The A&M CRG – what the heck is it? In this podcast conversation, you’ll find out. We spoke with Patricia Hong and Steff Paletta from Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer and Retail Group. Patricia is a Managing Director in the practice, and Steff heads up recruiting. You’ll learn more about this corner of A&M’s work, the growth of the Consumer and Retail Group practice, culture at CRG, and what you should consider if you’re thinking to apply.
Listen here or on your favorite podcast channel. A full transcription is available below.
MC
00:32
Welcome to this Strategy Simplified discussion. We are so delighted to have here with us both Steff Paletta and Patricia Hong from Alvarez & Marsal’s Consumer and Retail Group. Patricia, as we kick it off, would love a quick introduction.
Patricia Hong
00:48
Thank you so much for having us. We are excited. This is actually my first live podcast, but maybe it’s not as daunting as it sounds. I am a Partner and Managing Director at CRG, which we’ll talk about a little bit later, but it’s a group within Alvarez & Marsal, and it’s a relatively new group.
I do the bulk of my work in strategy. So growth related, big transformation. All my clients sit in the Consumer and Retail Group. I’ve been a consultant for most of my adult life. So basically the last 20-plus years. I am originally from Brazil, so a shout out to any Brazilians here. And I live in New York City. I’m very close to Columbia Business School. So if there’s anyone from Columbia, you’re very close to me right now. Pleasure to be here.
MC
01:55
Love it. Thank you Patricia. Steff, what about you?
Steff Paletta
02:00
Hi everybody. Good morning. Nice to see everybody here today, we’re excited to join you guys. I am the Director of Recruiting for the Consumer and Retail Group. I’m excited to have joined the team about a year and a half ago and time has been flying by. We’ve been very busy. And so we basically are in the middle of campus recruiting – I lead our campus recruiting and lateral recruiting efforts – and excited to be a part of our people operations effort. I’ve been recruiting for longer than I’d like to admit.
I’ve mostly been in financial services. So that’s been my specialty for the bulk of my career. I sit here in Connecticut, so not too far from New York City. Happy to be here today.
MC
02:50
Perfect. Thank you both. We’ve been looking forward to this conversation. But before we dive in to the nuts and bolts of things, we’d love to ask just a couple of quick fun questions off the top. We’d love to get to know a little bit more about you. Patricia, kick us off. What’s your favorite New York food or restaurant?
Patricia Hong
03:08
Since you submitted that question ahead of time, I did some thinking about it, but it was actually an easy one. So for me, it’s definitely brunch. When I moved here 20 years ago, that was my favorite thing. Now brunch is also pretty popular back home in Brazil, but it wasn’t back then. And so I’m a big brunch fan. And every weekend, it’s brunch over and over. I love it.
MC
03:38
Oh, I love that. I’m a fan as well.
Patricia Hong
03:40
It’s hard to pick a favorite restaurant, especially for living in New York City.
MC
03:47
Absolutely, absolutely. Steff, what about you: favorite New York food or restaurant?
Steff Paletta
03:54
That’s also a tough one. I am originally from West Texas. So though I’d like to say maybe Dos Caminos, because I love Mexican food. Honestly, the best food in New York City that I’ve found is Italian food. Anywhere that has great Italian food, I don’t discriminate at all. It’s a really hard question, but definitely Italian food.
MC
04:19
Love it. Yeah, the sky’s the limit. You have infinite choices. I’m jealous. Let’s go back to Patricia. What’s your favorite thing to do on the weekend? A hobby or an activity?
Patricia Hong
04:31
Sleeping in is my favorite activity on the weekend. Hands down.
MC
04:38
(laughs) It’s a superpower, it really is. It helps you recharge and get ready for the next week I’m sure. I love it. Steff, what about you?
Steff Paletta
04:47
I’d love to say sleeping in, but I have a two and a four year old, so unfortunately that is not in my wheelhouse. But definitely anything outside. Whether that’s taking a hike or, in the winter, you’ll find me skiing. So just trying to be active outdoors.
