The MECE Muse Unplugged Podcast - Helping New or Aspiring Consultants on Their Journey to Greatness

  Crossroads episode with Dustin, a defense industry professional with less than 5 years of work experience, is seeking a pathway into management consulting. Dustin and Christie discuss ways to reinvent and curate a personal brand that would be attractive to consulting firms, including how to identify experience gaps. Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a crossroads interview. If you are new to the show, crossroads is where you have an opportunity to connect with a person that is deciding to go in or out of consulting, and we have a conversation about that. Our guest has a common situation. He’s got a couple years of experience in the industry and is seeking to make a pivot into consulting and wants some guidance on that. I’ve actually done several pivots in my career in consulting and we have a really nice conversation helping him understand how he can bridge the gap between where he is and where he wants to be and focus on it. If you are in the midst of a pivot yourself and looking, what are some next steps you can do, you can take some of the topics that we talked about. For our next episode, we have an AMA. This consultant has a very interesting story. He actually turned down an offer from a major consulting firm to join a startup and several years later, ended up starting his own firm and authoring a couple of bestselling books and doing all types of amazing stuff. We’re going to have a really great conversation with him. Stay tuned for our next episode. For this episode, I think one thing to take away as you hear our conversation is really think about the word reinvention. I know with so much disruption out in the world with technology, I think some of the tactics we talked about are just a couple. There are so many other ways, like when I share my story, I really talked about it for the things that I did over a decade ago. Think about how some of the topics I shared and how they can be applied to today’s world and help you create the pivot that you may be looking for in your career. If you have a question or any feedback on our conversation, I would love to hear and continue this dialogue. I know there’s several folks that’s already reached out to me, but feel free to drop me a line, MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. Interview with Dustin Dustin, thank you for making time to join us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? Thanks, Christie. I’m excited to be here. Before we get started, if you could maybe take a moment and introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. Share a little bit about your background and what crossroads you’re at. I went to a large school in West Coast. When I was in school, I wasn’t always exactly really sure what I wanted to do and it seemed like each year my future career plans were changing. It started off with sales, then I went abroad twice. Then I actually decided that wanted to go into investment banking. Then in my senior year I realized that was not for me and I wanted to do consulting but it was a little bit too late. I ended up taking a really good job though with an international defense contractor. I had great experience so far, but I know it’s not 100% for me. That’s why I was actually able to get in touch with you, Christie, and we’re here to talk a little bit about what are my next moves and how I can pivot forward to get to where I want to be. We can talk deep and see what’s going on. Before we talk about why consulting, you mentioned you were unsure and you had different career changes, which is actually normal. For me, I knew I want to go into consulting by my junior year. I have a marketing degree and I was doing a marketing internship which is what I thought was like the logical step for my immediate future.

