I recently joined an econ consulting firm. Would appreciate any serious advice from those that are working in the industry (or have in the past) on how to do well on the job.
How to do well at Econ consulting?
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Do really high quality work without making mistakes. When you do data work for your dissertation, nobody will know if you made a mistake in some calculation. But in consulting, your work will be scrutinized to the decimal place.
Agree that high-quality work in the sense of accurate data-handling is key. But otherwise, make sure to figure out what the client wants to show, and what perspective on the data will make that point. Make the point as simply as possible. No elaborate models or estimation strategies! If you are working for defense (which you are, since they are the only ones who will pay the big shops that hire fresh PhDs) you only need to tear down the case that plaintiffs have put forth - which is often pretty easy, since plaintiff just wants to make it far enough in to get a settlement.