MC
05:05
Love it. This year, we’ve had that extended summer and extended good temperatures, so it’s nice to be outside. Well, thanks for answering just a couple quick questions off the top to get to know a little bit more about you. But let’s really dive into the meat of things.
You shared a little bit about your roles, and a little bit about your background. But we’d love to hear now a little bit more about your journey. Steff, if you could kick us off – why did you decide to join A&M?
Steff Paletta
05:34
I was really excited when someone from A&M reached out to me about the opportunity. The option to join a team that’s growing, I got to meet some really great people, the story was compelling, and just the opportunity to help build something, right? That was really what drove me to A&M.
Every single person I met in my process was fantastic. They were very kind, humble, really interested to know about me, just a really great team that I met with. So it was a number of reasons, but I think mostly the growth opportunity and the opportunity to build something great.
MC
06:17
Absolutely. That’s a compelling value proposition for sure. Patricia, what about you?
Patricia Hong
06:22
I just want to start by saying that I’m thankful every day that Steffani did decide to join us. It made my job a lot easier, and we are awesome partners. So I do want to acknowledge that.
But why did I join? So I joined about two years ago. Before that, I had a long standing career at another consulting firm where I’d been since I graduated from college. So close to 20 years, it was my whole career. The simplest answer is, I joined because I got the opportunity to work with close friends and mentors doing something that I really love – which is consulting – with the opportunity to evolve the model and create something slightly different and new. So that’s the simplest, most honest answer I can give.
MC
07:26
Absolutely. And let’s double click on that a little bit. You came in as a part of a larger effort to evolve the model, to explore new things. I think for many people, A&M is known as a restructuring and a turnaround firm, Patricia, would that still be an accurate representation, or is that now just a stereotype? And tell us more about that evolvement of the business model.
Patricia Hong
07:53
That’s definitely the heart and soul and the DNA of A&M, it is definitely restructuring. That’s what we’re known for. I think one of the questions that you’re going to ask me later, but to kind of give you the answer now is, “What is the brand statement for A&M?”
For me, that brand statement is: A&M is just a bold place. It’s bold, and I think because it’s bold, it has grown in many other directions and it has taken huge steps. And I think one of the big steps now is building this industry-led, industry-focused consulting business of which CRG is kind of the first pilot to be stood up. So, yes, that’s their DNA. But I also got to learn a lot more about A&M as I was going through the process of thinking about joining and it’s a lot more, for sure.
MC
09:17
But that bold expansion, as you termed it, that’s happened over time – A&M’s made the decision to move into strategic advisory, move into transformation. And as you shared, the pilot standing that up was the Consumer and Retail Group. Can you expand on that a little bit and share about the journey of how the firm made that decision?
Patricia Hong
09:42
It was a natural step for the firm, given the kind of advisory work that it was already doing. I also think that it recognized that the consulting space, the transformation, CEO-level, growth-led transformation could leverage a lot of the DNA and toolkits and the depth that A&M has in other areas, which other consulting firms don’t.
And they did it in a very smart, thoughtful way by bringing in a set of partners that were recognized in the consumer and retail space and that had the appetite to give up long standing careers, and leadership positions in other firms to take this on, and they were highly motivated and passionate, and that’s really important when building something new.
MC
11:08
So they were able to get you, right? You’re a thought leader and a key advisor in this space. I would love to pick your brain here for a second. The retail industry is an interesting place to be right now. It underwent heavy disruption during the pandemic. What’s your take? What does the industry need to do to adapt? Are there any other transformations or things that you see on the horizon over the next couple of years?
Patricia Hong
11:36
The consumer and retail space has many different sectors as part of it, right? So you’ve got the CPG companies, you’ve got the retailers, you’ve got beauty companies. We typically get a lot of questions about retailers because they are at the heart of all of the disruption, and we do get a lot of questions around what’s happening in the pandemic, how the pandemic caused the disruption, and what’s going to happen next?