In this Quick Wins episode, we discuss the importance of your image in consulting with personal image stylist Elsa Isaac.   Whether you realize it or not, scientific studies have shown that you are being judged by how you dress, especially in the workplace, which could impact your credibility, promotions, project opportunities, and raises/bonuses. Style image is an important component of your brand and because it is such a personal choice, it is not always openly discussed, making it sometimes the “elephant” in the room.   Great consultants take their personal image very seriously. Benefits of dressing well and creating a personal signature style: * Being well dressed can help you build relationships * Enhances your credibility and create a lasting impression when working with clients * Image can boost your self-confidence and elevate your energy in a way that helps you performance Elsa helps us understand why image really matters & dispels the myth of image.  “Image doesn’t have to be a vain thing” Elsa shares.  She dissects how image could impact performance, shares her definition of being well-dressed, and provides a framework for creating a signature style and shopping techniques. Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. Quick Wins is when I have an opportunity to connect with individuals, discussing ideas, products, or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. We get a chance to connect with Elsa Isaac. She is a personal stylist, specifically for women entrepreneurs. We have a conversation that is applicable to any gender. If you are looking to become a great consultant, you have to take heed and create a personal brand that helps you become effective in doing so. Image is so important. It’s such an elephant in a room. No one likes to talk about image, but to be a consultant, in order to be effective, you have to show up in a manner that helps you create a credible impression. It’s important to figure out how to do that in a way that makes you effective but that’s authentic to you. Elsa helps us create some techniques and tools that you can use and take away. After my conversation with Elsa, I did a social experiment. I don’t like to go shopping, but I got a chance. I said, “I’m going to take some of her techniques.” I did a couple of her exercises, and I took a shopping trip. I went into a retail store, and it was one of the more effective shopping experiences I had. I ended up picking a lot of garments and different types of outfits and nailed it. Normally, when I go out shopping, I feel like I’ll have all these different clothes I’ll like look at and try on, and then I will leave feeling frustrated and not buying anything. That’s why I try to stay away from shopping sometimes, I just shop online. Using some of Elsa’s techniques, it gave me a framework. Consultants love framework, and so this was perfect. You’ll find a lot of value in the techniques that Elsa covers. In episode 23, we get a chance to connect with a go-getter interested in breaking into consulting. We have a great conversation on a way that he could look at creating an experience and a pathway into a prestigious consulting firm. Stay tuned next week to talk about that. For today, definitely take heed to some of the techniques that Elsa talks about. Check out our website, MECEMuse.com on our show notes to get some of her freebies and some tools and information that you can use to round out your toolkit. With that, let’s get started. Interview with Elsa Isaac Elsa, thank you again for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you? I’m great. Thank you for having me. I’m excited to be here.

  In this Where are They Now? episode, Christie interviews Jonathan, now a Senior Vice President at a global marketing firm and a former consulting colleague with the brand of a rockstar. Jonathan shares stories of his career journey and how he transitioned from the media & entertainment industry into consulting and back into the music industry. Jonathan also discusses a myriad of topics including: * Moving from Virginia to NYC to Los Angeles and living differences between the various cities. * Genesis of shareholder value as a strategic priority in corporations and its impact on organizational cultures. * Things to consider when deciding to pursue an MBA and how to get a free education. * Realities of firing a client that compromises integrity and values. * Becoming a trusted advisor for your client and Jonathan’s definition of a great consultant. * Hacks to get promoted quickly as a newbie in a consulting firm. In career dilemma segment of the show, Christie and Jonathan gives advice on how to manage conflicts and build relationships with a difficult client. Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call Where Are They Now. Where Are They Now are essentially opportunities where I connect with an individual that I used to work with, a former colleague, who had the brand of a rock star. We have fun re-connecting conversation on the show. If you want to hear about the journey of how I wrote my book, you can check out Episode 2 where I share a little bit of what I went through. If you’re every interested in publishing a book, let me tell you. Writing the book was actually the easiest part. The publishing aspect of it is pretty intense and lots of lessons learned, lots of twist and turns. It’s taking a lot longer than I anticipated. That’s the key idea from every other author that I have spoken to. It takes more time than you sometimes anticipate but it helps to round out and make a great product. In our episode, I had a chance to connect with Jonathan. He is a former consultant. He is now a senior vice president at a global marketing firm. Jonathan has a great background in media and entertainment. In today’s career dilemma, I had a mentee reach out to me about a client that continues to throw her under the bus, and what she should do about that? In this episode, we are going to give my mentee some advice and things that she can consider to help manage that dynamic. I had other people asking me about a previous Where are They Now episode I did. Check out Episode 12. I did connect with Ron in that episode. Interview with Jonathan Jonathan, thank you so much for making time to connect with us today on the MECE Muse Unplugged. Thank you for inviting me. It’s been so many years. So much has changed in our lives and in the world, so thank you for your time today. Maybe you can share with the go getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged a little bit about who you are and your background. My name is Jonathan Jordan. I am right now in LA, Los Angeles but originally I’m from the East Coast. I’ve been out here for about two years. I grew up in Virginia and DC area, and then migrated up to New York City, which is when we met when we were both working at a big four. I’m in New York for about seven years. After that I moved out here and there’s tons of great opportunity out here. My current role is focused around the same stuff that I’ve been doing most of my career in consulting. Most of the work I do is focused on people strategy. Whether that’s people in organizational change management or whether...

