#7 - So you want to be a consultant...

Note: The views and opinions expressed are solely my own and do not express the views or opinions of any specific company or my former employer

So you want to be a management consultant...

A few weeks ago, recruiting season hit campus. With the ferocity and coldness similar to a Chicago snowstorm, recruiting season changed everything on campus. Suddenly, people were talking about where they wanted to recruit, who they were having coffee chats with and how many free lunches they were having.

What do management consultants do?

At a macro level, management consultants solve problems for organisations. The problems and organisations we deal with can range from helping a retailer increase profits, to helping a government make better decisions to helping stop the spread of Ebola in West Africa.

Here is what each of the top management consulting firms says about what they do:

• BCG: BCG partners with our clients in solving the hardest problems challenging their businesses - and the world
• McKinsey: We help our clients make lasting improvements to their performance and realize their most important goals. 
• Bain: We work with top executives to help them make better decisions, convert those decisions to actions and deliver the sustainable success they desire.

That sounds good! But what does it mean for me?

For an individual consultant, your day is shaped around working on a portion (your 'module') of the overall problem. For example, if your project team is working on improving sales for a retailer, your individual module may be focused on increasing sales for 3 categories or running trials in store. Given the diversity of the problems that we work on, and the dynamic nature of the work itself, there isn't a good definition of what a consultant's day looks like. However, almost all of the work you do will fall into three categories of work.

The first category of work is gathering information. This can include something as simple as downloading data or something as complex as spending months interviewing client staff and customers. As a beginner consultant, you will likely spend some time on each case gathering this information and sharing it, together with any initial findings, with the rest of your team.

The second category of work is analysing the information you gathered. Analysis is a lot more than simply crunching numbers in excel (or more advanced analytical software such as Alteryx, my personal favourite). Analysis is about thinking through a problem to understand the true issues driving that problem, and then developing a way ('framework') to solve that problem. As a beginner consultant analysing a problem, you will likely spend a lot of time discussing the problem with your team, experts within your firm and the clients. You are always expected to have an opinion, even when there is not enough information, and to defend that opinion if required. Personally, the intellectual nature of analysis is one of the things that I enjoyed the most about consulting (and miss at B-school).

Finally, you need to communicate your analysis and recommendations, both internally and to your clients. The main way that consultants communicate is through Powerpoint slides. But more important are the constant discussions you are having with your client to frame their thinking and build consensus around your recommendations. As a beginner consultant, you will be presenting your thoughts in internal case team meetings from day one and will very quickly be expected to present to clients on your ideas.

What I loved about management consulting

The people

Universally, management consultants will say the reason they chose their firm, and why they most enjoy working there, is the people you work with. Management consultants are incredibly intelligent, motivated people who are generally just nice. One common phrase used to refer to the type of people that management consulting attracts is "insecure overachievers". The people you work with push you to be your best self and you push yourself to be as good as the people that surround you.

 The management consulting recruiting process is also very good at choosing people who conform to a specific culture, with each person being a variation on the underlying theme. This means that it is incredibly easy to get along with almost everybody that you work with, regardless of where you are working or where they are from. When I spent four months working in Saudi Arabia, I felt completely at home despite my team members being from 7 different offices and even more nationalities.

Diversity of opportunities

Unlike any other job, management consulting provides a ridiculously large spread of diverse opportunities. People are able to really shape their career to make it what they want and to seek out a unique set of experiences.

In my 3.5 years in consulting, I was able to:

• do a secondment at a retailer, where I worked in their internal strategy team for four months
• spend four months in Saudi Arabia on a project with the KSA Government
• undertake advanced analytics training in Singapore
• lead our local office's social impact and charity initiatives
• work on projects across many industries: financial services, mining, industrial goods, public sector, retail

Personal development

Given the immersive and intense nature of management consulting, you will come out the other end as a more confident, effective and structured person. I think consulting has had a fundamental impact shaping who I am, both professionally and personally. Management consulting firms also invest heavily in personal development and you receive formal, structured feedback at the end of every project you work on. Feedback is also informally sought and given on a more frequent basis (often monthly on a longer term case). If you don't enjoy receiving and giving feedback, management consulting is not the place for you.

What I didn't enjoy

The hours

Consulting is an intense job. I would always tell potential recruits that it's not a 9-to-5 job but it's also not as bad as investment banking. While a lot of work has been done to improve work-life balance (see here and here), the job is not easy. Additionally, if you are travelling away from your home city, you are not able to do anything during the week. There were many weeks where I would miss out on interesting events or have to rush straight to soccer practice after reaching home from the airport.

Work can sometimes be boring or conflict with your views

The diverse nature of work can mean that you sometimes get staffed on a case that is boring. This happens. It could be that you are just not interested in the subject matter or that there is not a lot to do. Given that management consultants tend to be people who value some level of intensity and intellectual stimulation,slow work days/weeks can often be worse than busy ones.

Additionally, the work you do may conflict with your personal views and morals. While you can flag such conflicts and be excused from a project, the project will still go ahead and the company you work for is still doing something that you don't agree with. For a lot of people, this can be challenging, especially when it restricts your ability to talk publicly about certain things. Given my involvement in public sector projects, and my involvement in politics, this is something that I have had to grapple with.

How should you decide whether management consulting is right for you?

Management consulting is not for everybody. But when you see half of the entire class go to a MBB recruiting event, people feel that they should be applying for consulting, even if they are unsure whether or not it is right for them. If you are in this latter bucket, I would tell you to ask yourself the following three questions.

1. Why are you doing consulting?

Really think about why you are applying to consulting. Common reasons to apply include wanting to experience a lot of different industries, build your business skills or because you like intellectual challenges. If you feel you have a strong reason, that you could defend if you had to have an interview today, then apply.

If you are applying because you aren't sure about what you want to do next or because other people are applying/telling you to apply, seriously consider your decision to apply.

2. Are you willing to make the sacrifices related to travel and longer working hours?

Consulting will impact on your life and your relationships with family and friends. Given that you know why you are doing consulting (from the previous question), ask yourself whether the benefits above are worth the cost. If they are, ask yourself how long you are willing to make this trade-off for? For most people who go into management consulting, the answer is yes, for 2 years. 

3. Have you enjoyed casing?

A friend of mine who recently interviewed for management consulting said that she was surprised to find that she enjoyed her practice case interviews. When I practiced for management consulting case interviews, I found that I also really enjoyed the intellectual challenge. Case interviews encapsulate and distil what your career as a management consultant will be like. If you hate case interviews, you probably won't enjoy your job as a management consultant.

 

In conclusion

Management consulting is a rewarding career, for those who decide to pursue it. Make sure you think before you jump in.

For another opinion from a former colleague (also the person who convinced me to join BCG, and remain at BCG when I considered leaving) read 'Musings on consulting'.