And when we all signed up for this, no one could have thought that a few months into standing this up, we would be all going through a pandemic, and a segment of our clients would likely be one of the most impacted. But I think, in some ways, that sector has been going through, as we all know, a lot of disruption for the last several years and has been struggling in the last several years. So the pandemic gave them a way to rally around certain things that they needed to address, and expedite some of the changes and do it in a more nimble and agile way than they had been able to do before.
The circumstances changed so drastically, that the way you approach a problem just got flipped on its head. And so, we were right there, in that moment, going through kind of the same process of, all of a sudden, we were building a firm and a practice that’s high touch in an environment where, all of a sudden, we weren’t really meeting anyone else in person.
And so we were right there and we helped these clients survive over the last few years and advised them on the next steps. I’m pretty sure I digressed a little bit from your original question, but there’s a lot of transformation coming down the pipeline, some that may be a little obvious, some that we cannot predict – we don’t have a crystal ball – but it’s literally helping people get set up.
And I think the pandemic created a lot of flexibility, and I think in some ways, when business is semi-back to normal – we may never have a normal again – some companies are going to be really well structured in a much different way than they thought possible. And so we’re going to see a very different landscape, I think.
MC
14:30
It makes a lot of sense to me from what you said before of bringing that core of Alvarez &. Marsal of being able to help out clients in distressed financial positions, to be able to be hands-on with a turnaround or a transformation. And now just bringing that into a new space and a new advisory lens so you can still bring that core and the spirit of A&M into this new line of work.
So I would love to build off of that a little bit. You talked about this bold expansion, bringing in new outside expertise, yourself included. And it sounds like the ability to be nimble, that’s something that you also mentioned. So how are you, within CRG as a practice, how are you staying nimble, how are you acting like a startup while still being able to take advantage of the backing of such a large well-known organization like A&M?
Patricia Hong
15:31
That’s a really good question. And it’s also something that we think about all the time, and I’ll give you a few examples as to how we are a startup in a bigger firm. But I think one of the things that we also try to make sure that we don’t lose – obviously we want to grow and scale. And as you grow in your scale, at some point, you’re no longer a startup. And so we don’t want to fall into the trap of once you get to that place, you’re no longer nimble and agile and as flexible as you used to be, because the reality is, a lot of our clients end up in that situation, and we get hired to bring them back to kind of like their original where it all began and infuse that feeling again.
But a couple of examples. So again, like I said, big A&M has a ton of areas that there’s so much depth in that we can bring as a toolkit to our clients that we did not have available before at our disposal, and in other places, clients would bring in other firms or banks or other advisory type of firms. Now we can come in and bring that in, if they’re in that situation. So we can serve them in a little bit more of an end to end and we’re plugged in, but in other ways, we are building our own thing.
So, a little plug for our newly released website, which was released two weeks ago, or maybe less. We created our own website. We also have our own recruiting engine with Steff spearheading it, and we go to campus. So there’s so many ways that we have our own identity. But we’re able to do that going back to the fact that A&M in its core, is very bold. So that is part of how we were able to grow so fast and so successfully.
MC
18:03
And it seems like you’ve been doing quite well at that, CRG roughly doubled in size over the past 18 months. What is it that you think’s been enabling that growth?
Patricia Hong
18:16
It’s a combination, obviously, it’s always several factors. I think one, and I’m not gonna say it in order of priority. But I think one of them and it goes back to the reason why we’re here today, it’s the people that we recruit and that we bring in. So, we’re now at 17 or 18 partners and yes, we have the A&M brand name, but the growth itself – once you get a client to start working with us, the delivery of the work – it cannot be done just by the partners.
