Paul, I am an avid follower of your blog and a recent graduate of MIT Sloan School of Management. I wanted to highlight a trend at Sloan where some of the faculty members are not big fans of the newly minted MBAs who become consultants or bankers.

For example, Jack Welch, ex-CEO of GE, is teaching a class this Fall with only 30 students. In the application to be admitted to his class, he categorically explained that he did not want to teach leadership to students who were interested in Consulting or Banking. Such faculty members call these MBAs the thinkers, number crunchers but alas, not the doers. However, when you are 26 and graduating from Sloan, a job at McKinsey or Goldman Sachs is undeniably lucrative.

In the last semester, I had a class with Alex d'Arbeloff, founder of Teradyne, and one of the mandatory readings were from Henry Mintzberg's book - Managers not MBAs http://www.henrymintzberg.com/mangnotmba.htm. i would recommend the book for any applicant aspiring to apply to business school. You can also read his discussion with CEO of Semco at MIT Sloan.

Sorry forgot to attach the link to the video - http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/302/.

The idea that consultants aren't doers is silly (let alone, discriminating due to an 'interest' in dynamic, well paying professions pushes the absurdity further). Consultants, whether at top-tier firms or local botiques, are brought in to get get jobs done that companies do not have the knowledge or experience to accomplish themselves. It is exceptional execution, specifically, which brings these clients back for follow-on work - the bread and butter of consultants' revenue.

More interesting to me is where the current incomming MBA students WANT to work. I noticed an uptick in the number of 1st year MBA students wanting jobs in real estate last year, for example. Watching these things is a good indicator of relative valuations IMO.

As far as consultants go in my experience, big firm consultants are not brought in to do things the client can't do, they're brought in to do things the client doesn't want to do (for a variety of reasons, some good, some not). As often as not, its a political move. Roll-your-sleeves-up execution is not ususally the goal - hence the odd focus on a "deliverable" which is usually a large, hard-to-read stack of powerpoint slides, and the only thing the consulants tend to "execute". your milage may vary, of course.

Craig, between your thoughts on what constitutes absurdity, and Jack Welch's thoughts on what noisy indicators may guide him toward his actions having better impacts, I'll give more weight to Mr. Welch's thoughts. He's the one putting in the resources, and he has considerable experience in leadership and leadership education with a successful track record.