Business consultants are typically engaged in the short term on a contract-based engagement to analyze organizational practices, identify weaknesses, and recommend solutions to improve current practices. As practices in different organizational departments can vary hugely, they often specialize in specific areas like finance, human resources, marketing, management, etc. In addition to recommending solutions, business consultants are responsible for guiding the implementation of the changes that they recommended.
Education and Qualifications
- Bachelor’s in business administration or some equivalent
- Master’s degree in a specialized business area (marketing, finance, etc.)
- Business consultant certification
Responsibilities
- Determining business needs
- Assessing business practices
- Identifying weaknesses
- Identifying alternate practices to improve the identify weaknesses
- Presenting these findings and recommendations to improve business practices
- Developing projects/methods to drive and implement the recommendations
- Guiding and following through on the projects throughout the implementation process
- Tracking, assessing, and finetuning recommendations for the best results
A Day in the Life
There is no typical day or daily routine. Each day comes with a different workload, distinct challenges, and a variety of business problems to deal with.
You will probably travel 75-100% of the time and work 80+ hours a week.
A day may have some of the following types of activities:
- Going over the tasks to achieve in that day
- Along with a few of your team members, meeting with the client project manager
- Checking emails and making sure required meetings have been scheduled
- Researching and gathering details for the project or topic that you are engaged with
- Preparing presentation materials either by working with the graphics department or by yourself
- Consulting with internal or external experts to fill in any gaps
- Preparing a questionnaire prior to a meeting with C-level executives, divisional heads, and other client teams to understand the problem at hand.
- Meeting with client teams to understand the business’ problems
- Researching and deciding how to fulfill the client’s needs
- Meeting with Engagement Manager and/or Partner (from your own company, not that of the client) to brief them about the status of the project and to seek advice.
- Partners/EMs also share feedback from the client executives and provide input to tweak your approach
- Completing progress reports and other documentation
- Building a relationship with your own project team and the client by inviting them to dinner, etc.
- Checking emails and responding
- Planning tasks for the next day
Other Necessary Skills
- Research and data-collection skills
- Problem-solving skills
- Excellent communication skills (presentation skills and writing skills) and interpersonal skills
- Negotiation skills
Career Progression
Consultant/Analyst –>Â Senior consultant/Associate –>Â Engagement Manager –>Â Principal/Associate Partner –>Â Partner/Senior Partner
After working many years for a large consulting firm, many decide to leave to avoid the constant traveling demands and long working hours by switching their career to Corporate Strategy, Business Development, Entrepreneurship, etc.
Salary
- Consultant: $80K+ with 10 to 15% bonus
- Senior Consultant: $110K+ with 10 to 25% bonus
- Engagement Manager: $175 to $200K with 10 to 25% bonus
- Principal/Associate Partner: $150 to 185K with 10 to 25% bonus
- Partner/Senior Partner: $200 to $500K; bonus could vary based on the total revenue and other performances, typically this could vary significantly from $100K to few millions
Job Growth
900K+ jobs
Outlooks 14% (2020 to 30)
Employment change 125K (2020 to 30)
Summary
If you are someone who finds the following characteristics of this job appealing, you should probably consider Management Consulting as your future career:
- Working with a new client every few months
- Willing to spend 80+ hours per week
- Love constantly traveling, staying in hotels, and eating in restaurants (and only returning home on weekends)
- Love research, data gathering, performing analysis, and interpreting data
- Working with various internal and client resources
- Presenting to upper management and client C-level executives
- Reasonably well compensated ($80K to 500K+)