So we need we need a team, and we started off with a very lean team. And a lot of the growth is attributed to the fact that we now have people that are working with us and building the practice. There’s no way we would have been able to deliver some of the work that we delivered without the team that we have. I think that’s definitely a big one. Obviously, we’ve all been in the industry for a while, so our personal brand and reputation precede us and so clients remember who we were, regardless of the firm that we were with. And so at some point, people come back and they reach out. And then yes, there’s the A&M brand name. So that absolutely helps and it’s a big factor, too.
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MC
20:14
Absolutely. The kind of people you’ve been able to attract, the fact that they’ve been looking for opportunities to expand and grow, to be able to build something, the practice that you’ve built out over your past couple years at A&M, what would be one highlight of your time with the firm so far?
Patricia Hong
21:32
Steff, I’m gonna throw something out there, but then I’m going to ask you to comment on it because we work on it together. And I think one of the big highlights for us, from a recruiting standpoint was hiring our first set of MBA class, having gone on campus with a brand of CRG that was non-existent, right, and then onboarding – going through the whole process, and then hiring and then onboarding everyone in the middle of a pandemic without having ever met these folks in person. And having to really relearn the model, and stand something up in a very different way than we traditionally had done it in the past. And I think we are super proud of going through that. And we’re kind of like in year two now. So we’ve onboarded a few classes. Steff, it would be great if you could comment on that, too.
Steff Paletta
22:42
Yeah, I definitely agree, from a recruiting lens, especially. My job is to meet people in person, to talk about the company, what’s great, connect them to our colleagues and walk them through the process. And doing that in this virtual environment of course is unique. I started in March of last year, and I didn’t get to meet my colleagues until May of this year. And that has all been a really interesting experience.
But to Patricia’s point, yes, the recruiting effort, talking to these folks, working with them day to day, and onboarding them in a virtual environment, and still making sure that they have a white glove experience and enjoy their experience through the first few weeks of being at A&M and on our team. It’s been really important to really focus on that and in this unique virtual environment, just to make sure that we have a high touch on our candidates in the recruiting experience. So it’s been an interesting time for sure.
Patricia Hong
23:54
I have to say, if I put myself in the shoes of the students, how absolutely daunting to have to graduate, and take up a job in a place and with a team you’ve never met in person. I remember when I was hired when I graduated from college, the number of interactions and going to the office, and talking to people and going to dinners. There’s definitely a level of confidence and comfort that you build going through that process. And then all of a sudden, you’re trusting a set of people that you’ve never met before. And then the other thing is also you’re trusting a new business. So I have a huge degree of admiration for the folks that we hired during the process. It’s hard.
MC
25:01
I can just imagine what an encouragement it is to the various candidates who are listening to this discussion. Obviously, so many people would love to work for a firm like A&M, and yet to hear you both say how concerned you are with their experience, their onboarding, their professional development, their overall experience, that you guys are thinking about that, both from a recruiting standpoint, and then in the client services leadership aspect as well, that’s got to be an encouragement to those looking to get into the space. Steff , I want to keep it going with the highlights. So you’ve been here at A&M for a bit, what’s one of your highlights from working with CRG?
Steff Paletta
25:48
Obviously, creating this recruiting effort with Patricia hand-in-hand, I think the partnership has been hands down one of the best experiences of my career. And so, you know, I think it’s been just an incredible experience to build something that didn’t exist before for our team – create a process, create an onboarding effort, create this internship program that we just experienced this past summer. Our first interns through campus recruiting joined us, and that was an incredible nine-week program for those guys.
And, you know, it’s just been really rewarding to see this grow, and to partner with Patricia, and, of course, all the awesome CRG colleagues that we have, and kind of build a family on our team. And that’s really what it is, right? I mean, it says a lot about the team, that even in a virtual environment, we worked so closely together to build this, that we really are kind of like a family. So it’s really great. And it’s been really, again, a highlight of my entire career.
Stephanie Knight
27:02
Steff, I would love if you could just talk us through that process. Is it different than big A&M? You know, I take it that with this continued growth, you’re continuing to focus on recruiting. Again, what are you looking for? And what’s that process look like?
