By Mary Zakharova
Brooklyn College held a “Management Consulting in the Digital Age: Insights of the VP of Enterprise Consulting of Media.Monks” event on Monday, Mar. 28. The conference was hosted by Professor Ngoc Cindy Pham and Nelson Jiang, alongside guest Matt Lentz, the Vice President of Enterprise Consulting at Media.Monks.
“We wanted to give them an overview of what the industry is like, and how they can break into the field, in terms of how to prepare for recruitment,” Jiang told The Vanguard, noting the conference was meant to introduce students with a focus in marketing to the profession and offer them some internship opportunities.
Vice President Lentz first described the ways Media.Monks figures out how brands reach new groups of customers digitally.
“We are essentially a new age ad holding co [company] that approaches everything in a more holistic manner, rather than a disperate model that a lot of incumbents approach today,” he said.
Lentz then discussed the role of the consultants, who work to help organizations and their leaders solve their most challenging issues, including how to best increase their revenues, present a new product available on the market, or cut the company’s costs.
Lastly, he talked about how students could get into the consulting world. Lentz pointed out that technical skills, or knowledge that allow you to perform tasks, can be something that gets the candidate to the interview. While non-technical skills, or interpersonal skills that enable someone to successfully interact with colleagues and clients, will help to get them through the interview itself. He highlighted that communicating and networking with people from the sphere are essential for marketing. Building connections will not only make it easier to move faster within the consulting career path, but it will also help students find a mentor who could walk them through all of the position’s processes and nuances.
Lentz also suggested some courses that could be helpful for students to become more familiar with the field, such as strategy and management, and business and analytics courses. “Data is essentially a new oil […],” said Lentz. “If you are able to come up with creative insights that are able to drive a client, you’re going to rise incredibly fast in your career […].”
Furthermore, he highlighted the importance of extracurricular activities that may help students get a position in a company and practice their skills. Lentz also gave some resume tips, like quantifying your impact, keeping your LinkedIn updated, and skipping out on a mission statement.
“Don’t tell me that you are results-oriented, show me that you are results-oriented,” said Lentz.
While discussing recruiting, Lentz emphasized the importance of networking events and elevator pitches, that you always need to have ready.
At the end of the event, James Lynch, the Chair of the Business Management Department at BC, introduced the new Data Analytics program that is currently developing. The program will soon be available for both undergraduate and graduate students.
“We wanted to identify which critical skills the students really need,” said Lynch. “They needed to hear that because they needed to know that there is no shortcut to having skills that are going to be applicable to the marketplace if they want to get jobs that they can stay with for a long term.”