I recently received an offer from Deloitte Consulting [Analyst] TI. Like a number of graduates I met on my assessment day, I was later in applying for their recruitment process, so EA/TI were the only options left for September 2008. However, I hold a strong preference for strategy/operations.I have a few questions – your help would be greatly appreciated (some questions can obviously only be answered by Deloitte insiders):----1. Will taking on a TI role now focus me to working within IT/Technology from now on within consulting? Or will my analyst training allow me to move onto different areas - Strategy/Operations in other firms? Is TI really just IT consulting?----2. Is there a huge difference in my experience/qualifications of being a TI analyst to being a:(a) Deloitte EA analyst(b) Deloitte Strategy/Operations analyst----3. What experience can I expect to gain in the TI analyst role: [Many client facing roles with senior management? Exposure to high level projects? Training? Qualifications?]----4. How possible is it to move from TI to Operations/Strategy within Deloitte? (If so, when would this be possible [years?])----I really don’t want to make the wrong move early on in my career and I would go again in the recruitment process next year at an earlier stage, applying to another area, if needs be. But I was wondering if this position may be a good for work experience, give me a good brand on the CV, which would then help me move to strategy/operations either within Deloitte or into other firms after a few years. So any help would be great in helping me make this decision. Many Thanks in advance :)

I'm in exactly the same position. I could only apply for EA, not strategy (Which is what I wanted to do). Any info on the above would be great.

The key thing to keep in mind when you're starting out as an analyst at a big 4 consultancy is how little control you're going to have over the assignments you receive. You will work where needed, which will be broadly aligned to your service line, but not necessarily always so. And your experience is going to be almost identical to the other analysts: presentation design, spreadsheet work and meeting invitations. I don't write this to sound discouraging or condescending, just trying to be honest. Another issue to remember about Deloitte is that all the more senior members are aligned to both a service line and an area of expertise. This means someone in TI would also be a specialist in global banking. If you stay with the dot, you'll eventually wind up building a similar set of skills. In the interim, you'll see a number of different projects across the various service lines.This brings me to my last point: it's a patronage game, just like every other organisation. This means that if a TI partner is involved in a project in pharma, for example, they are going to work their hardest to get their people staffed onto the project (they have service line utilization targets to meet). As a result you may get to see a lot of different things, meet different people and develop those networks that will possibly allow you to move into another line, if you want.Finally, remember this: Your new, enjoy the ride. Get to know as many people as you can. Work hard and try to learn as much as you can (both professionally and politically). And while you can do as much as possible to shape your career remember two things: 1) in any large organisation your career is more a product of the relationships you have (both those you control, and more important those you don't) than it is your deliberate efforts; and 2) what you want for your career as a new analyst is not necessarily what you want in 2-3 years time. Good luck!

While it si possible to move at various stages, it is never easy. I did work with one Senior Consultant who had managed to move into strategy from EA and had built up a good network within the firm. On the other hand there are not huge numbers of people that manage it as lots of analysts in EA and even ops want to be in strategy as it seems more glamorous. I would recommend getting stuck in there in what you are doing and building a good network in the firm and finding out what really interests you.On a side note, I only once had a TI analyst on one of my projects and they were not good at all and required a lot of support and time to underperform even what I would have expected on day 1 from a grad

I think 'knows the dot' has missed the mark here. Nick doesnt seem so concerned about the day to day activities of a strat vs. TI analyst as the impact this decision has on his future career development.The truth is you will get branded a 'techy' if you go to TI, far more so than in EA. You will be trained in TI-specific qualifications and separated from the rest of analysts for large parts of induction. Once you try and leave, no strategy consultanncies will really consider you if all you have is TI experience. The opportunities to move from TI to strategy as an analyst/consultant are virtually non-existent. From TI you could maybe move to EA. Occasionally someone may move between ops and strat but this is rare. If you are interested in strategy or operations I would hold out for next year, do some research in exactly what you want to do and apply properly to a number of firms. There's no point wasting 2-3 years in a part of the company where you do not enjoy the work and it is only limiting your further options.Also, the work is very different, even as an analyst between the workstreams. In strategy you will travel far less than the other areas, but probably get less client exposure. And in parts of TI you will just be coding for months, without even opening powerpoint.

A few questions.1. What's wrong with coding? It beats preparing powerpoints any day.2. Your post seems to suggest that people who do not consider themselves 'techies' or who do not want to become one should try and avoid TI as they may end up coding for weeks on end. Does this mean that the green dot does in fact consider people who are 'non-technical' for roles on projects where they are expected to code? Surely if you can code, you're already a techy. And if you're not a techy (and therefore can't code)... then how on earth does THAT work?

1. There is nothing wrong with coding intrinsically. But the original poster holds a strong preference for strat/ops. When I said 'just coding' I meant 'purely coding' did not mean to cause offence!2. Deloitte always have TI vacancies left at the end of grad recruitment. I know people coding there now who have history degrees and no prior technical expertise, just strong academics. They teach you to code through training.

That kind of thing always puzzles me about some of these big firms that hire history grads to become programmers... Basically, if they want someone to do some coding, why not recruit a programmer in the first place? Or is it that someone who studied history or fine arts or whatever can do a better job at debugging runtime errors in C++ applications that a comp sci grad can?

People who study coding are generally good at coding and not much else. Bad presentation, articulation and general professionalism. That is why the dotters prefer to train up history grads to become programmers. Lets face it, you cant teach professionalism to a programmer now, can you?

Dot Dot Dot, not always true that all the programmers are bad, ie. presentation skills, social skills etc.In fact, when given the opportunity most of these people deliver more than usual "generalist" staff. Nick_W, if you want to pursue a strat/ops career dont get involved with any tech-term!

Just for the record, I am a techie.

You also sound like an idiot. I'm a comp sci grad and I have none of the issues you describe. Furthermore, I know many like me who are good presenters, sociable and highly professional. Don't generalise for the sake of getting a reaction, it's cheap and to be quite frank, rather pathetic.

I am confused. I thought Deloitte TI guys are just doing requirements/business analysis/project management stuff.....not coding! Not even IBM does that anymore...