Hi guys,I've recently graduated from the University of Birmingham with a 2:1 in English, and am really keen to get into management consultancy. However, with the vast majority of deadlines for the consultancy graduate schemes having already passed, I realise that I can now only apply for the 2012 intakes. I'm looking to get a job in the meantime, and my question/worry is, will the job I take for the next year have a great deal of influence on my chances of getting into consultancy? Should I be looking ONLY at jobs in the financial sector, or would I be ok taking a job in, say, marketing?Thanks in advance for your help and advice,Tom

Hi Tom,In my experience the type of job doesn't matter, its just good experience to show you've been employed and achieved things as part of your employment. I took a job in marketing initially before joining a grad scheme and its never caused me any issues at all. Most grad schemes are looking for you to fit a number of competences so as long as you have examples of how you fit those I think you will be fine.Good Luck!

Tom - firstly some of the major global firms do recruit to their graduate intakes all year round. So don't take it as an absolute non-starter to try and get straight into consulting now.(we aren't that involved in promoting firms' graduate recruitment programmes so I can't give you an accurate steer on who's still recruiting fresh grads I'm afraid)Assuming you do end up going down the route of securing a different job for now, to then apply for the next year's graduate intake in consulting, my advice would be similar to allthingsconsidered's.You will almost invariably (unless you choose some niche consultancy) be joining a grad scheme to be a generalist. So your first years will be spent working on projects in a variety of sectors. Hence the sector you work in for now isn't so critical (though perhaps avoid the public sector...). What will be beneficial will be to work for a household name or for a start-up business. The former gives your application a certain "rubber seal of quality" and shows you have gained some professional experience in a recognised corporate. Whilst the latter implies you will have coped with being thrown in at the deep end, turning your hand to whatever needed doing in the start-up business and being able to cope with stressful / time-pressured situations (all traits of a good consultant).The other option certainly worth considering is to take a gap year and go and learn another language by immersing yourself in it. If this could give you good fluency in a major European language - or passable fluency in say Chinese - then that would certainly be a positive for your applications down the line.Hope this is helpful Tom and hope things work out for you.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

That's good to hear, and very helpful advice, thank you both very much for your help.