  Quick Wins interview with Ed Lively and Stephanie Cole of the International Institute for Learning (IIL), seasoned project managers discuss the importance of consultants need to have strong project management skills. In this episode – Christie, Ed, and Stephanie have a roundtable discussion walking through key techniques along the phases of a typical project lifecycle – initiate, plan, execute, monitor/control, and close.  Episode also covers International Project Management Day coming up in November and how you can enhance your project management skills by attending an upcoming virtual conference. Episode also covers International Project Management Day coming up in November and how you can enhance your project management skills by attending an upcoming virtual conference. Learn more about project management: International Institute for  Learning  IPM Day 2017  |  Registration | A Virtual Tour Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. Quick Wins is when I have the opportunity to connect with individuals, discussing products, services, or ideas to help round out your consulting toolkit. In this episode, I’m going to call it a round table. We’re going to do a round table on project management. If you’re new to consulting, what you’ll soon discover is that regardless of the type of consulting projects you do, whether you work on six-week strategy cases or you end up on large multi-year implementation types of engagement work, you’re going to need to understand how to optimize the operations of that project, which is what project management is all about. Why is that important? It’s important because we think about the crux of many projects that fail. If you are a consultant, there are some concerns or challenges you may be having in your projects. Chances are the root causes of problems may go back to the project management of that specific engagement. Consider the statistics, because it’s staggering. For every billion dollars invested in projects in the US alone, $122 million of that is wasted due to subpar product performance. That’s according to PMI. They also share that 75% of both business and IT executives anticipate their projects will fail. Standard Group states that only a third of all projects were successfully completed on time and on budget in 2016. These numbers go on and on the stats of projects and why projects fail. When you go back to being a great consultant and the journey to greatness, that also includes becoming a great project manager. We have a couple of seasoned project management experts joining us from the International Institute for Learning. We have Ed Lively and Stephanie Cole, and we’re going to have a conversation about project management. We’re going to have almost a round table discussion around some tactics, techniques, and best practices that you can use and bring to your projects. We’re going to do that across the typical project management life cycle. The language changes depending on your projects and depending on your firm or your clients, but initially, the beginning and the end of a project are the same. There’s typically an initiate phase, a plan phase. There is execute, monitor, control, and then a close phase. That’s the rhythm of most projects out there.

In this MECE Mentoring Moment interlude, Christie provides answers for some of the commonly asked questions about the MECE Muse Unplugged podcast show. Listen to the Episode Here: The MECE Muse Unplugged pop-up podcast is a variety show where I get a chance to connect with all types of people and do interviews, storytelling, and provide career advice for any newbie consultant or aspiring consultants and help them along their journey to greatness. What’s interesting is that the podcast was inspired by my upcoming book. I am right now in the throes of finishing the publishing process for my book. The book is called The MECE Muse: 100+ Selected Practices, Unwritten Rules, and Habits of Great Consultants. What does the word MECE mean? A lot of people ask that question and with good reason. MECE is essentially an acronym and it stands for Mutually Exclusive Collectively Exhaustive. It is really a term that is used in consulting. It’s a consulting lingo we use as we go into projects just to make sure that as our clients hire us, they want us to help them take their business to the next level. We got to make sure that we are getting and identifying the root causes of some of the problems that they’re having instead of the symptoms. We use MECE as one of many other techniques to do that. I really wanted to make sure that the conversation that we bring on the show is really balanced. I used the word balance because I hear a lot of people and I know for me, when I was first thinking about coming into consulting, you see the glamorous side of it. I really wanted to provide a balanced perspective. I wanted to show the great sides of consulting, but also show the downsides and show the underbelly of some of the challenges that a consultant experiences. I wanted to do that in a way that really stays away from labels. One thing with consultants, many still thinks they work at prestigious firms doing really important work out in the business, having really important conversations with executives. I didn’t want it to be that, “This is a show just for this type of consultant or only consultants that work at this firm.” I didn’t want any of that. Purposefully, I want to make sure, we don’t mention labels, we don’t mention firm names, client names. Even our guest, I only mention their first name because I feel like that distracts sometimes from the conversation. I really wanted it to be about the journey of greatness of all consultants. I really want new or aspiring consultants to really be heard, to be supported and to be successful in any endeavor, any way that they want to use and leverage their profession. I believe that every consultant have a right to do so. It doesn’t matter what firm you work for, it doesn’t matter who you are as a specific individual, I really believe that consultants carry the burden of the business world on their shoulders. I think we deserve to have this type of dialogue and transparency in order to advance our profession as a whole. I remember when I first grew up in consulting, there was the have and have nots. Whether that was real or perceived, that was how it came off to me as a new consultant, is that if you fit this specific profile, whatever that meant, fill in the blanks, then you are privy to certain information versus those that were not. I really want to dispel that. That type of undercurrent that’s sometimes is in our profession. I understand that there is a mistake to consulting and that mistake always be there just because of the sheer nature of the type of work we do and the lifestyle we lead. However, there should be a transparency among our community and one that includes everyone of all types of consultants, regardless of the clients or the firms that they...

AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Kofi Kankam, a former consultant turned serial entreprenuer. This is the 4th and final installment of our Welcome Back to Campus series, specifically focused on undergraduate and graduate students seeking to begin a consulting career. In this episode, Kofi, a Harvard and Wharton MBA graduate, discusses his career journey and how he made the leap from school to consulting to In this episode, Kofi who is both a Harvard and Wharton MBA graduate, discusses his career journey and how he made the leap from school to consulting to entreprenuership.  Kofi co-founded AdmitAdvantage.com and launched Admit.me, both services focused on helping individuals gain admissions to the top undergraduate and graduate programs across the world.

  AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Kofi Kankam, a former consultant turned serial entrepreneur. This is the 4th and final installment of our Welcome Back to Campus series, specifically focused on undergraduate and graduate students seeking to begin a consulting career. In this episode, Kofi who is both a Harvard and Wharton MBA graduate, discusses his career journey and how he made the leap from school to consulting to entrepreneurship.  Kofi co-founded AdmitAdvantage.com and launched Admit.me, both services focused on helping individuals gain admissions to the top undergraduate and graduate programs across the world. Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either a seasoned or a former consultant and they give you advice. We had the chance to connect with Kofi Kankam. He is not only a former consultant, he’s now a serial entrepreneur. Kofi’s background is pretty remarkable. He is a Harvard graduate. He has his MBA from Wharton. In both of his businesses, he focuses his services specifically on helping people get into top tier colleges and universities across the world. Some of the advice he is going to give is on how to make the best of your application and your candidacy for schools will be pertinent, not only for aspiring consultants, but also for seasoned or new consultants as well. This episode also concludes our Welcome Back to Campus series for all of my undergrad and grad go‑getters, so I hope you enjoyed it. Feel free to drop us a line, MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com if you’ve got any questions or feedback or thoughts. We’d love to hear from you. As a preview for next week’s episode, we’re going to do a deep dive. We’re going to talk a little bit about project management. If you’re in consulting, consultants primarily work on projects. That’s what we do. In order to be a great consultant, you have to have great fundamental habits of project management. We’re going to dissect that. We have a couple of seasoned experts that will talk to you next week to talk a little bit about project management, give you some specific tactics that you can use on your engagements. For this episode, you’re going to get a special treat. I have the utmost pleasure of connecting not only with a former consultant, but also an individual who is a serial entrepreneur that’s going to give us a lot of lot of great information. I am super excited to welcome Kofi Kankam. He is the Founder of Admit.Me and Co-Founder of Advantage.com. Interview with Kofi Kankam Kofi, thank you so much for taking time to connect with us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? Great. Thank you for having me. I’m super excited to be here. A little worried that I can’t live up to that introduction, but I’ll do my best. This is going to be fabulous. I’m just very excited that we’ve gotten a chance to connect with you. Before we get started with the interview, maybe you can take a moment and introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. I run a company called me Admit.Me, which is like the LinkedIn for college and grad school applicants. We help candidates get into school. We’ve been doing this for awhile as an admissions coaching company via AdmitAdvantage.com.

