From your first days as a consultant at a strategy consulting firm, you will work in a team with disagreements and, importantly, learn to look past disagreements with higher-ups in the company's leadership and you will help your clients achieve the results they are looking for.
Business management consulting can be challenging, rewarding and a great start to your career. Throughout your career, you will be faced with a number of different issues related to strategy and organization, as well as the transactional side of things.
Most projects are completed in more or less a few months and require a consulting team as a board of directors from the client company, the client’s experts. No two projects are the same, so you cannot use a “cookie cutter” solution. This means that you have to orient yourself quickly and need to be creative and have a workable solution to solve the problem based on the analysis of the actual situation. To bring this about most projects are of a multidisciplinary level, you will prepare in advance a full depth of work as a specialist in different sectors, for example logistics, financial institutions, the commercial sector, etc. The project environment is based on the typical consulting engagement, a project area and with a large talent pool and the impact from the simple daily things, all forming a unique environment with great depth of knowledge. The diverse offerings within a business strategy consulting firm allow you to build a wide range of skills in the advancement of an industry expert.
All this is not difficult to understand, most people who have joined a strategy consulting firm, usually leave within a few years. Most of these people are aware of the so-called growth policy, or open door policy, which is common in top strategy consulting firms. Some will look for jobs in other fields rather than consulting outside. Consultants may offer a “career bonus”, however, it cannot be considered a criterion for career retention in and of itself. But it often prepares most people for a series of better career opportunities after consulting. Personally, I hesitate to call business strategy consulting a long-term career opportunity.
At most business strategy consulting firms you will have a direct impact. The purpose of the work is to continually improve and enhance the performance of your client’s company. This element of helping your client succeed goes beyond a professional task and becomes a more personal commitment. You will take a central role in achieving this direct impact over time. You will find yourself consistently encouraging and supporting your own personal and professional development – among other things – by people at various levels of your organization. They will also offer you a large choice that will be a major stumbling block for the rest of your career.
From your first days as a consultant at a strategy firm, you will work in a team that disagrees and, crucially, learns to ignore disagreements with senior management in the firm's leadership structure and you will help your clients achieve their desired results. The firm will provide you with the tools you need to develop your career as quickly as possible. Your supervisors will encourage you to work for yourself and develop your expertise, most of the time the gap is limited only by demonstrating your own ability to make it smaller. The better you do in your job within the firm, the faster you will become a leader, from the choice to accumulate knowledge, and in the strategy and organization itself.
These challenges are certain throughout your time in strategy consulting, you will embrace the purpose of helping your clients succeed and make your personal commitment more than a professional obligation when you advise senior management of leading companies. Honesty, knowledge, skills and leadership will automatically become the “end product” of this purpose.
The best way to check whether you are still interested and challenged by a career in business strategy consulting is to ask yourself every year. “Does it still serve my purpose?”. If the answer to this question is “yes”, you will still feel the need to help clients succeed further in their professional mission. However, if the answer is no, the possibility of you achieving more than being a business strategy consultant is high and it is time to try your luck at some challenging career opportunities after working as a consultant in your daily life.
According to TBKTSG
