It’s one thing to get a job in consultancy (congratulations!), but it’s another thing to be successful, whatever that means. Speak to any consultant, and they will bore you with their advice, regrets and could-have-beens.
My dad always told me ‘if you need something, then go to the top’…. so I asked all the Partners in my network what their advice would be to new starters. Just over fifty responded with advice that ranged from the brilliant (‘your craft as a consultant is more important than your subject matter – practice it!’) to the obvious (‘put your client first’) to the odd (‘it is necessary to have a language’).
What was more interesting are some of the contradictions. For example, a couple of Partners stressed that new recruits should use their initiative as ‘fresh eyes notice old faults’, whereas an experienced Bain & Co. partner told me ‘trust our tested tools and don’t rely on your past experience or knowledge’. Perhaps the former only concerns internal interactions, and the latter, external?
Anyway, I analysed the fifty odd replies and found five common themes which I’ve put into this report so it can easily be shared by careers services and consultancies themselves. Click below for access.
For those of you that haven’t landed the idea consulting job yet, feel free to check out my free resources here or book some 1-to-1 coaching here. Good luck!
Consulting Mastered 