Can Accenture ISIS go to top MBA

McGurk:

Work hard, get promoted, and score well on the GMATs and you should be fine. Emphasis on the work hard part. It's no MBB, but seriously, entire business schools aren't comprised of MBB and GS. Being an IT consultant will teach you the soft skills of consulting, which, in my opinion, are highly valued.

Thank you. Yes I do think it is a good job because it can give me a smooth transfer from IT to management. However, a lot of people said IT consultant will not get into top B-school becuase the way of thinking.

abacab:

Search company and school name fields in LinkedIn and see if you can find anyone who did Accenture and then went to top business schools (however you define it, HSW, M7, Top 15, etc.). That should answer your question.

Thank you, I searched it, most result is top MBA->ACN Management.

longn:

there are definitely a lot of skills that you can learn while at accenture. a lot of people knock IT, but a lot of people don't realize that IT spending is enormous, in 2012 alone it's predicted to be ~$2.7 trillion.

if you haven't noticed, but IT is huge now, with web apps, cloud, social media, tech giants, etc. business strategy has shifted towards partnering with IT. no longer is IT looked as a cost center but as an enabler of business strategy.

businesses operate a lot leaning now, and that's thanks to IT strategy, infrastructure and security. workers can now work remotely, collaborate from anywhere in the world, make business processes more efficient and help executives make decisions with real-time analytic and transparency due to the systems they use.

it may not sound sexy like developing a new product or thinking about how to penetrate a new market, but there is a strategy to IT. afterall, a large chunk of a corporate budget goes to IT spending to ensure that they have the resources to help them reach new audience or provide new services to consumers which will drive top and bottom line growth.

stick with it for a few years, understand project management, see the trends and take that knowledge and move on if you'd like. just don't think it's the end of the world.

best of luck,

Thank you very much. I am from engineering school but know nothing about programming, clouds etc. So I think it is really helpful to know the daily work of IT consultant. It seems the majority work is to implement IT application for clients. However, lucky that I don't know IT programming, so my work maybe focus on finding the gup of the business process. I may have some chances to talk with the managerial level and I think I can learn a lot on operation. Still it is not management and strategy, but it gives me solid understanding of operating, a good beginning for a entry level. Anyway, I will try to find more work on strategy and business process. Hope I can get top MBA after 3 years.

eightyeight:

I was accepted to an M7 business school after a little over 2 years of experience with ACN. It can be done. My advice:

Focus your resume and essays around what you learn about project management as opposed to technical IT skills.

Try to work in different roles at different clients. ACN has some awesome projects with many F100 companies.

Work hard and develop a good relationship with those who rate you at the annual process. Get that "Significantly Above" or "At the very top" rating.

As the above poster mentioned, I would like to echo the importance and relevance of IT management. There are tons of opportunities for unique experiences at Accenture as organizations realize IT benefits reach beyond cost savings.

Good luck.

Thank you. Good to see a successful example!

Sexy_Like_Enrique:

i think elite b-school admissions is a crap shoot to certain extent. there are people who come from McKinsey with top grades that don't crack a top 5 mba... on the other hand, there are people from Accenture IT practice that break into a top 5 MBA school.

I am pretty sure Accenture is a good enough of company that you won't be disadvantaged when you apply to top mba programs. my brother's roommate at HBS went from Accenture -> Harvard MBA -> MBB consulting.

(Edit: however, I am not sure if that guy was in management consulting division of Accenture or IT consulting division of Accenture)

MBB is my dream. As I consider consulting as my career, I hope one day I can be one of the top strategy consulting.