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Success Stories
Matt Szambelan
SPIA & Terry College: August 2011
Business Analyst at Accenture
My career success story ended in me recently accepting a full-time offer as a management consultant with Accenture. Over the course of my experience, I found two things essential to my success: networking and practice/persistence. By my junior year, I had concluded that I was interested in consulting because it is dynamic and challenging work, allows for constant learning, and requires working in teams. After interning with KPMG's consulting group in Summer 2010, I realized that I wanted to narrow my focus to management consulting. Because Accenture and other management consulting firms typically do not focus their recruiting efforts at UGA, it was essential that I "network into" firms and interview opportunities.
With the help of the Career Center and Terry College of Business, I identified UGA alumni in the management consulting industry. I built relationships with dozens of people - learning about their career path, the firms they worked for, etc. Eventually, I found several job opportunities that I applied for. Once I landed some case interviews through networking, I realized that I had to prepare. The best way to prepare is to practice in an actual simulated interview. Once again, networking was essential. I contacted different professors, MBA students, and alumni in order to set up mock interviews. Mock interviews with staff in the Career Center were particularly helpful. Oftentimes I found practicing for the case interviews more consuming than class. In the end it paid off; after several rounds of interviews with different firms, I landed a management consulting position with Accenture!