I have an MBA and a PhD with many significant years of professional experience in scientific research, clinical development, independent healthcare consultancy and even in education. What strikes me as a common attitude coming from blue chip consultants is that they have a silver spoon in their mouths about what they have achieved in life with their little selves & the company profits they are defending. Why don't you lot come out of your little comfort zones and extend a bit of social responsibility and help those who are desperately trying to get into consultancy with a good cause to help society at large, for example, opening up projects for newcomer consultants like myself to improve healthcare outcomes in Africa? Comments anyone or are you going to carry on with your little business school heads in the sands of western self gratification?I desperately want to get into consultancy but for a social cause, to alleviate inequalities and suffering even in the more advanced economies. However with this consultancy it is all about which blue chip you worked for and for how much budget were you accountable for? Please can someone enlighten me about consultancy is it so boring and prescriptive about past performance levels and names you have worked for? It is about time consultancy HR took a more holistic view of their candidate pool of applicants, otherwise the industry is in danger of recruiting robots enmasse!Regards,W

Interesting tactic - ask for help from people whose career choices you slate in the same post.

Try Bridgespan or Monitor Inclusive Markets

Most of the larger firms have a practice or division which looks after pro-bono, charity or development partnerships.Deloitte just call it pro-bono, Accenture's "Development Partnerships" programme is also pretty well-known.Bear in mind that the real value comes from bringing skills honed at your much-maligned blue-chip firms to organisations that could otherwise not afford the advice or benefit from such experience. Hence you'll find firms still look for people capable of delivering to "blue chip" standards.

Curious indeed. If you are so interested in helping out the third world, why are you so desperate to get into consulting? Surely working for an NGO would be more relevant? It may come as a surprise to you, but consultancies don't exist to improve the lot of society, they exist to make money from other businesses, which are mostly in the west. Whether you like it or not, the majority of consulting *is* about "managing budgets at blue chips" - and guess what, that's why they're interested in that kind of experience. And the small amount of pro bono/development work that consultancies do is largely a PR and staff morale exercise - they don't make any money out of it.If the bitter attitude you display here is any clue as to how you come across in real life, I'm not surprised you aren't having any luck.So, to answer your question: no, consultancies aren't interested in taking on failed teachers to staff their small amount of work in the third world.