So you think you want to be a tech consultant? Find out how to break into this field straight out of college from tech consultants themselves.
It's ideal to have a background that covers aspects of tech and business. Majoring in something like Management Information Systems (MIS) is one way to show you have interest and experience in both.
MIS is a common major for people who go into tech consulting. ... [But] Firms are very good about judging you as a whole person, not necessarily your degree.
– Former tech consultant @ Deloitte
I came in actually as a business major. I concentrated in Finance, Management Information Systems , and Strategy. And ... the reason why they picked my resume was actually because I had both business and tech.
My MIS (which is basically like a business version of tech) was actually what really attracted them. But also knowing that I had the business experience – and on my resume actually had both business and tech experience. You have the capability to learn technology to be in the technology industry to also be a consultant but you also have the capability to understand a client's business because if you don't understand it you can't be a good consultant.
That said, majoring in MIS is just one way to show you're interested in tech and business. You could also demonstrate this in other ways, such as through extracurricular activities.
I would actually say that it's actually really ideal to have both business and tech. And it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to have "either or" or both in terms of your majors.
It could be something as simple as an extracurricular you did. So that doesn't necessarily count as education but it does fall under the realm of what you can do in college to increase your chances
To learn more about how employers think about degree requirements, check out The degrees that'll land you a Big 4 consulting internship.
Yes, liberal arts majors can become tech consultants.
Tech consulting is a lot of project management, so I'd say liberal arts majors can absolutely be tech consultants. I will take it a step further: I don't think you MUST have a 4-year college degree to do project management (this is my personal opinion, not a statement on current hiring practices).
As a project management analyst, I was not configuring the software, I was mainly tracking workstream statuses, maintaining Jira boards, running meetings as a scrum master, and handling middle management-esque tasks that my team was to be shielded from - a lot of client facing meetings, minutes, etc.
Software developers don't want to run meetings, deal with project sponsors, or explain why a feature build is behind schedule. That's where you would come in, as a strong writer, orator, and detail-minded resource.
Personally, when I was in Big 4, I felt like I had a bit of a self-imposed chip on my shoulder. I was not a software developer, I did not have erudite tech knowledge; therefore, what I could contribute, I contributed as robust and consistent as I could - the Zoom meetings always went off without a hitch, for example. The decks were crisp, the minutes were tight, and that alone helped me make a name for myself.
– Former tech consultant @ Deloitte
In general, you'd apply to a tech consulting role and firms would decide where to place you based on your background and their needs.
A tech consulting team is made up of lots of different roles. There are more "functional" roles and more "technical" roles.
In a functional role, you would do more big-picture things like learning about a client's needs and managing processes. Here are the two main functional roles in tech consulting.
Project Manager. Project managers oversee the entire consulting project, making sure everything runs smoothly and on time.
In a technical role, you might code, integrate different systems, or test software. There are also data analyst roles where you'd help companies with their data systems.
Functional consulting is very focused on gathering business requirements from the client. ... I really like these sessions, because we get to draw on the whiteboard, like "Draw me your process on a whiteboard!" and we try to visualize their process in the software. ...
So functional consultants are for the management consulting side – you want to talk to clients, gather requirements, build the flow ... – and after that, you talk to the technical consultants to make that happen.
Some roles will be both functional and technical. This means they'll require you to talk to clients AND roll out the software for them.
This tends to be the case for enterprise software that's more user-friendly – since it requires less technical knowledge (e.g. coding skills) to build, the same consultant can handle both clients and the hands-on work of configuring the software.
We in the Workday Practice do the configurations ourselves. However in other implementations, where there's more code, those implementations are more for technical consultants.
Regardless of whether you're functional or technical, you'll most likely need to specialize in one software and then in either ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) and EPM (Enterprise Performance Management).
SAP, Salesforce, and Workday are the main enterprise software tech consultants specialize in. While these tools are often known for one particular aspect (for example Workday is known primarily as an HR tool), they are actually all a suite of tools that are meant to serve as many enterprise needs as possible.
Workday started off primarily as an HR tool (for payroll, recruitment, onboarding), but they branched over to financials as well. So I specialize in Procure to Pay (supply chain side) so on the Accounts Payable side – from how you procure your product to how you pay your suppliers. I have implemented the HR side as well, but I'm not an expert as I've only done it once.
There's also a Tax side to it as well, record to report, APAR, FDM, how it links to your planning, budgeting process. Back in 2019, they acquired Workday Adaptive Insights. They had ERP but they weren't strong in the planning side and rebranded to Workday Adaptive Planning so clients use this tool to budget and forecast.