Quick Wins interview with Sammi, a seasoned top 10 consulting firm campus recruiter specifically focused on hiring first-year analysts. This is the 3rd installment of our Welcome Back to Campus series, specifically focused on undergraduate and graduate students seeking to begin a consulting career. In this episode, Sammi helps demystify the recruiting process and provides insights on the process from a recruiter’s perspective. Listen to the Episode Here: For this episode, we will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. It’s actually the campus edition. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins is where we have an opportunity to connect with an individual discussing products, services, ideas, anything related to helping people along their journey as a consultant, and helping them with their toolkit. For this episode, I actually get a chance to connect with Sammi. Sammi is a campus recruiter, specifically focused on hiring and selecting consulting candidates. I can’t wait to share the interview with you. This is episode 18, it’s our third installment of our Welcome Back to Campus series. We’ve got one more but excited to have conversation. I think you’re going to find it extremely helpful, particularly if you’re in the throes of a consulting interview or starting to go through the recruitment season at this time. Before we pivot, two things I want to highlight with this episode. It’s the timing we are in at this moment. I sit in the US where I’m in North America. I know I have go getters listening to this show across the world, which is phenomenal. I want to send out my prayers and thoughts with all of the people that’s been recently affected by a lot of the hurricanes and the earthquake. Across, up, and down the North American landscape, we’ve had a lot of really, really tragedies happening. At the same time with tragedies I’ve definitely seen demonstrations of human resilience, and people coming together, which is great. I wanted to shout-out the people in Texas, Florida, and all of the Caribbean Islands that were affected. Most recently it was the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, St. Martin, Anguilla, St. Croix, Dominica, Barbuda, Cuba, Turks and Caicos. I know Haiti was affected a bit. There was the earthquake in Mexico. I wanted to shout out all of people out there, I definitely keep you in my thoughts and prayers. Go-getters, if you know someone that’s been affected, please reach out to them. If you know that someone may have had family, go ahead and check in on them. I would also recommend during this time, we walk together, really check out helping, if it’s monetarily or if you can give it’s a great time to be able to donate, because people are really going to be rebuilding their lives and they need a lot of stuff. I wanted to mention, I know there’s the American Red Cross, there’s the Catholic Charities Organization, Salvation Army is pretty great. Both were not only for financial donations, but also for if you’ve got clothes, or you got different household types of products, things that people are going to need to rebuild their lives, now go getters is really the time to do so. Please check them out. Also be wary there are, with these types of times, unfortunately some people take advantage. You want to be leery and make sure that you are giving, but you’re giving to credible organization. Definitely take heed to that. That was one thing I wanted to mention, just where we are right now in the world to really put my thoughts out for people affected. Interview with Sammi I’m super psyched to introduce and welcome Sammi to the show. Thank you for taking time to join us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m great, Christie. Thanks so much for having me. It’s my first podcast so I’m excited to be a part of it.

