Agsm Careers Month 2016
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AGSM CAREERS MONTH 2016 DAILY SUMMARY WEEK 1 AGSM @ UNSW Business School Career Development Centre Never Stand Still Business School ATTENDEES – Three functional practice area - strategy, Wendy Mackay - Principal AGSM 2005 people and organisation, digital – leads to Chris Hanlon - Consultant AGSM 2015 a breadth and depth of expertise across the Kiel Horton - Consultant AGSM 2015 firm Megan Marina - Recruitment – BCG Digital Ventures was created in 2013, the core capability for DV is to build disruptive – What is management consulting? A Business ventures Doctor – This collaboration provides interesting project work and they now have in-house data and “WE GET CALLED WHEN analytics capabilities, hiring experts in big SENIOR MANAGEMENT HAVE data A PROBLEM THEY WANT TO – The thing that makes BCG special are UNDERSTAND BETTER” the people - 23 different nationalities in the Sydney office, diverse professional backgrounds - doctors, engineers, musicians, – Focused on solving The Big Problems on the artists, lawyers – all at the top of their game minds of boards and CEOs – Technology Advantage practice – Looks at how can we transform the technology – 300 staff in Australia, 10000 staff globally, function? Hiring the smartest people to the 85 offices in 55 countries, opportunities expert track, e.g. recently hired a PhD in for information sharing, also gives great Astrophysics international mobility opportunities for staff – 20% of staff are overseas at any one time and – This team is focused on heavy analytics, data there is the option to be seconded into some analysis, the capability is amazing. They are of Australia’s largest organisations or NFP able to identify supply chain inefficiencies purely from the data – This team is a real strength to BCG at the moment HOW DO THEY MAKE MANAGEMENT Industrial Goods Technology Energy CONSULTING A SUSTAINABLE CAREER OPTION? – PTO Program – Predictability, Teaming and Open communication Financial Services Health Care – A sustainability initiative to ensure that this is a sustainable career path for their staff – Making sure that they are creating value for Consumer & Retail both their clients and employees Telecommunications – Flexibility - Wendy has two kids so flexibility Public Sector really important, there are two Flex Programs: 1. Flex time – working a reduced number of WHY CONSULTING? WHY BCG? hours per week – A third of clients have been engaging with 2. Flex leave – you can purchase additional BCG for more than 10 years, developing long leave, block out time during the year, term relationships is key to the success of the potentially family reasons, or personal firm interests – The business has been doubling revenue in past 8 years and experiencing double digit growth in past 10 years PROFESSIONAL/PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT 8 years doing corporate strategy – buying and OPPORTUNITIES selling shopping centres, managing portfolio – There is a considerable amount of time and strategy energy invested into ensuring professional – Re-joined BCG at the start of the year, and personal development is a regular part currently specialising in retail, banking, of the job – apprenticeship model financial services, expanding out to property • You can expect 4.5 weeks per year will be – Is the mother of two kids, 5 and 3 years old, spent on training would not have re-joined the firm if she would • First Year – problem solving, generating be unable to divide time equally between insight, generating revenue for client, family responsibilities and engagements communication skills, engagement skills, time management, managing productivity “WEEKENDS AND MORNINGS • Most important learning is done on the job ARE FOR THE KIDS” STRONG ALUMNI NETWORK KIEL’S STORY – BCG people typically will progress to take up – Sydney born and raised, all work/life based CEO roles or launch their own ventures in Sydney • Ahmed Fahour, CEO of Australia Post – Started career at Deloitte in a risk advisory • John Legend, Grammy award winning role before moving to Westpac in an in-house artist advisory role • Adam Jacobs – Co-Founder of the ICONIC – Completed MBA Executive, where he had the • Melodie Potts – CEO of Teach for Australia opportunity to spend 5 months at Kellogg in Chicago on exchange CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – During his time at Kellogg, was exposed to – Involved in Jarwun – which is focused on management consulting and encouraged by improving the lives of indigenous Australians, his networks there to apply long term relationship (15 years) – Successful secured an offer at BCG following – BCG globally support a lot of different causes/ the 2015 Careers Month recruitment, started organisations - World Food Organisation and in July 2016 