Find out how Kearney became Army veteran, Isabella Baldwin’s next career stop in management consultancy!
I’ve always been an all-or-nothing kind of person. An Army career was everything I wanted, but one bad tumble down a ski slope ruined my career plans for good. Instead, I fought my way into the Army Reserves, exploiting every medical loophole possible and commissioned into the infantry. I’d found my people. I loved my work. I loved leading soldiers. I even loved mission planning. The final nail in the coffin of my Regular transfer came in the winter of 2021 and, for the first time in my life, I came up against a wall I couldn’t smash through on determination alone.
So what next?
What do you do when you’ve pinned everything on a career that, through reasons beyond your control, is barred to you? Reconciling myself to the fact that perhaps it wasn’t such a bad thing – with deployment opportunities winding down and slim chances of getting my boots dusty – I began looking for a new challenge.
A few people I’d worked with in my civilian job recommended I investigate management consulting. Initial research looked promising – long hours, sure. But when you’re on the right team, who cares? I know one of the things I enjoyed most about service was working alongside people who shared the same level of ambition, team spirit and will to win. Management consulting promised exactly that. I swiftly realised that getting your foot in the door was tough without being a recent graduate or clutching an MBA, but I persevered with coffee dates and registered with Forces Employment.
Serendipitously, the Kearney event landed in my inbox right when I was comparing business schools. I went along to the event and was struck by the team – how closely knit they were. How they were passionate about the work. I was intrigued by the strategic enormity of the project they were working on and I felt that same gut feeling of excitement I had almost a decade earlier as a high-schooler applying to join the Army.
Preparation for interview
I felt happy shock at reading my invitation to interview email. My experience with Kearney as an applicant was excellent from the get-go. I was given a crash course in case interview prep (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and buddied up with a fellow applicant. I knew I had found the right career, but more importantly, I knew I wanted it to be with Kearney.
Kearney’s latest event on 5 October 2023
Kearney Middle East and Africa (MEA) were back in London to recruit more high-quality candidates for Associate (post-MBA candidates) and Senior Business Analyst (pre-MBA) roles with their Aerospace, Defence and Security Practice based in Dubai.
- When: Thursday 5 October 2023 from 6.00 – 8.30 pm
- Where: The Cavalry and Guards’ Club, London
About Kearney
Kearney is a top global management consulting firm of 3,600 people, based in 40 countries around the world. We serve more than three-quarters of the Fortune Global 500 with curiosity, boldness, generosity, solidarity, passion, and genuine commitment to client success. In the middle east we operate a unique collaborative model that links consultant and project teams to full-time security and defence advisors, with a broader global network of subject matter experts providing insights from leading countries. We work with all the major GCC defence players as their trusted advisers, across the defence and security spectrum from strategy and policy through operations to enablers.
