Exploring Pathways to Break Into Consulting with Dustin

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, [email protected].

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.