Hi All,I’m just about to enter into MC from industry and was looking for some general tips for getting on and doing well. During interviews a couple of interesting ideas were mentioned:• Choose 1 or 2 partners to build a relationship with, they can help push your career• Develop a ‘hard skill’ (coding etc.)• Be proactive in building up your network within the firmIf anyone had any comments on the 3 above, or any to add I’d be grateful!Thanks

All of those 3 things are important to do, and I've seen different people try to achieve them in a variety of different ways. The most important thing you can do is to deliver a high standard of work on time. That's the basic thing you have to do. Build a reputation for delivering and the relationship with the partners will be based upon that you're someone they can rely on and trust.The other thing I would suggest is to start writing on your final deliverable as early as you can in the project. This will make it clear who you have to speak to and when. There's nothing worse than pulling an all nighter to write a final report and realising that in order to complete x you need further inputs from a,b and c.

Wow. Listen to Frio.Politics and suchlike is something you have to survive. But Frio is so, so right. You'll be working with bright people and the ones that matter are interested in one thing only: getting a good job done. Everything else is mostly BS.Frio's advice is so good you would do well to print it out and keep it stuck on your wall.

It REALLY depends on the size of the firm. From my experience, the smaller, the fairer. This means the actual quality of the work you produce will matter more and it will speak for you.This is different in bigger companies with massive graduate schemes. At the most junior ranks, the work you have to do is sliced up so fine that sometimes there's no way to shine other than not going home early and accept anything with a smile. In this case, since the work can't differentiate you, people will focus on just blowing their own trumpet, sucking up to managers and senior managers, gossiping and all that crap. Also, consider that the table can be tilted by a number of other factors such as1 - being posted on remote jobs Monday to Friday straight from day one and for months (this means that you won't be able to build your network or be known)2 - inflation/deflation of performance ratings. I remember some projects seemed to give too many top notch 5/5 reviews to their analysts and consultants, someone high up noticed and artificially capped the maximum rate at 4/5. How nice to land your first project as a young gun and be told that, no matter how hard you try, you can't get the best review?3 - connections, favoritism, nepotism. There's a great many stories of partner offspring being ushered in without having to do part of the interview process, having first dibs on projects and the like. Again, the bigger the company, the higher the chance.4 - the development manager you get given (i.e. your mentor): this is also a massive factor of uncertainty and asimmetry.

Thanks very much all - appreciate your input.

Yeah, and on that point about the mentor - make sure he or she is at least 10 years older than you.

That's a good rule of thumb in the absence of other elements but, essentially, what really matters is how close the man (or woman) is to decision makers and how visible he/she is.Also, no such thing as "make sure" since these are assigned in a completely random fashion unless you had something like an internship the summer before and you managed to build some kind of network.

Mentors are assigned in a completely random fashion?! Take control!I've never had a mentor assigned to me, even in companies where this is an established process. I've looked for people with the experience and position in the company who I think can help me and asked them directly. After they've agreed, I've informed the company programme that my mentor is x.