Steff Paletta
27:19
Let’s start with the process. So, of course, the process from a campus lens is a little bit different than a lateral recruiting or experienced hire lens. So on the campus side, we do have some campuses that we are represented at on campus. And so the application efforts are through those schools. We also have an application for lateral or experienced hires on our website, so people can apply there.
But as it relates to the interview process – for campus, it’s been a little bit different this year. We are doing three interviews to offer, just really condensed into one round. And then for the lateral recruiting effort, I would say, generally, we don’t like to have really more than five interviews. I mean, sometimes it does take some time depending on the level of seniority to have those discussions and to get to know candidates, and for them to get to know us equally.
So it’s a little bit of a unique process. I don’t think it’s that different to big A&M, when we think about our experienced hire effort. But again, we do want to create a high touch effort so that candidates get to know us, because it’s equally as important for them to feel like this is the right place for them. And we’re the right team for them, it’s a good fit for them, too. So, I think it’s a very similar process in that way.
And then in regards to our candidate qualities. There’s a number of things I think that stand out to me when we talk about our candidates. Naturally, there is this part of wanting somebody that has that self starter, entrepreneurial kind of mindset, somebody that’s okay with that, because in a growing team, as things evolve, there’s some uncertainty, so they have to kind of be excited about that and ride the wave of that sometimes.
I would say definitely that intellectual curiosity, and obviously how to solve problems, navigating that team player piece is obviously important. We want to focus on our culture and building a team with a great culture that we have and continuing to build upon that. Technical skills, hands down. The analytical piece is naturally a huge piece of that.
What you’ll see in our interview processes is that we do have a split of a case and a behavioral interview. And so we do test for those technical skills. And otherwise, attention to detail. I think those are probably, when I think about high-level candidate qualities that we’re looking for, that’s what stands out to me. Anything else, Patricia, that I missed?
Patricia Hong
30:11
You covered everything that we talk about, I would add a couple more things which are less CRG specific, but also in terms of consulting and if you’re looking for a career in consulting. If you go to our website, skip that part because I’m going to repeat myself. (laughs) So what I do think is important – if you are going to have a career in consulting, one of the things that you have to ultimately be able to do, and you can train over the years, but it’s to take really complicated or complex problems and make them simple.
I think that’s really, really important as just kind of like an overall guardrail as we do our job. And then I think the other thing is just from an attitude standpoint and from who you are, it’s important to have a mix of being humble and confident at the same time. And it’s a little bit of a tricky balance, but you are coming into an environment, you are being hired many times to help someone in an area where they might know a lot more, because that’s their day to day job. And that’s okay, because you’re bringing in a whole set of skills and ways to look at it.
But you always have to walk that line between, “What is it that I don’t know?” And “What is it that I know that I can add to this?” And if you’re humble and confident at the same time, it’s a lot easier to co-create, and collaborate with that client in that company, and I think that not every project is going to feel exactly the same way.
But if you think about the evolution of the consulting model, and where you ultimately want to be, you really want to be ingrained in that day to day and you want to co-create, because the odds that what you are creating and co-creating is going to stick and make a difference is so much higher than if you are coming in and you’re saying this is my external view with no impact, not having run this by you, not having gone through the process, which is sometimes painful. But it makes it better, right? So that’s why I go back to, you’ve got to have a little bit of both.
MC
33:00
I love that. Thank you for all those comments, it really reinforces a lot of what we talk about in terms of case preparation, that executive presence and poise and gravitas that you need to bring in the room. This is truly a simulation of that internal team collaborative nature, which you’re going to bring to your target firm as well as you being an external client advisor, driving the recommendations, layering on insights being directive, even with limited information, even when you’re not the expert in the room.
So if we translate those ideas and these skills and qualities that you’re looking for back into the recruiting process, Steff, you talked a little bit about expectations for candidates in terms of a behavioral interview and a case interview. Any other insights or tips and tricks here about what would be ahead of them in this recruiting process and your thinking around preparation?
