Why did you pursue a career in public sector consulting instead of private sector?

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I bounced between the two earlier in my career. Reasons I preferred fed consulting:

-Philosophically making a difference for the taxpayer
-At least for the stuff I did, the private sector doesn't offer anything like the scope and impact
-Much lower chance of deliverables going straight to the circular filing cabinet
-Better WLB

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Agree with MD1. Also progression may be a bit slower. But especially in times like Covid19 companies remember, that it is good to have that business

Good balance of pay, location, intellectual interest and mission. I don’t get paid quite as much as commercial, but I don’t have to travel if I don’t want to. I’m about to start a family and I don’t want to be away from home. Public sector clients have much more challenging problems to solve, imo, and much more complicated demands than just bottom line. While there are plenty with less than stellar motivations for their work, but most are trying to serve their agency mission, ultimately serving something bigger than you might see in commercial. Plus, if you make an impact in government, you’re ultimately making a (hopefully) positive impact on our country.

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I started in commercial, went to public sector. I love the defense sector, and wanted to work directly with the end user so to speak

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Too dumb

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I wanted to be able to live and work in the same place. Didn’t want to be on a plane every week.

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Working with federal clients means your work might make a huge positive difference, either for Americans (enabling enrollment in benefits, healthcare, getting a home loan, etc) or for your federal clients (making their jobs easier). Working with private companies means you might end up working for pharma, telling them how to sell more oxycontin and negate “bad press” from the opioid crisis.

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The coolest public sector projects I’ve done are really really cool - a lot are fine, and many are boring etc (luckily haven’t had too many of these). The coolest private sector projects I’ve worked on (prior to Deloitte) were fast paced, but not mind-blowing to be honest. I like that there’s a little more intellectualism among public sector folks from my personal experience (can’t generalize here). I assume that to be due to the more roundabout paths public sector consulting folks often have to our firm. On the strategy side, I’ve worked with some of the most professionally accomplished colleagues I’ve encountered in my life and I appreciate that greatly.

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A lot of people are highlighting lifestyle or other circumstantial reasons, but there are some of us who are interested in gov affairs. Working for various Federal bodies and agencies has been an awesome experience without having to be a Fed myself. What we do affects so many, I’ve enjoyed my years in the public sector

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Geography

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I chose it willingly. I work mostly in defense and public security. It was the only work that has impact (keep people safer) and it's a good mixture of strategic and operational consulting.

Also, the work is interesting. I have been in tanks, practice shootings, the command & control rooms, working with special forces. You also meet really interesting people, too.

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Accenture

Because I couldn’t get into commercial

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Because gov't took too long to hire me but I still care

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Deloitte only recruited for GPS at my school for some reason (not because it’s a bad school, there are much worse schools who are commercial feeder schools).

You can transfer to commercial by networking! Ask your coach h for help.

These are the kinds of questions I struggle with in interviews. It wasn’t a “choice” because I didn’t have the option of going into private sector (see D1’s reply above).

Similar to D1 except my school deserved to be in the category as all big 4 etc now do not even recruit from my school.

Got it C1. IIRC there is also some body of research showing how a ‘good enough’ school often has similar outcomes for the majority of people. That extended to looking at where CEOs and such went to school also. I think there was a freakonomics episode on it for the spark notes version

I like the stability and the pay is decent. The government will always need support.

Type B personality

Oh it is because I had a mental break down in an airport about 5 too may times to do commercial

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