The Role of Industrial Engineering and Management profiles in consulting

This study examines how Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) graduates are positioned within the consulting sector, with a particular focus on the Big Four firms in Portugal (Deloitte, PwC, EY and KPMG). Although academic literature discusses IEM skills in general terms, it rarely shows how these graduates actually build their careers in consulting or what a typical Big Four profile looks like in practice. To address this gap, the study adopts an exploratory and descriptive approach based on the analysis of 42 LinkedIn profiles of IEM graduates working in Big Four and non-Big Four organisations. The data collected includes educational background, functional area, job roles, technical skills, soft skills and volunteering experience. The results show a strong concentration of IEM graduates in Management and Strategy Consulting roles within the Big Four, suggesting that these firms mainly use IEM graduates as generalist consultants rather than as technical specialists. In contrast, non-Big Four organisations present more diverse and technically oriented career paths. The analysis also highlights the central role of soft skills and the relevance of volunteering experience in competitive consulting recruitment. By focusing on real professional profiles, this study provides a more realistic picture of how IEM graduates are positioned in the Portuguese consulting market and how early career paths are shaped within the Big Four.