Business and Commerce Informational Interview

Review of Informational Interview

Interviewee:  Joon Um
Company and Position:  Deloitte & Touche, Consultant
Date:  November 25, 2002

Overall, this interview provided me with interesting information and strengthened my relationship with Joon.

I first asked Joon about a typical workday at Deloitte & Touche.  First of all, typical workdays do not exist since consultants travel and work at other businesses offices.  For Joon, a particular day that he does frequently live consists of waking up, flying to Portland, checking in to a hotel, settling in at the client’s workplace, dealing with urgent issues, having meetings with a team or with employees of the client and performing his duties within the project. 

The main duty for Joon at his current project begins with job coding all the positions with in the client company so the client’s employees can send out tasks with the corresponding software and access to complete that task.  He then meets with the employees and trains them to use the new software.  Deloitte & Touche only trained Joon for a half a day to handle this assignment.  Most of his learning comes through trial and error.

Joon likes working as a consultant for the challenge, experience and the money.  The job lays a lot of stress on him and challenges him to work hard and reach the companies goals.  Deloitte & Touche teaches Joon a lot, through the training programs offered, and often required, and through the different work projects.  Other companies pursue consultants because of the skills and talent developed as a consultant.  Joon also values self-support and works his job to make money and take care of himself.

Consulting has a high turnover rate for many reasons.  Consulting proves hard because of the long hours, travel, days away from home, challenging work environment and job tasks.  Many consultants quit their jobs when other companies offer them positions where they will work from 9am-5pm everyday in the same office and make more money.  This free time allows the ex-consultants to start families and enjoy a life outside work.  Also, the stress level of the work can decrease.

If working or interning for Deloitte & Touch interests me, Joon recommends finding a job through the E-cruitment system at the U.W. career center.  I should apply in fall if possible for summer internships and especially full time jobs.

The qualifications and skills Deloitte recruiters look for include well roundedness, self-motivation, social skills (relationship focus), leadership and differentiation.  Right now, the most important thing I can do is pursuing what interests me.  When the time comes to interview with Deloitte, I can then concisely point out what skills I have due to the interests I pursued.

I will spend some time thinking over what I learned about working for Deloitte & Touche and consulting in general during the interview. I will also conduct more research via the internet.  If I believe an internship at Deloitte will help me achieve my goals, I will take Joon’s recruiting advice on how to acquire a summer internship with Deloitte & Touche and put the advice into action.