Jamie Devlin has just graduated – and will start work as a strategy consultant at Bain next year.

Introduce yourself!

I studied Engineering Economics and Management at New College. I have just finished my fourth year here, and plan to take some time off to travel, before starting at a management consultancy in February.

What advantages do you think your degree has given you?

EEM is quite a tough degree because you need a lot of maths for the Engineering part, as well as the ability to write good essays for Economics and Management. So learning those combination of skills has definitely been helpful. Also, as the course is fairly intense and time consuming, it really has taught me the importance of good time management.

Did you do any work experience or internships? How was this useful?

Yes, lots actually! In my gap year and first year summer I worked for Engineering companies, in my second year summer I worked for an investment bank and as part of the EEM course you spend half of the fourth year in industry, which I did at Citi. All of the experiences were useful in their own way, but the fact I haven’t ended up doing any of the careers goes to show that internships can be just as useful for deciding what you don’t, rather than do want to do. Often banking internships pay rather well too (less so engineering!)

You are starting at Bain next year. Give us one particular reason why you choose strategy consultancy….

I like the variety of people you get in consulting, and the short term nature of most of the projects; if things are bad one week, you could be doing something totally different the next.

What do you think made you stand out at the application/interview stage in such a competitive industry?

I think I was able to keep my head in the very pressurised interview situations. Also I am quite a positive and talkative person – showing enthusiasm is essential for successful interviews.

If you weren’t going to work for Bain, where would you be working?

Maybe another consultancy or maybe doing something completely different, like a ski season.

Why aren’t you starting work til February?

I believe there is no rush to start work as soon as you leave uni…taking some time out to enjoy yourself and travel, having interesting experiences is very important, because I’m well aware that in the real world of work you often have to take things quite seriously.

Where do you see yourself in ten years?

Hopefully as a successful partner in a private equity firm making lots of money and having a nice house on the coast. I’m not sure if this is realistic though, private equity may not even exist by then!

In forty?

Hmm hopefully still alive, thinking about retirement and staying healthy.

Do you think strategy consultancy will continue to grow as a service industry, or was the boom in consultancy a side effect of the particular business structures of the last fifteen or so years?

The old adage that consultants use your watch to tell you the time may be to some extent true, and their usefulness is constantly being debated. I hope to contribute something positive at Bain though, who pride themselves on only getting involved in projects where they can make a tangible difference. So ask me again in two years time!