Is anyone here a consultant?. I'm looking at going back and getting my MBA And was wanting ideas. Sometimes I think the idea of traveling for work is what I would love and I have read consultants rack up the frequent flyer miles.

It's not that glamorous...

my first 12 months of consulting i flew into Toledo, OH Mon-Thurs and stayed at an $79/night hotel... wasn't that sexy. in subsequent years i was lucky enough to hit some cool places but there are definitely folks (even top MBAs) that land long term gigs (i.e. 2-3 years) traveling weekly to places like bentonville arkansas..

i value and enjoyed most of my consulting experience, but i wouldn't base the decision to get an MBA on a desire to be a traveling consultant.

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my first 12 months of consulting i flew into Toledo, OH Mon-Thurs and stayed at an $79/night hotel... wasn't that sexy. in subsequent years i was lucky enough to hit some cool places but there are definitely folks (even top MBAs) that land long term gigs (i.e. 2-3 years) traveling weekly to places like bentonville arkansas..

i value and enjoyed most of my consulting experience, but i wouldn't base the decision to get an MBA on a desire to be a traveling consultant.

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This summarizes my thoughts more eloquently.

In my 2.5 years as a consultant (in Dallas), here are the places I traveled:

1. Cisco, Tx (stayed in Eastland and the closest place to get a drink was about 30-45 minutes away as it was a dry county)
2. Wynnewood, Ok (stayed in Pauls Valley)
3. Addison, Tx (local work)
4. Ft Worth, Tx (local work, this was actually up north by Alliance Airport... for the people who lived in Lakewood, University Park, or the M Streets, this was a hell of a commute every day...)
5. Birmingham, AL
6. Houston, Tx
7. Corpus Christi, Tx
8. Denver, Co

Having said that, consulting work for me is great. I like new challenges and a varied work schedule. The travel part sucks though.

approximately:
14 months in Toledo, OH
8 months between Toronto and Niagara Falls
4 months in Costa Rica
8 months in Atlanta
8 months in Los Angeles
8 more months in Atlanta
2 months in Boston
4 more months in Los Angeles
3 years in Houston (local)
1 year remote

Sprinkle in a few different week trips to NYC, Dallas, Vegas, Florida and some random site visits like Cape Girardeau Missouri and I had a pretty solid traveling consultant experience. I declined a few international opportunities long the way.

And if you are working for a company that supports alternate travel (i.e. approval to expense travel of equal or less value to a place other than flying back home for the weekend) you can bake in additional experiences.

Don't know the ratio, but for every consultant you see bragging on facebook with posts of glorious international travel, there are handfuls sharing a cubicle by day, fast food by night, and anxiously anticipating their flight home on Thursday.

Oh.. and when I was interviewing candidates the "I want to be a consultant because I like to travel" was not considered a good response

Traveling for business even if you fly business/first and stay at good hotels gets real old after a while. This includes international. It sounds great but after some time it becomes work.

I've been traveling for 12+ years and a consultant (or similar) for 6+. I love it. I had thought about getting my MBA to get into it (was doing low level software implementations) but caught a break and have rode that up well.

I've been lucky though. I never travel as much as the Big 4 guys. They often travel for pointless reasons. I worked a project recently with PwC in Chicago. They'd fly in and work out of a customer's office that the customer never went to. The customer was out in the burbs and would conference in. Just stupid. My company would go there for about two weeks, then transition that project to be primarily remote with a few onsite reviews as needed.

I'm also lucky in that I live in CA and almost all my projects are in the state. I'm in a position now where I can just go for one night, overseeing projects, rather than having to stay all wee.

Traveling can get old. But the money is awesome and the flexibility of working anywhere I want when not traveling is great.

Traveling weekly since 1999. Started when I was 26 on my own. It was great in the beginning. After getting married, children and all that comes with it, I kept with it because the money was just too good. However, as others have stated, the travel gets old ...but I was able to rationalize the bad with the hotel and airline points. The bad part was being a stranger to my kids for their first 5 to 6 years of life. It wore on me.

After 16 years, I'm hanging it up and going back to working for the "Man" in 2 weeks. People think I'm giving it up because my work level has decreased....but my work has been more than ever. However, I just can't take the travel and missing out on my children's activities anymore.

If you're single, I say go for it. However, if you make enough money doing it, then it can trap you into staying in consulting. I could never rationalize not traveling and being self-employed because I wouldn't make the same kind of money doing something else. However, it has taken a toll on my family life. Even though I'll take a slight pay-cut and put a ceiling on my income, I'm ready to say goodbye to airports, hotels and being away from home over 75% of the time.

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Traveling for business even if you fly business/first and stay at good hotels gets real old after a while. This includes international. It sounds great but after some time it becomes work.

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I don't travel anywhere near the amount consultants do, not even close... Overall it can be a nice change of pace from time to time but I end up working more, eating more, drinking more, and working out less whenever I am on the road. I am always happy to get back to TX and be with my family.

If I was single with no kids I would love it as I have friends & family in just about every part of the country.

I flew from Jackson ms into Dallas last night and though to to myself, what kind of job would require you to travel all the time, rack up a ton of airline miles, and wear a fancy suite all the time...the answer I came up with was consulting. Does getting your MBA from a top school really matter when trying to land a job with a top consulting firm or are most Top 100 MBA. schools good enough.

O am assuming top 100 MBA school was a typo and you meant top 10.

If you want to do real honest to god management consulting {not it, not hr, not implementations, not audit, not compliance, not development, etc ), an MBA is a must.

If you want to do any of the nots i listed above, an MBA isn't needed.

Top 100 was correct. I'll put it this way, my overall GPA IN college wasn't great however I'm close to graduating with a Business degree from Ole Miss. Even if I knock the GMAT out of the park I doubt many schools will accept someone with around a 2.8 or 2.9 GPA. Into their program.

You'd be surprised. grads matter gnat matters and your story matters.

Thanks Duncan gives me a day a hope. What about age, seeing as how I'm 32 I wonder how many top firms would hire someone 35 or older for their first business job. All other work experience has been military and working DOD jobs.

Do you have your clearance?

So you are getting another undergrad right now? If that is the case work the **** out of the on campus process.


Military is a big plus in today's market. Especially if you were an officer

I do have a clearance, however I am not an officer I'm an electronic guru Avionics. I am in still and need about more classes as I taking advantage of the retake policy to improve on some classes I messed around with when I initially started out. My degree process started over 10 years Avon and had a lot of bumps and bruises to say the least.

How would one make themselves more appealing to consulting jobs without a MBA? I have a few more years of experience that I need before that route but would like to get into consulting as well.
My current job is very similar to consulting but requires me to move every six months instead of just weekly travel.

I did 12 months in Saskatoon Saskatchewan when I was a consultant. It was cold as ****. I don't care how many mile you get, much of traveling for consulting sucks. You get tired of living in hotels