Crossroads interview (the Intern edition) with Briana, a senior at Seton Hall University who recently completed 2 years of internships that ultimately resulted in her obtaining a full time consulting job offer this summer.  In this second episode of our Welcome Back to Campus series, Briana shares her journey as well as techniques she used to successfully be invited to intern two years in a row at one of the world’s top firms and then ultimately landed a full time job offer. In today’s career dilemma, Briana and I also give career advice to an intern that doesn’t receive a full-time job offer at the end of a summer internship.  I provide additional thoughts to consider at the end of the episode in a quick MECE Mentoring Moment on how to land and maximize a consulting internship experience. Listen to the Episode Here: This is episode seventeen, our second edition of the Welcome Back to Campus series. Super excited to have a conversation about internships to offer. For what we’re going to do, we’re going to kick off the episode with a crossroads interview. For those that are new to the show, crossroads are when we have an opportunity to connect with a person that’s going in or out of consulting, and we talk a little bit about their journey and where they’re headed. We had a chance to connect with Briana. She’s currently finishing up her last year at Seton Hall University. She did a two-year internship that ultimately landed to her getting a full time offer, which is awesome. On crossroads, she’s going to talk about her journey and some of the tips and techniques that she used to first secure the internship, be invited back for a second year, that which ultimately led to her offer. We’ll get a chance to connect with Briana. We’ll also have an opportunity in career dilemma. I had a chance to talk with an intern that did not get an offer extended. We want to give a little bit of guidance, so Briana and I are going to talk a little bit about what that person should consider moving forward. Lastly, we’re also going to do a MECE Mentoring Moment. I want to give some round out, some additional thoughts based on the conversation that Briana and I have and give you ideas and tips on what you should consider not only to secure an internship, but also what are really the things that matter in an internship. Sometimes there’s different perceptions out there. I want to talk a little bit about that and really figure out how to prepare for internships. With that, let’s get started. Interview with Briana Thank you, Briana, for taking the time to join us. How are you doing? Doing good. I’m so excited. This is my first podcast ever, so I was a little bit nervous at first, but definitely excited to be giving some advice and sharing my story. If you’re being interviewed for our podcast, you’re a go-getter, so nothing to be nervous about. Before we get started with interview, if you want to take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. I’m going into my senior year, attending Seton Hall University. I’m majoring in accounting and information systems. I’m also doing a dual degree, so I’ll be getting a master’s in professional accounting. I interned last summer at one of the Big Four and I was fortunate enough to be offered another internship this past summer, and then at the end of that summer I was lucky enough to get a full time offer, so I’m super excited to start that at the end of college, and good to have something secured in. That’s a little bit about my work experience. I had two summer internships pretty much, and basically finishing my last year of school. Congratulations on getting your offer. How did you feel the moment that you got it? Did they give you hints that you were going to get the offer, or did they leave in you in the dark?

Quick Wins interview with Destin Whitehurst, co-founder of consultinginterviewcoach.com kicks off the Welcome Back to Campus series.  Destin shares his own career journey as a former consultant while providing insights and ideas on how consulting candidates can take their interview performance to the next level, and how to best leverage mock case interviews. Listen to the Episode Here: On this episode, we will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins is where I have an opportunity to connect with an individual to discuss either products, services, or ideas that are helpful for a consulting tool kit. This is episode sixteen, it actually kicks off our very first Welcome Back to Campus episode. I’m super excited to have this conversation with my undergraduate and graduate go-getters out there. We’re going to share the interview that I did with Destin Whitehurst. Destin is a Co-Founder of ConsultingInterviewCoach.com. He’s also a former consultant and an author. He did his undergrad at Notre Dame and his grad MBA at the McCombs Business School at University of Texas, Austin. In this episode, we really get a chance to talk through some ideas. For those that are interested in a consulting career, getting prepared for the case interview seems to be an area of challenge. Destin spends his days pretty much speaking to hundreds and hundreds of candidates such as yourself. He shares a little bit more insight that you’ll find extremely helpful. At the end of our interview, I’ll provide a MECE mentoring moment. I want to round out some additional thoughts on case interview prep and some other things you should consider. Interview with Destin Whitehurst Destin, thank you for taking time to join us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing very well. Thank you for having me. Could you take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged? I’m Destin Whitehurst, the Founder of ConsultingInterviewCoach.com. Previously, I was with a Big Four consulting firm and focused on life sciences strategy. When I went to get my MBA, I started this company, which we’ve now had going on three years. I’ve heard so many great things about your company and know several people that use your services. I’m excited that we’re going to get a chance to talk to you. Destin, maybe you can share with the go-getters a little bit about your journey in consulting. How were you exposed to the profession and what were some of the factors that influenced your thinking in going into consulting? I had an unusual early exposure to consulting. I had an aunt and an uncle that worked at two of the MBB firms. From an early age, I had an interest in the type of work they’re doing, seeing them travel and hearing stories about their client interaction. Then I did my undergrad at Notre Dame where there’s a pretty large group of students focused on consulting. That solidified my interest in the industry, especially taking a few strategy-oriented classes. When I received the offer from the firm that I was with, I was excited to join. Life sciences was the predominant area. I quickly transitioned from life sciences to mergers and acquisitions, which was to me just fascinating that you can go so deep into one area or so broad. A lot of the candidates that come to us, one of their reasons for getting into consulting is all the industry and business challenges you can face. You can also deep dive as well, which I did during my career. You actually mentioned the life sciences or M&A. Did you know that those are the areas that you wanted to focus on?

