>> My name is Jeff Osborne and I'm currently
a partner with Price Warehouse Coopers.
My primary focus day-to-day is making
sure that the clients that the firm serves
in the Philadelphia market for
consulting are adequately served
and that the technical resources
and skills that they need
to solve their business problems are available
to them and that we serve them appropriately.
And my other part of my daily job is to
really make sure that the people that are
in the consultant practice in Philadelphia are
getting the care and feeding that they need
as consultants developing their careers,
connecting with the firm, with the partners
and also developing their leadership skills.
And so I work a lot with our staff people to
work on ways so that they can get involved
in philanthropy or get involved in
leadership opportunities within the firm.
Because my job is more centered
to our marketplace
that is Philadelphia Metropolitan market, a
typical day for me is going into Philadelphia
into the office and spending time with various
accounts or client teams that I might be meeting
with so it maybe phone conference calls,
it could be global calls that I'm dealing
with partners globally that
service that account.
I meet a lot during the day with staff members
that are involved in various initiatives
in the marketplace whether
it be marketing and sales,
initiatives we have for some of our clients.
I may be meeting with our market
leadership team which I'm a member of,
so I meet with those partners to really make
decisions about what steps we need to plan
to better serve our market and
help our people in the market.
So, most of my days are spent in
the office meeting with people
on various initiatives both
marketing for clients
and for our people initiatives that we manage.
My typical day is in the office.
I do spend some time out at my client's that
I work with so I maybe out of the office
in the client suburbs or overseas
with those clients as well
but most of my time is in the city.
I travel on a somewhat regular
basis overseas to clients.
There's nothing better than getting face-to-face
with your clients overseas and getting
to understand the culture you're working in.
I find it's important that I get
face-to-face with them on a regular basis
so that we've got a connection; we've got
an understanding of how we work together.
There are times where part of my day maybe
filled with conference calls both in the U.S.
or they may be international calls.
My international calls or either early in
the morning or late at night depending where,
who I'm talking to whether it's Europe or China
and so if those days are filled with a lot
of those types of calls, it really doesn't make
much sense for me to go into the city to do all
that so I'll work from home
and there are times that I have
to spend some intense time
thinking, writing, planning.
Some of those days I will
work from my home office to do
that because I don't have any interruption.
I can focus.
I can get sometimes more things done that way.
It's not the common that I'm working 70 hour
weeks every single week, but there are times
in my career when I have worked a lot
of hours late night, early mornings,
seven days a week depends on
the demands of the client.
Consulting can be that way.
It's not that way all the time though.
The good news about most of the
consulting work that we do it's planable.
We try to work it around our
client's schedules so our folks are
at client they can work more client hours
but demands and deadlines do play into it
and there could be times when you could
work a considerable amount of hours.
Hopefully, we try to do it in short spurts.
I've always loved consulting
environment provides me the opportunity
to learn a lot of different things.
I worked in every probably every industry you
can think of over my 26 years of consulting.
It's not a standard job where I kind of show up
at a desk and do the same thing every single day
or I do the same thing each month.
I have a lot of opportunities to do different
things everyday, a lot of different challenges.
I have in my past and my
staff traveled an awful lot.
That can be very challenging on your personal
life and trying to balance the things you have
to do in your life so flexibility and meeting
those work life demands can be real challenge
in the consulting business.
I think the challenges also can be the
demands of demanding clients at times.
Most of my clients have been absolutely
wonderful to work with a challenge
but a welcome challenge because
you can team with them and partner
with them to solve their problems.
Some of those relationships aren't as good as
you'd like and they can be a real challenging
for you as well and you have to work on
those and kind of make sure you find a way,
a common ground with those challenging clients.
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We look at a pretty broad scope of
talent and what we're really looking for,
for all those folks is very
good analytical skills.
They can think on their feet.
They like to problem solve.
They've developed some leadership skills.
They can interact well in teams.
Students that are poised and so you
develop this personal confidence
that you have about yourself.
So those are the skills we're
looking for so they come across a lot
of different majors for a consulting practice.
If you look across our consulting talent
across the country you find just
about every major in the world.
There's a whole host of different majors
but if you look across their skills,
the ones that are successful with us have,
it's down those same areas that I've mentioned,
the really, really good developed analytical
skills, problem solving skills, leadership
and great, great communication skills.
The earlier you start to look at careers
the better you're going to be positioned
to get an opportunity to maybe
get into one of those careers.
The time to start looking for a job
is not the fall of your senior year.
Matter of fact, the fall of your
senior year is way, way, too late.
You really have to start
early on in your career.
Your freshman year, try to figure out what are
the careers that are out there that may connect
to the major that I have or more
importantly, what are the things I like to do
that I will find in some business?
So do those kind of connections in the fall
when the corporations are coming to campus.
Go to those sessions, learn
about the businesses.
I think then once you've done that
and kind of narrowed down the types
of things you're interested in let
the companies know you're interested.
Try to participate in the events they have.
Interact with their recruiting people
or with their representatives whether it
be partners or staff that come to campus.
Get to know them and they will get
to know you and the sooner you do
that the better you will position yourself to
get an opportunity to get an interview with them
and maybe get to work with
them, get an internship.
I think to be a successful consultant
I think takes a lot of preparation.
I think you have to be on
your game all the time.
You really have to be very, very good
with people, all types of people.
You have to be comfortable
being outside yourself a bit
that is being comfortable
in uncharted territory.
Got to be excited about being involved with a
situation that you don't know the answers to,
don't know the people but you're kind of thrust
into and you have to work your way through it.
Be quick on your feet I think is something that
you really need to be successful in my business.
It's a very dynamic industry, consultant
and I think the more you are comfortable
in that dynamic space the more fun you're going
to have at it and the more you're going to learn
and the more successful you're going to be.
It's not for everybody but for those
who have that desire to kind of operate
in a dynamic space they're the
ones that are going to love it
and be good at it and be successful.
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I have an undergraduate degree in accounting
the Honors Program at Penn State many years ago.
I have a Masters degree in
taxation from Widener University.
I am a Certified Public Accountant
in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
And I'm also certified in
Forensics for the ACPA as well.
I'm a member of American and
Pennsylvania Student CPAs.
I started my career in something
much more focused and established
that is the public accounting industry as
an auditor of publicly traded businesses.
That was a great training ground for me.
Really to learn about companies,
learn the basics of interacting
in the financial world those
things and I got certified.
But what I really liked about
my business was that it
in those days was getting on different clients.
So I'd finish one client and then get a chance
to get to a new client and learn a new industry
or learn something new about that client.
It was that kind of continual dynamic of
change that I really liked about learning
and that led me to get into consulting because
that's what consulting is really all about.
You don't work with one client all the time.
You're working with different clients
and different people in those clients
and with my career over 26 years I've got a
chance to work with hundreds of clients in just
about every industry I can think of to learn and
that change and those dynamics is what I really,
really loved about what I have done and
it's what's kept me going in the business.
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Be hungry.
Don't just do what's given to you.
Do something more.
Just don't join a club, participate and lead.
The best learnings are the
opportunities you have to take the lead,
to be challenged personally, to take some risks.
You don't really learn by doing the easy stuff.
You learn by doing the hard stuff.
Some of the hard stuff you might fail at.
That's okay.
I think failings are great learning experiences
but you've really have got to take some chances
and learn and mix it up with different people.
All those, that mix of opportunities is going
to make you somebody different than your peers.
It's going to position you
differently than the average student
and give you better opportunities to get the
job you really, really want and to succeed.