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n

Perfecting the case interview<\/h4>\n

As a result of this popularity, the Consulting Club is sponsoring more activities than ever before, from facilitating networking opportunities for its members to preparing them for careers in consulting through workshops and case practice sessions.<\/p>\n

At the start of the academic year, the club invited eight alumni from the consulting industry to campus to share their experiences and meet one-on-one with students. The group regularly co-sponsors social events with consulting firms and hosts lunch-and-learn sessions featuring guest speakers as well as faculty.<\/p>\n

The club teams with the CMC to organize a consulting trek to Atlanta each fall for students to visit consulting firms. It also produces weekly newsletters featuring information on upcoming events, job opportunities and deadlines.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Consulting Club serves as a resource where students can start to get information about consulting,\u201d says Stieger, the club\u2019s president. \u201cIt also provides us second-years who have been through the interview and internship experience with a platform to share our knowledge with first-years.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the heart of the club\u2019s efforts is preparation and practice for the case interview, a hallmark of the consulting interview process.<\/p>\n

\u201cA case tests your ability to take a hypothetical problem with a limited amount of information, prioritize the key elements, and organize your thinking so that you not only find a solution but communicate it effectively to the interviewer,\u201d explains Berhalter, the club\u2019s vice president of communications. Berhalter, who is the recipient of the Ingram Scholar Award, Virginia Banks and Fred W. Lazenby Honor Scholarship and Beta Gamma Sigma scholarship, says that in addition to being a core business skill, the ability to solve a case knowledgeably and with confidence increases one\u2019s stock as an internship or job candidate.<\/p>\n

Since practice makes perfect, the Consulting Club gives students many opportunities to do so. A dedicated group of first-year members holds weekly walk-in practice sessions, and about 20 second-year members make themselves available for one-on-one case prep or to discuss careers in consulting. The club also has built a robust online resource of cases and frameworks that members can access to prepare on their own.
\n <\/p>\n

Experience under pressure<\/h4>\n

These resources are a boon not only to club members, but to a growing number of other students for whom solving cases has become a common element of the interview process.<\/p>\n

\u201cCompanies come into schools like Vanderbilt assuming the candidates are smart, so it\u2019s not as much about testing raw intelligence as it is about seeing how a candidate can apply it,\u201d Anderson says. \u201cWhen they conduct a case interview, they\u2019re getting to see in real time how a candidate can think through a problem. It gives them insight into the way a candidate acts under pressure. And it allows them to view how students are putting together all the pieces they\u2019re learning in the MBA.\u201d<\/p>\n

This year, the Consulting Club has partnered with the other professional student organizations at the school to offer individualized case practice.<\/p>\n

“When [recruiters] conduct a case interview, they\u2019re getting to see in real time how a candidate can think through a problem.”\u2014Emily Anderson<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cBeing able to organize your thoughts is critically important, not just in interviews but in any type of presentation you may have,\u201d says Matthew McCall, a second-year student from Austin, Texas, who is president of the Owen Operations Club and a Bruce D. Henderson scholarship recipient. \u201cThe case method\u2014those techniques that the Consulting Club has been using for years\u2014are extremely useful. I\u2019ve found that the first-year students I\u2019ve spoken with this year are much more comfortable with case-type questions and have performed better in interviews on the whole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson says her data supports this observation. Internship offers are up 8 percent from the same time last year, and these opportunities often develop into full-time positions. Berhalter will join Boston Consulting Group in Atlanta after graduation, and Stieger will go to work at Chevron in a rotational leadership development program. \u201cAcross the board, the feedback we\u2019re getting from companies is that students are performing well in their interviews,\u201d Anderson says.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the leadership of the Consulting Club has been exceptional this year in their organization and outreach across the Owen School,\u201d she says. \u201cI hope this translates, and the first-years who are benefiting from it will be inspired to continue it next year.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Other students benefit from the Consulting Club\u2019s knowledge and activity<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":364,"featured_media":8700,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,64],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-homepage-highlights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/364"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8697"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9375,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8697\/revisions\/9375"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}