Special edition of The MECE Muse Unplugged to kick off September’s Welcome Back to Campus Series,  an episode designed to provide college students an orientation to the podcast show. Christie shares highlights of upcoming episodes for the next month, all covering topics undergraduate or graduate college students interested in consulting would find valuable. Episode topics include interview case preparation, from internships to a full-time consulting offer, mindset of a recruiter, and college admissions coaching services. Listen to the Episode Here: This episode is special. I’m going to dub it my Welcome Back to Campus Series. We’re going to highlight specific shows and talk about topics that are helpful for all of my undergrad and graduate go- getters out there. For all of my go-getters that are in school, you may have been coming back from your vacations, internships, maybe hung out at home during all summer, why don’t you get up to speed with our podcast show? I wanted to make sure that you are aware of this invaluable resource that was created.  I created the podcast show specifically with all of my college go-getters in mind, thinking about going into consulting, and trying to figure out what that specifically means. I talk a lot on the show to people that are new to consulting, that are starting their career, or experienced hires wanting to go back into a different career and that’s consulting either as a freelancer or joining a firm. I cover a lot of different targeted listeners. For this episode is focused on my college go-getter, give you an orientation to what we’re doing here, and how you can get connected. I’m going to highlight three things. One, is to get you acclimated with a couple of episodes. You should it check out while you are getting acclimated to what we are offering. Two, I wanted to discuss the MECE Mentoring Moment. That was a new segment that we introduced in the show. Three, I wanted it to preview what’s to come. We’ve got five episodes that are on their way. I’ll talk about the first three.  Let’s get started with getting acclimated to this show. If this is your first time listening, I highly suggest you check out episode one. I laid out the framework and the foundation of my story in consulting and what got me started on this path. I then shared a little bit about what I call the MECE Muse story. I shared that in episode two. Episodes one and two were a ground-setting context information to share. You can go from there and fast forward.  If you want to get CliffsNotes of all the episodes I’ve done to date, I highly recommend you check out episode ten. In episode ten, I highlight all the episodes we’ve done and previewed a couple that we were going to be doing. For our first set of episodes to kick off the back to school campus, there are two of them we’ve already done. I’m going to highlight episode six where we got a chance to connect with Xuan. She is a recent PhD student, has just graduated, and looking to get into consulting. She shared a little bit of her journey. “If understood it correctly, we all share some basic proficiency in terms of being able to structure a problem, being able to solve it, but what truly takes candidate from good to outstanding is the ability to be innovative,

AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview where Ed, a senior manager and former bank examiner, shares his career journey and experiences as a consultant in the bank regulatory space. During this episode, Christie and Ed give mentoring advice to a consultant that is seeking career guidance to create more of a work-life balance so that he could pursue his passion and hobby of being an amateur musician.

In this special Crossroads interview, Michaela shares her recruitment preparation strategy that resulted in her landing a coveted consulting role. Christie provides career advice towards launching a successful career in consulting.

Christie answers an email from a fan that admits they are having performance issues after being promoted to the Manager level.

In this episode, Christie interviews Ron, a former consulting colleague with the brand of a rockstar. Ron discusses a myriad of topics, shares stories of his career journey, managing resistance, the differences in federal vs commercial consulting, how to choose between becoming an independent consultant, working at mid-tier boutique, or for a large Big 4 consulting firm. Christie and Ron also gives advice to a newbie consultant facing peer pressure drinking on his engagement.