Thursday, October 1, 2009

Small world, this consulting thing

I've only been in consulting for a few weeks, and I've been amazed at the number of small world coincidences I've already run into through training and my first project:

- During a training exercise, our hypothetical project team had a meeting interrupted by two more senior guys playing 'partners.' As soon as they walked in, I immediately recognized one as my interviewer from internship recruiting at school for another firm. Of course, I didn't get that job, but I had always thought it was because I bombed the other interview so I didn't feel too awkward.

- In getting involved with the Chicago Booth recruiting team, I had to get in touch with the team's recruiting head. When I finally found him, it turned out he was formerly the recruiting head for a different consulting firm. I met him during internship recruiting too, and it was my discussion with him that got me my interview. Weird.

- On the first day of my project, we're sitting in a team room at the client (a large media company that will remain undisclosed). The client team is coming down, and when they come in I recognize the most senior guy. He used to be a pretty senior guy at another big consulting firm, working almost exclusively in media and entertainment. I had spent a good half an hour talking with him at a recruiting even before he jumped off the consulting ship.

Totally weird...I'm half expecting to run into every other person that didn't give me a job during business school...

That would be an awful lot of people

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