Everything you need to know about Consulting

are you considering a career in consulting or want to know what Consulting is in this video I'm going to cover everything you need to know so what exactly is Consulting you might have heard of names like McKinsey Bain BCG Accenture Deloitte but what do these firms and Consultants actually do well the best way to think about what Consultants do is think about your doctor but instead of treating patients like you and me Consultants would treat a business like a doctor a consultant would do a couple things with a business when you think about a doctor there's a couple things that every doctor will do when you come in for a visit first the doctor will assess your symptoms then they'll provide a diagnosis third they're going to give you a prescription four if they're gonna provide some bedside manners that is what do you have to do when you're in between visits fifth they're going to provide some follow-up care just to make sure you're getting better because someone will do the same thing well let's imagine for example Coca-Cola is having issues with one of their products they're wondering why isn't this product selling better so they might hire some Consultants to come in and the Consultants will do exactly what a doctor does first they're going to set the symptoms for example they're going to look at the product line and think about why isn't this drink selling well is it the price is it the pack packaging is it the taste is it the lack of marketing like what's happening and once they know what the symptoms are they're going to look closely at it and provide a diagnosis they might think ah you know what the problem here seems to be the marketing we're not marketing enough and then what they'll do is provide a prescription so their prescription will be we need to Market more at sporting events and then in order to give some bedside manners which is what do we need to do we need to Target people who are between the ages of 18 and 34 for example that way they provide exactly what the client Coca-Cola needs to do and then finally they're going to follow up just to make sure how the marketing campaign went just to make sure that Coca-Cola was able to get the outcome it wanted when it hired a Consultants so that's just an example of what Consulting is like and if that type of problem solving really resonate with you and you thought oh I can see myself doing that being consultant might actually be a really great career path for you in fact there's a lot of reasons why people pursue a career in Consulting let's talk about the major reasons the first off is the compensation in fact most consulting firms and Consultants are paid within the top five percent of global earners so imagine even if you're like a 21 year old you're living out College you're already making six figures from your first day that's a pretty good sizable compensation and of course this only increases the further out you go in your career as well so if even if you have a couple years and you want to make a career change to Consulting most likely you're gonna get a salary bump and that's just a compensation so besides earning on the top five percent of earners just on your base alone you're gonna get performance incentives as well as a sign-on bonus when you actually get the offer that's a lot of money to start off with but beyond just the compensation there's a lot of other benefits as well for example consultants get to travel a lot and get to reimburse these costs to the firm as well as to the client nice so I have a friend who loves Consulting because of the travel by the time you quit his consulting job he had had so many points that for the rest of his life he never has to pay for another plane ticket or a hotel upgrade because he spent so many nights traveling in so many planes that Airlines basically give them so many points and hotels have given so many points that all his vacations moving forward for us is life pretty much already paid for so that's just a benefit of traveling beyond that you also get the world's top Healthcare as well as retirement funds because the firms you work for want to make sure that you're in top health and that you're set up for retirement so they're going to give you the best health care as well as the best retirement fund possible third a lot of firms also have an education fund so this could be for example you decided to take an online course or are you actually going to get another degree for example if you're an undergrad who joined you might want to pursue an MBA and the firm will pay for your MBA assuming you come back to work for them for a few years but beyond just the monetary benefits there are also a lot of benefits for working in Consulting for example you got some of the best mentorship that you can possibly have these are people who have been in the business world for more years than you've been alive and they're literally next door to you working so I remember back when I was at Bain it was so easy for me to be able just to knock on a door for example if I was thinking about entrepreneurship and there was someone who sold their business for 500 million dollars and decided to become a partner at the firm I was able to schedule time on his calendar and be able to talk to him and also the friends I made the type of people that come into consulting or the people who are very ambitious people who love learning I likely share a lot of the values that you have so some of my best friends to this day are people who I met during my time in Consulting and when clients bring in Consultants they're bringing in Consultants to solve big problems because you're not going to go in there and decide what color the chair should be in the waiting room for example how should the build Melinda Gates Foundation spend their next billion dollars if their goal is to eradicate malaria and because you're working on these high impact projects with these big clients you're always going to be learning different skill sets whoever it's how to analyze a problem better how to structure your thoughts how to build confidence or how to lead a team you're always going to be learning as a consultant and once you decide to leave Consulting the whole world is open to you you have so many exit opportunities for example you might decide to stay in business and maybe your goal is to be a CEO of a big company you might end up being the CEO of Google Microsoft or Starbucks or you might decide that you want to take your career completely different and you might end up being a seven-time Grammy winner like John Legend yes John Legend was a consultant as well so you can kind of see that all different types of people start their careers in management consulting and that brings up another benefit of working consulting which is a career growth even if you only stay in Consulting for a few years or you decide to stay until you retire you're always going to be progressing so all of these firms early in your career you can expect a promotion anywhere between six months to two years and every time you get promoted that's going to be another 30 40 pay raise so you can imagine there are very few career paths that allow you to be able to do that and that's a huge benefit why people want to stay in Consulting but if you are curious about what the progression is like at a consulting firm it's pretty fast so this is what a typical path will look like for example if you're straight out of school you'll start off as an analyst the title itself will change from firm to firm but we'll call it an analyst at the lowest level you'll stay there for about two to three years before getting promoted to associate you can also enter associate as an MBA or you might go get your MBA and then come back and the firm will pay for it and you'll stay at this role for about two to three years before becoming a project manager which is another two to three years before finally becoming an associate partner which lasts typically about two to four years and then you'll make partner for about three to five years and then finally you'll be a senior partner so you can kind of see here