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Consulting

Career Overview

In the world of business, management consultants are jacks-of-all-trades. Working through consulting firms or as independent contractors, they advise corporations and other organizations regarding an infinite array of issues related to business strategy-from reengineering to e-commerce, change management to systems integration. From billion-dollar mergers and acquisitions to corporate reorganizations in which thousands of jobs are at stake, they are the directors behind the scenes of nearly every major event in the marketplace.

A career in consulting can encompass a wide variety of industries. Pretty much anybody with a specialty in a field can offer consulting service; to keep this profile specific, we've focused on management consulting, a broad category in its own right.

Most management consultants hold salaried positions at firms that cater to a clientele of mostly large corporations. They are assigned on a project basis to their firm's clients, who are billed by the hour for their services. Depending on the client's needs and the firm's functional specialty (or core competency, as it's often called), consultants conduct objective research and analysis on behalf of their client, and make recommendations based on their findings. Ultimately, management consultants take on the responsibility of improving their clients' businesses by affecting change through their recommendations.

Research and analysis are the main tools of the trade for management consultants. They analyze a business problem from various angles by conducting research, and forming and testing hypotheses. Research may consist of collecting raw data from internal sources-such as the client's computers or through interviewing the client's employees-and external sources, such as trade associations or government agencies. A consultant gets some of his or her most valuable data through surveys and market studies that they devise and implement themselves. The data must then be analyzed in relation to the client's organization, operations, customers, and competitors to locate potential areas for improvement and form solutions. These solutions are then recommended to the client and-hopefully-implemented. (Sometimes convincing a client to accept a consultant's recommendations can be the most difficult aspect of the job, and there is always a chance that the client may choose not to accept the consultant's recommendation at all.)

Consultants often must travel to where their clients are located, sometimes spending days-even weeks-conducting research or implementing solutions. Long hours are common. But the pay is great, not to mention the bonuses.

Where a consultant works determines their career focus to a certain extent. The management-consulting playing field is populated by firms both large and small, from the behemoth Accenture, with nearly 25,000 consultants in the United States, to the exclusive Boston Consulting Group, with approximately 500 U.S. consultants. The largest and most well-known firms have clients across the spectrum of industry, especially Fortune 500 companies. Many of these firms assign their entry-level consultants to an assortment of clients in various industries to cultivate broad-based business knowledge. Boutique firms, by contrast, cater to a specific market sector such as health care companies or law firms, and their consultants become experts in those industries.

For those who enjoy problem solving and thinking about business strategy, consulting can be a very fulfilling career as well as an excellent jumping-off point for a management career or a future as an entrepreneur. On the flip side, frequent travel and long hours can make a consultant's schedule very demanding.

While consulting is great for people who like variety in their work, it is not for those allergic to structure and hierarchy. The large and elite firms tend to have a culture that mirrors that of their corporate clients, complete with a steep career-ladder: Only a select few make it to partner-level, and that's with an MBA and six to eight years at the firm.

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