Steff Paletta
33:56
Yeah, I think that really, truly just getting to know us, as we talk about preparation is really important. Doing some due diligence, doing some research. It really stands out when candidates know who they are talking to, not just the person, but obviously our team.
As Patricia mentioned, one of the best ways to do that, of course, is our website. Again, we’re really super, super excited, our team has worked long and hard to get this out there. And I think they’ve done a great job of getting, you know, a little bit of ourselves out there so people know who are our team members, what are we doing, what are some of the thought leadership efforts that are out there.
Of course, LinkedIn is a great resource, and I tell candidates all the time, let’s connect on LinkedIn. I’m happy to answer questions you might have if you have any, as you’re getting to know us through this process. But I think just being well informed and coming into it with that knowledge base but also showing us and demonstrating the passion for, either the business, specifically consulting of course, or the consumer and retail industry. I think those are things that, of course, stand out again in the process.
So, you know, as you get to know our team, I think that’s what’s helpful in the recruiting process, and in the interview process. Coming to the table with some knowledge.
MC
35:24
Absolutely, so you can speak with specificity. In terms of the format of your process, are they largely one on one interviews? Do you do you have any digital assessments or presentation interviews or group interviews, anything like that?
Steff Paletta
35:42
Most of our interviews are really one on one on. Again, as a part of the process, I recommend people doing coffee chats to get to know us to get you to that point. But it’s one on one, a mixture of that case and behavioral effort. We don’t really utilize digital assessments at this point.
It’s pretty straightforward, but I think that testing out the analytical skills. Again, making sure there’s a fit there, as well, is really our primary focus. I want to make sure I’m not missing something. Patricia, anything else to add?
Patricia Hong
36:23
We have a lot of partner involvement during the recruiting process. So, you’re definitely going to meet with at least one if not more partners, from a purely interview process. I also think you’re gonna feel and, again, this is something we don’t want to lose this week, as we grow. So it’s the balance, right?
You’re gonna feel like everyone that’s meeting with you, it’s not a check in the box. You know, I have to do recruiting, I have to do my duty. There’s a high degree of accountability and ownership over that meeting, because they know ultimately, that this is bringing someone else into our team. And if you are a senior or a junior person on the team, it doesn’t matter. You know that that person is going to incrementally advance the practice that we’re all building.
So I think our team goes into the interviews with a lot of pride for what we’re building, but a lot of ownership of, I really need to take this seriously and make sure that I’m conveying who we are, and creating an environment to have the best possible discussion with this candidate.
And, that’s what I would say to the candidates also. I mean, I don’t walk in with an expectation that you have to know us, because we are not that well known. We just released our website! So, yes, we offer things throughout the process for you to get to know us. It’s more of a, if I were just giving you advice, the more research and getting to know you do beforehand, the more at ease you’re going to be in the interview. And then the closer to who you actually are on a day to day basis you’re going to be able to be.
And an interview process can be a little frightening. I mean, it’s a job, right? At the end of the day, it’s a job. There’s a risk and everybody wants to do well, so you can get a job, and then you can decide if you’re going to take that offer or not. That’s why I don’t go into the process thinking I have to be someone’s top priority. I go into the process thinking, we have to make sure that we’re a good match. And then I have to convince this person that if we are a good match, they should pick me if they have other choices.
But then I think for the candidate coming into the interview, just have fun. Enjoy yourself. Yes, it’s like you said, Stephanie, it’s a mini simulation of what you’re going to encounter on a day to day.
In the case, we’re just simulating what it’s going to feel like when you’re with a client and you get asked to do something or you have a project or a task. And you have to have fun through that process. You have to be curious and you have to be like, you know what, in the 10 or 15 minutes that I have, I can walk out with an answer that I didn’t have before just because I’m going through this process and you should use us as somebody to talk to and co-create through that process. And use the interview. Yes, you want to show your best self, but you also want to understand who you’re talking to. And again, it’s a two-way and that seems pretty obvious. But it really is.