World Health Organisation – engaged by – Recent highlight - Firm wide conference in WHO when the Ebola outbreak occurred Cairns, with everyone from the Australian – See www.bcgperspectives.com for more offices. They assembled a band made up of information members across the national offices – The WENDY’S STORY BCGs – was – Studied urban planning at undergrad, enjoyed “NICE TO SEE IT’S NOT JUST built environment, stats, etc ABOUT POWERPOINT AND – Entered boutique environmental consulting firm after graduation SPREADSHEETS” – Went travelling, ended up completing her – Enjoys working with talented, passionate Masters in Sweden where she got her first people with a broad range of interests, in exposure to business – Came back to Australia, entered into MBA both their professional and personal lives at AGSM which was transformational and through her MBA, was exposed to SO, WHAT DO THEY LOOK FOR? management consulting and offered a – Creativity and curiosity - defining the problem consulting role at BCG following completion and coming up with the solutions requires of her FT MBA looking beyond the normal, beyond the – Stayed for a couple of years, and joined easy answer, it is important to display your Stockland Group when her favourite partner creativity of thought and natural curiosity left BCG to head up their Strategy team, spent “YOU HAVE TO BE GOOD AT – a third of current cases are a mix of BCG/ MAZES” BCGDV, but will effectively work as one team – BCG brings strategic thinking while DV – You need to be able to demonstrate structured focuses on building disruptive businesses – Example – Currently starting a project on thinking, apply rigorous problem solving skills looking at customer retention in large FS and show logic when cracking the case organisation, where they have millions of – You will usually be working as part of a large pieces of data but do not have the capability team when on a project, so it important to to drive insights from their data. demonstrate how well you work in teams WHAT DO THE FIRST FEW MONTHS TO LOOK – There will be typical interview questions too - LIKE? – How have you demonstrated leadership? – Kiel – Joined in April, spent first 2 weeks – What was the impact of your leadership? in training, two outcomes: 1) to give you a flavour of the firm, how does it all work? INTERVIEW ROUNDS Typical consulting admin; 2) core toolkit, – Typically conducted over two rounds getting you on the right track – structured consisting of two interviews, each 45 minutes case work, instructor-led, one week to solve a – 3 components to each interview; 1) getting case, provided with huge volumes of data and to know you (behavioural), 2) case, 3) you tasked to come up with a recommendation getting to know them – they encourage – Currently working on cases across different questions! industries but primarily within Financial Services and Retail sectors – They are interested to see what your life is – Regular training and development like before BCG, where you are looking to implemented, every second Friday there is a drive your career while you are at BCG, and half day taken for training well beyond that, what are you passionate – You are typically thrown into cases and about in the corporate sphere? given accountability and responsibility for a certain component of the case from the very CASE INTERVIEW beginning, it isn’t an easy start but there is a – What approach do you want to take? huge amount of support available – What are the sets of tools do you have at your disposal? – Wendy – – What kind of tools are you able to create to “IT’S ALWAYS A BIT OF A SHOCK drive that outcome? TO THE SYSTEM BUT THERE IS – There is a wealth of online information (demo A LOT OF SUPPORT, EVERYONE cases, practice tips etc) on the BCG website – Regardless of whether you intend to enter KNOWS YOU ARE SMART management consulting after your MBA, case OTHERWISE YOU WOULDN’T interview practice is a good business tool to BE THERE” have as it gives you the capability to build out a solution that is well supported by logic – Chris – everyone will go out of their way – You have to be willing to get your hands to find out about you, it’s a very welcoming dirty, ask rigorous questions during the case environment interview – these cases will replicate the real-world engagements the interviewer has AM I ABLE TO APPLY TO OFFICES OUTSIDE OF worked on AUSTRALIA? – You will be asked to select three geographical Q&A preferences as part of the application process e.g. Sydney, London, Paris DIGITAL VENTURES AND STRATEGY – HOW DO – Each office will review your application THEY WORK TOGETHER IN A PROJECT? based on their need. If they wish to interview – DV is a subsidiary of BCG you, they will do so outside of the Sydney – Will be different for each project and depends recruitment on the problem you are trying