Mole's Eye View - Management Consulting

What is management consultancy? It's a good question. I have been working as a consultant for nearly 5 years and still find it hard to explain. When people think of management consultancy they think of big bonuses and telling companies how they should be run. As ever, neither is really true, in particular the former. Before you stop being interested, you still can get paid well as a consultant, but you are expected to work for it.

One of the best (and worst) things about working in management consultancy is that you don't know where or what you might be doing in a few weeks or months, or where you might be working. You get paid for being flexible; and flexibility doesn't suit everyone. I have been lucky enough to have worked in the UK and the US as well as some small bits of work in Asia. Interesting, but that still doesn’t really tell you what I do. Everyone who works in management consultancy does something different, so you have to be very careful about choosing the right path; it can be anything from strategy, change management, human performance, project management, outsourcing and many will do IT implementation.

I have tended to work on more strategic type projects; that means looking at things such as how a market will grow, which products are expected to be popular and how the business can support it. It might also mean looking at new regulations and trying to figure out what effect it's going to have on people businesses. Having said all that, as a consultant you have to be flexible and learn quickly. You may end up doing something which you aren’t experienced in that will really stretch you. So if you don't like being outside of your comfort zone and stretching yourself (I pretty much always am!), then perhaps this might not be for you!

If you like working with clients, in fact, spending most of your time in their offices, then it could be for you. But remember, it's not as glamorous as it all sounds. There are plenty of very late nights, and travelling around can get quite boring. Make sure you speak to someone before you join a consultancy as it can really vary from company to company, role to role.

Do I enjoy it? Yes; it's a great place to learn, work with intelligent and challenging people and get the chance to get high levels of responsibility very early on in your career.