You know how certain companies use Excel to make planning and forecasts? Clients put all their numbers (how much inventory, sales numbers, revenue) into the Workday planning tool to do their forecasts and budgets. So you configure the system for clients (they don't know how to do that) at the backend.
You don't need to know which practice you want to specialize in, but most of the time the firm will put you in one before your interviews, so it's helpful to know a bit about each one.
ERP involves anything that has already happened or is happening right now. This covers your resources, like your:
- Employees (human resources)
- Inventory
- Money (Accounts Payable, Accounts Receivable type of matters)
EPM involves anything that's happening in the future. It involves the planning, forecasting, and budgeting matters that allow a company to plan for the future – so it can improve its performance (that's the P in EPM).
In other words:
Here's an example of an ERP implementation project.
Let's say a client tells us "We want to purchase pens. How do we purchase them? How do we know which supplier to buy from?" In this case, they might want a system where suppliers can submit bids and the company can filter out the top three bidders.
So we would go in and configure the system so they could do this. We'd configure everything from how the pen is bought to how the company pays the supplier for the pen – and other things along the way, like inventory, supply chain, etc. Depending on their needs, we may set up HR tools as well.
Here's an example of an EPM implementation project.
We would study the client's original planning methods, like how they calculate their sales, revenue, and delivery fees. We need to make sense of their formulas and set it up in the system.
With our expertise, we can also make recommendations about how to calculate something more efficiently. Then we would design the system to mimic their current system, with some improvements in efficiency.
What they want to get out of a planning system is basically a balance sheet, income statement, cashflow statement – the things they need to budget and make forecasts. Management doesn't really care about anything else.
Moving between technical and functional roles is possible.
I started out as a Quality Assurance tester and transitioned to a Project Manager role. If you can sell yourself, then you've got a project. Project Management is essentially middle management.
I heard instances of analysts going from project management to possibly even software developer, but you have to indicate your intent to do so a few months in advance with your coach.
– Former tech consultant @ Deloitte
However, moving between software-based roles is difficult. That's because you're usually placed into a software practice from the very start.
One downside is that when I came in for the Technology Development Program [right out of college], they put me right into the Workday practice, which I had no say in whatsoever.
And once the firm has paid for you to get certified in a certain software, they don't want to move you to a different software.
The Workday ecosystem is pretty locked down. Like if you're certified, this is what you're going to be doing ... and if you're not certified, it's hard to get into Workday. It's like it goes both ways.
It's not easy to move between software. Just think about it from the perspective of a scheduler (someone at the firm who decides who to staff on what projects). If there are four people certified in Workday who already have working knowledge of it, why would they staff someone new to Workday on a project?
Another thing to consider is the firm's perspective. Let's say you're certified in Workday and want to switch to Salesforce. That might be quite tough, because the firm has already invested in your Workday training – keep in mind each certificate costs the firm $1000-$3000.
Moving between ERP and EPM is possible though.
We work in silos mostly. Even if we work on the same software but on different sides (ERP vs. EPM), it's very unlikely that we will talk. So if you work in one, you won't necessarily get exposure to the other unless you're on a project that requires you to integrate both systems.
In terms of how easy it is to move between ERP and EPM – it's easy and at the same time not easy.
It's easy in that if a new hire wants to move from, say, ERP to EPM, they can get certified in EPM. If they like EPM, they can stay in that practice. If not, they come back again. There is that flexibility, but it's also quite difficult, as you need different knowledge for each side.
For example, I belong to the Workday EPM practice (which deals with planning and forecasting). If you tell me to implement the HR side of Workday (which is ERP), I can't because it involves dealing with a company's payroll. If a company gives me their payroll information, I won't understand it – and if I don't understand it, I can't figure out my clients' needs.
I also don't know how to implement a Workday Payroll module. It's different from how I configure a Workday Planning module. The methods for setting these up are different.
You can get certified of course. For example, I'm technically certified in Workday Prism (it's another tool but for data warehousing), and I can configure but I will struggle through it, because while I know what to click to build certain things, I don't have background knowledge in data warehousing or the system knowledge on the best way to build it.
In sum, it is possible to move between ERP and EPM but you need to have relevant background knowledge and system knowledge.
Different firms will do different things. EY doesn't have a Workday practice for instance.
There are also a lot of very specialized boutique firms. One boutique consulting firm I know of only does Workday Adaptive practice – not even Workday financials or the HR side of Workday. But they take care of the whole process from start to finish, including support. Another boutique might focus on Salesforce or specifically in Customer Relationship Management.
