The firm recently named its competition's U.S. winning team, comprised of Columbia Business School students Michael Weltz, 29, Robert Wieker, 27, and Shari Cooperman, 26.
A.T. Kearney went to top business schools at the start of the school year to encourage students to form teams, says Tom Slaight, partner at A.T. Kearney. "The objective here is to try to work hard to demystify management consulting."
Teams were tasked with a business case based on an actual A.T. Kearney client, says Weltz, and they gave presentations to firm execs portraying clients. For their efforts, the Columbia team will walk away with enough to pay for books for a few semesters. The top team from each school won $2,000; as the top national team, the Columbia students will split $5,000. The global winner will be named in January.
And because the Columbia team only had three participants means a bigger piece of the pie for each. In true consultant style, Weltz said he saw the positive side of a tighter team, adding, "We didn't see it as a disadvantage." A.T. Kearney partner John Blascovich says there's more pressure on each member when it's a smaller team. "Everybody's got to be very committed."
In addition to the cash prize, the competition is a great career launcher, as participants are all guaranteed an internship interview at the firm. Slaight says the tool is a recruiting asset, but not in the traditional sense, adding that many current A.T. Kearney employees' first knowledge of the firm is from the competition.
"[The competition] does two things," Slaight says. "It presents A.T. Kearney's capabilities in a much more complete way than you can do through a recruiting presentation at the school, and I think it presents our people very well."
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