the progression is really quick and at all levels you're always going to be learning and up leveling yourself so at this point you might be thinking whoa there's so many benefits to working and Consulting so what's the catch well I presented you with all the benefits of working Consulting but there is one downside which is working Consulting actually takes a hit on your work-life balance if you're someone who likes having a nine to five job someone who expects to work 40 hours a week expects to go home to your bed every single night because whole thing is probably not the right career path for you as a consultant you are paid a lot and you are given a lot of benefits and perks but that comes with a trade-off of high expectations from the client and from The Firm that employs you so if you want a job that's nine to five 40 hours a week you know that you're not going to work the weekends ever in that you're going to be able to go home in your bed every single day Consulting is probably not the right career path for you while you're not going to be traveling 365 days out of the year or anything crazy like that there are some sacrifices you do need to make when you are pursuing a career in Consulting for example traditionally Consultants will work about 50 to 60 60 hours per week so there's a lot of factors that can affect how many hours you work so for example it could be the project timeline if you have two weeks to work on a project versus two years then the two weeks is going to be a lot more intense second is a type of project if it's a project that you and your team and your company have done over and over again you probably have templates and shortcuts but if it's the first time you're doing a certain type of project you can expect a lot harder work because you're still trying to figure out the process third is you have to think about is travel involved for example if you have to fly five hours to get to the client you have to factor in things like getting to the airport the flight getting from the airport to the client side getting to the hotel and then at the end of the week getting from the hotel back to the airport flying back to your home so you kind of see that those actually inflate the hours as well so travel has a big component to do with it as well and finally it has a lot to do with the team that you're on for example if there's a lot of work but very few people on your team then per person there's gonna be a lot more work than if there's a little bit of work and a big team so a lot of that really does vary and there's a lot of factors that go into a project but you can expect about 50 to 60 hours a week and there's some projects where you'll work 60 to 80 hours per week I know that's from my experience as well so for example one of my very first projects we had a small team and it was a three-month project but we were working with a local school systems so it was a pro bono project so as a result I basically worked about 50 hours during that week just trying to figure out the problem we were trying to figure out is how to retain the best teachers in the school district so I got to interview a lot of the teachers and get to know them on a personal level so you can imagine that that type of Project's a lot more chill than the next project I had which was a two-week diligence project where two companies were thinking about merging and we were on a three-week project and so I ended up working the weekends working about 80 hours actually some weeks even more during that time period so you kind of see that the extremes of what Consulting can do there so that's just some of the examples of how intense the hours can work and the trade-offs you have to make in your personal life and then there's also lifestyle considerations as well as I mentioned Consultants travel some people really love traveling like I mentioned earlier the friend of mine who ended up racking up so many travel points that he has never has to pay for another hotel or another plane ticket life he really loved traveling but for me that wasn't quite it as in you could put me in a five-star hotel I could have access to a really nice sushi place but for me I personally liked to be able to go home to my own bed so when I did travel for projects it was actually seen as a negative on my lifestyle versus a plus but again every person varies on that but I just want to be transparent with that which is that travel isn't glamorous for every single person who enters the Consulting realm in fact if I had a choice I would have stayed on all projects that did not involve me traveling so how do you know if Consulting is the right career path for you if you are considering a career in Consulting I would ask yourself this question it's like what's your reason for wanting to work in Consulting so it could be for numerous reasons for example you already know what you want to do and working Consulting is like a stepping stone towards that so for example if you wanted to work in private Equity or venture capital and you know that having Consulting experience will help you land those jobs then as a consideration On The Other Extreme if you don't know what you want to do but you want to use Consulting as a time to explore different projects different functions different organizations different Industries different clients and that's another great reason right is to be able to figure out what exactly do you want to be able to do with your life and both extremes are different right but the goal is that you have to have a reason for why you want to work in Consulting because you're going to be giving up a lot of your lifestyle as well as your work-life balance so I want the trade-off to be worth it for you so even if you're only working Consulting for one or two years I want you to feel like those 12 to 24 months are going to be worth it for something in the end so again that's what I would think about if you're deciding your consulting's for you is what do you want to get out of your timing Consulting all right so now you know more than 99 of the world when it comes to what Consultants actually do in fact I actually want to help you more at this point if you are interested in career and Consulting I want to send you something if you comment below the word Consulting they'll tell me that you've already decided you want to be a consultant and what I'll do is I'll send you some resources so that you can have a successful career in consulting or if you're undecided and you type in the word undecided I'll send you a resource to help you figure out if Consulting is the right career path for you and if you are 100 serious about becoming a Management Consultant I want to help you even more here at microsulting offer my team and I of former recruiters interviewers resultants all we do is help people land their jobs in management consulting in fact we have an 89.6 success rate when it comes to helping people start their careers in management consulting and I want you to be our next success story all you have to do to be our next success story is to book a free 30-minute strategy session with my team and during our call we're going to assess how we can help you get from where you are to where you want to be at the firms that you want to work at and call is completely free but you don't take my word for it in fact you can hear from James about what it was like to take his free call and how he'd use that free call to eventually land his job in Consulting I'll include James's video somewhere above my head I'll see you in the next video

Channel: My Consulting Offer

Views: 10,369

Keywords: #Consulting101, #ManagementConsulting, #CareerAdvice, #BusinessSolutions, #ConsultingFirms, #WorkLifeBalance, #ConsultingLifestyle, #CareerGrowth, #ProblemSolving, #CriticalThinking, #ConsultingCareer, #BusinessConsulting, #WorkSmart, #ProfessionalDevelopment, #ClientEngagement, #IndustryInsights, #ConsultingLife, #CareerGuidance, #StrategicThinking, #DecisionMaking, #ConsultingJourney, #BCG, #McKinsey, #Bain, #MBB, #Deloitte

Id: y6u9_9Ip6cY

Length: 11min 26sec (686 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 05 2023