In general, employers like to see when a candidate has both tech and consulting skills. This tech consultant sums up what recruiters look for.
Even though you may be interested in tech, you still want to show or be able to exhibit your soft skills. I think that's so crucial. I know so many computer science majors and engineering majors that say "I want to do tech consulting" but don't have anything to show that they can be a consultant. ...
If you're on the business side and you want to go into technology, you want to show something about technology either that you're focusing on a particular area within business (in my case I was Management Information Systems) or maybe you took an internship that is for example product management or data analytics – like something that's kind of in between but not necessarily fully technical like coding.
Then, after recruiters have checked your resume, they'll pass it onto actual tech consultants, who'll see if you are a better fit for a specific software.
Recruiters take a first pass at your resumes and then they get two people from each practice (e.g. Salesforce, Oracle, Workday) and we evaluate whether you'd be a good fit for the software we implement.
For example, if I'm an SAP specialist, I'll check your resume to see if you're well-versed in SQL, C++, Java, since you need this knowledge to be able to configure SAP. But if I'm a Workday EPM specialist, I'd want to know that you know something about financial planning.
We'll then rate your resume. If an SAP person looks at your resume and rates it as a 1/10, nobody on the SAP side will interview you. But if a Workday person gives you a high rating, they'll slot you in for an interview.
Outside of the Big 4, I worked for a boutique tech consulting firm out of college. The Director saw that I had previous experience dealing with financial statements and had some experience using SAP at an internship. That's how I got the job. Basically, if you're going to be configuring software that related to a company's finances, you should have some basic accounting or finance knowledge.
To learn more about what consulting firms like the Big 4 consider, check out:
Here's how a tech consultant described the interview process.
In one day, we'll interview about 5-6 candidates. What questions we'll ask depends on whether it's a behavioral interview or a case study.
In behavioral interviews, we'll ask about your strengths and weaknesses or questions like "What would you do if you have a colleague who's making things difficult for you?"
In case studies, where we'll give you a scenario and ask you to solve a problem. There's no right or wrong answer. There isn't even a grading rubric sometimes. I just want to see how you analyze it.
I haven't really seen a student fail an interview – except one candidate during a behavioral interview. I just had no idea what she was talking about.
Interestingly, many students go into interviews without much knowledge of what they're interviewing for.
When I was interviewing for a boutique tech consulting firm, I didn't know what I was interviewing for. Same at the Big 4 firms – most of the time, candidates do not know, for instance, why they've been placed in a certain practice (ERM or EPM). I'll usually explain it to them.
Employers are understanding of this though. Tech consulting is a lot of on-the-job training – and it's tool-specific, so it's difficult for you to gain this knowledge in school.
Employers may not even ask you about the specifics of the role you applied for.
I did software testing for the first six months but didn't have any interview questions about how do you do software testing.
– Former junior consultant @ Deloitte
In general, the case studies you'll be asked to solve in a tech consulting interview will be along these lines:
What are the considerations you would need to take into account when your client needs to move from one IT platform to a different one?
Here's a former tech consultant's best advice on responding to cases like this.
For a tech consulting case, you don't need to know about the premiere market-dominating software.
It's more about problem-solving and how you'd build the software, how you'd test it, how you'd ensure all stakeholders are accommodated and input is being sought. Make sure you're sequentially leading the interviewer through the case. Also consider potential developments or problems that might arise when giving your response.
It'd also be good to know about common features in enterprise software, and common considerations that every company needs to make these days (e.g. cybersecurity).
– Former tech consultant @ Deloitte
You can also check out videos (like this one) to see what frameworks tech consultants use to solve case interviews.
I think everyone's gonna say this about consulting – you have to network. Make sure you network with people in technology consulting and all the firms you're interested in, because like we said, it's different across all these different firms, so knowing really what they're focusing on can actually help you see what particular skills you may want to focus on.
So right now, because of the pandemic, most people are focusing on cloud, so you may want to do something more in cloud, like for example Salesforce. There's a lot of resources out there that are completely free.
I would definitely recommend filtering for Deloitte and your college on Linkedin, finding 2-3 people with the same major as you that work at Deloitte, and reaching out for a 15 minute call. You can cite some specific aspects of Deloitte that they tell you on the calls when in interviews - e.g. "I connected with So and So, a consultant in the Kansas City office in the ABC practice and they mentioned XYZ, which is very interesting to me."
– Former tech consultant @ Deloitte
For more tips on how to land an internship in consulting, check out How to break into Big 4 consulting as a student!
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