Claire McGahan

In layperson terms, what do you actually do at work?

I am a consultant in deals, so I work mostly on mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures of different sized companies. In the practice I belong to, we help companies answer the question "I want to or have purchased a new company, what do I do now?"

How did you start building your network?

This was actually kind of difficult for me to start doing, because I'm naturally a pretty shy and introverted person. I really started doing it one person at a time, reaching out to people I would meet at career fairs or speakers who would come to my campus from different programs and businesses. I'd reach out with questions about what they did, how they go there, etc. and one by one my network got bigger!

What is the most useful piece of career advice you got as a student, and who gave it to you?

I'm naturally a competitive person and a pitfall of mine was often to compare myself to other students in my classes. A mentor at one of my internships told me "Don't focus on what other people are, focus on make what you do the best quality and you'll end up in a better place than trying to outperform everyone else," and I still use that mentality to this day.

How did you pick your career? Did you know all along?

I pretty much followed a "yellow brick road" of things I was interested in to be honest. I went into college not knowing at all what I wanted to do, and slowly narrowed down my interests based on things I found interesting and classes I liked. I was lucky enough to participate in PwC's externship program in between sophomore and junior year where I connected with someone in the firm's deals practice; after talking to him I realized I was incredibly interested in the deals space and was able to intern with that particular group the following summer. I was also incredibly lucky that I was given an offer to return full time to the group after college as well. So in short, I definitely did not know all along! But it's been a great experience finding a place I really like doing really interesting work!

When you were a student, did you do anything outside of school to build skills or get knowledge that has helped your career?

I think one of the best thing I started doing in college was keep up to date on current events. It's now very important I'm up to date on everything going on politically, economically, etc. I was able to create a habit of checking my favorite publications in the morning, both by getting email updates and checking front pages.

What is it like when your job gets tough?

While it doesn't happen on a regular basis, the job can definitely get stressful at times. When this happens, I like to take a step back, breathe, and evaluate the situation and tasks at hand. The group I work with is very supportive and I have no problem reaching out to any of them and asking for advice as well.