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Kearney

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4.2
  • #3 in Management consulting
  • 100 - 500 employees

Tim

As a consultant, I am constantly faced with challenging complex problems and working with my colleagues to solve these is the coolest thing about my job.

What's your job about?

I work as a Business Analyst for Kearney which is a global management consulting firm. We consult across industries on a variety of areas such as strategy, procurement, and supply chain. In my role as a Business Analyst, my tasks vary from day-to-day but normally consist of Excel modelling, building slides in Powerpoint and analysing data from the client. Every project is different in what is required of the analyst – some weeks pass without Excel being opened and others I seem to have Excel open 98% of the time!

The other main part of the Business Analyst role is participating in client meetings and workshops. This is where we work with our client to better understand their business, update them on our progress or share project deliverables with them

What's your background?

I grew up in Melbourne and have lived here my entire life. After finishing school, I began studying law and commerce wanting to be a corporate lawyer. I never really enjoyed studying law, so after one year of study I turned my focus solely to my commerce studies. It was here that I was introduced to management consulting – I participated in university-run case competitions and enjoyed the fast-paced nature of working through cases and formulating a presentation. At the time, my university was offering a subject where students could work as consultants during the winter break, so I was lucky enough to consult in Shanghai, China. After this experience, I applied to participate in the Kearney Case Competition which I ended up winning – this led to interning with Kearney over the following summer. During that internship, I was able to work on two projects for a large Australian tech provider and an international not-for-profit. At the end of the internship, I was offered a full-time role with Kearney upon graduation.

Could someone with a different background do your job?

Definitely! In my opinion, management consulting is an industry which many disciplines can be suited too – problem solving is the key tool I use every day at work and the beauty of having colleagues from different backgrounds/degrees means that we all have different ways of approaching the same problem. We have people who have studied engineering, science, law, maths, literature…the list goes on!

What's the coolest thing about your job?

As a consultant, I am constantly faced with challenging complex problems, and working with my colleagues to solve these is the coolest thing about my job. Everyone has a different way of approaching and solving a problem, and I really enjoy when we all come together to discuss and debate these approaches to determine the best approach. This intellectual jousting is incredibly stimulating.

What are the limitations of your job?

The work is demanding which can involve sacrifices that some other lines of work might not have to make.

3 pieces of advice for yourself when you were a student...

  • Travel (lots) – once you hit the workforce gone are the days of long term breaks, unfortunately. While consultants do travel lots, it’s different to holidaying or exploring the world, so make the most of it.
  • Study abroad or go on exchange – I was lucky to work in China for three weeks, but I definitely wish I’d gone overseas for a longer period to study. It’s an incredible opportunity.
  • Practice the skills you’re likely to use in the industry you’re hoping to get a job in – case competitions were my first exposure to building slide decks and then presenting them on short notice, things which are weekly occurrences these days.