MC
40:13
No, I love that you guys are expanding on this. Many times, it gets boiled down to industry research and networking, but to actually hear from you both how you want candidates to really learn about who you are, not just big A&M, but your practice and the people within it, the type of work that you do.
A good well-prepared candidate will come into any conversation ready and armed with questions to ask. At the end of each interview, they’ll have good questions to ask because it is this two way conversation. And so, hopefully everybody listening here today really starts to kind of bring this into focus and make more sense of these types of activities.
It really does matter, whether or not there’s an official referral process or not, you got to do your legwork, you got to get to know people within the area of the business that you’re applying into. Well, with that, Steff, I’m sure we have a lot of people at this point in time from a recruiting angle who are interested in continuing to explore CRG, consider recruitment opportunities. What are some of their best next steps moving forward?
Steff Paletta
41:28
Absolutely. So, as I mentioned, we have – outside of the core schools, outside of the campus recruiting efforts – we have an application open on our website. Candidates can apply there.
Obviously, the job description speaks to some of the things that we’ve discussed today. What we’re doing, what we’re looking for, what they will be a part of. So the application through our website is probably the best next step. And then, happy for anyone to reach out to follow up with me via email or via LinkedIn and go from there.
MC
42:10
Fantastic. Patricia, I’ll turn it over to you first. Any final comments or additional thoughts for this candidate group interested in CRG?
Patricia Hong
42:21
Listen, I would make this a little bit bigger than CRG. And I would go back again to my earlier comments around going through a recruiting process, and getting to a job. There are a number of elements, right. Is consulting for you? Is this the right place for you?
And I think you should be very thoughtful and very strategic about this process in the same way that, when you’re at school, you’re doing this, it’s kind of like a whole project. Finding a job and interviewing.
So I would say, I highly recommend this career even if it’s not forever and enjoy the process and enjoy the career while you’re doing it. And for CRG, yes, get to know us. We are new, but the partners have been around for decades. So we do know what we’re doing and we do know this job really well. And when we all signed up for this, we signed up for more work, starting from scratch at times. So there’s a high degree of motivation and passion and energy in the air that I would say that you’re not going to find everywhere.
And you have to also enjoy the process. And once you get a job and you get started, maybe it’s not for you, and maybe it’s the place you’re gonna find yourself 20 years later, like I am sitting here. And I think it’s okay either way. I just think that in consulting, and that’s a little plug for consulting, I don’t think you can go wrong. Even if it’s not the job you want to be doing for the next 20 years, like I am, there’s no downside to doing it for a few years, as many years as you think you want to do this, there is literally no downside.
It is such a high, intense learning experience. And it’s fun. And you’re exposed to so many different clients and organizations and ways of doing things and behavior. It’s like a whole education, not just on problem solving or helping recommend or build a PowerPoint page. I really think it’s a lot of life lessons because everything is so intense. And you have access to so much stuff, even in days like today where everything is virtual and on Zoom.
MC
44:35
Absolutely, I love it. I love that plug, that’s great. And for the industry and job overall. Steff, anything you want to add on to that?
Steff Paletta
45:43
No, I think Patricia said it beautifully. And exactly what I would want to hear as a candidate, which is, have fun, be authentic, enjoy the process, get to know who you’re meeting. But just come as you are, be yourself. It is a daunting process. But doing those things that we mentioned, having follow up, enjoying what you’re doing too is so important. So I’m excited to talk to candidates, and looking forward to getting to know others that meet us through this. And I think that’s it. Thanks.
MC
46:23
Awesome. Well, thank you again for joining us for this conversation.
Conclusion
We enjoyed hearing from Patricia and Steff about how they want you to do your homework and get to know their practice and their people. It really does make a difference. Learn more about CRG on their website.
