Email from Dameon Ming:
Steven,
I read you profile article on the INFORMS page, and found it very
interesting. I have a few questions and hope you can find time to
answer them.
1) Why did you go into the field of consulting?
2) Do you have any advice for a young professional going into the
field consulting?
3) How can consulting related work early in one's career be
beneficial in later stages?
Thanks for you time,
Dameon Ming
Steven's Reply:
1) Why did you go into the field of consulting?
It's something that has always interested me. In consulting
you can gain a wide variety of experience, in many different
companies and many different industries, but maintain the stability
of single employer. Contracting opportunities are few and far
between in OR (though there are plenty in the Computer Science
arena). Besides, contracting tends to be very short-term and you end
up jumping from one thing to the next often without a sense of
completion on any one project. I soon discovered that my combination
of a strong CS background along with my MSOR skills was indeed a
rare combination. This makes me particularly valuable to
clients.
2) As a young professional going into the field consulting,
are there any advice? In particular, how does a someone young and
new to the field benefit from an older envirnoment?
(i) Begin with an established company. Don't expect to go out
on your own and immediately start as a consultant. Contractor maybe,
but then you won't gain the recognition you need to help you move
forward in your career later on.
(ii) Diversify. I don't know what your background is, but I would
strongly recommend having strengths in more than one area. OR is
great, but (unfortunately) many people in business don't understand
it or what it can do for them. Pure OR consulting tends to be a hard
sell, unless you've already established quite a reputation. You're
other area(s) of expertise does not have to be CS (though that has
been very helpful for me). You could focus on a particular industry,
though in this case you may be better off staying away from
consulting to begin with. Work for a company in that industry, get
somegood experience, then (possibly) re-consider consulting.
(iii) Think long term. If you have an area of expertise, could
you present a paper at a conference? How about write an article or
column for a trade magazine? Or get much more involved in an
industry group (such as INFORMS). These will all help improve your
credibility long-term. They also help keep you up-to-date with the
latest developments.
3)How can consulting related work early in one's career be
beneficial in later stages?
It tends to be more the other way around. However, like I
mentioned in #1, consulting can give you a wide variety of
experience in a variety of industries. This keeps your options open
later on in your career. | 