- Why you should not go into consulting. This is the topic for today's video. It's a bit of an unusual topic if you know the other videos on my channel, and indeed I also want to make the format of today's video a little
bit different than otherwise because today I really want
to give you a real talk. I want to show some real stories to you, tell you really about
my personal experiences and thereby talk about
why I really think that for some people probably
consulting is not the right thing. And also really explain that to you. What really the downsides
of the career are. I hope also touch a couple of things which are not the obvious reasons. Like you travel a lot,
I think we all know this but let's really go into
the details of this. And so indeed the format
I want to do it here today also in the video format is that I will just sit down here with you. I wrote a couple of notes
here on my piece of paper and I just really want to have a a heart to heart conversation with you, which is really Frank, probably also a bit less edited this video than usual so apologize if maybe
I just talk a bit more or are less structured
than usual, because again this would just be due to
the nature of this video just because I want to be as frank and as open as possible with you today. So in this spirit welcome
to another coffee break here on my channel Firm Learning. I will of course drink coffee as usual. And I will probably put it down here next to me, but please do not wonder if I'll casually pick it up again. On my channel I want to help you to become successful in the
first years of your career. And again, just to start this also off to make sure that I'm not
being misunderstood here. If you've seen other videos on my channel, you know that I'm in general
a very big fan of consulting. I'm a very big proponent of consulting and this was not just
fake, I truly believe that I truly believe that consulting is a great extraordinary career opportunity for many many people out there,
I really mean this by heart. Though it's not only positive
what you experience there, for sure I had some dark moments for sure to me there happened things
which weren't that great. And I want to talk
about this as well, also on the channel, just, just in
terms of being fair, right? Because I believe that if you decide yourself to start
consulting, then you should know what you're getting yourself into. And then also what maybe some things are which may be a bit nicer
in other career paths. Because of course, even
though I like consulting a lot by no means I want to claim that consulting is the only career path that you can pursue to become successful or to be happy or to have a great life. Of course, there are
many other alternatives. I mean, I hope that
this is obvious as well. So let's talk about these things. And I have prepared three
points I want to talk about. And maybe if we just kind of
read the topic of the point it might sound a bit
obvious to you, but again I hope to touch also a couple
of not so obvious points here. And the first point I want
to talk about is the pressure the pressure that you will
feel when working in consulting especially also as a junior,
really from the start. And here just really try to put yourselves in the shoes of a young consultant. How will your day look like? And I'm especially as always talking about these very large tier
one strategy consulting firms with some other firms that
might be a bit different. Of course not all firms are the
same and so on and so forth. You know this right? But let's talk about this type of firm. And indeed they're often from day one, from week one after the
first onboarding days or so you will be sitting at the client on an actual client project, and you will have
significant responsibilities. The team sizes are very small on a typical MBB type of project, It will be one of two, three, four, five consultants. And you will very early on be responsible for full work stream. And if for whatever
reason your work stream isn't doing well the pressure is on. Let me just tell you this. Because everybody is so
loaded, so full of work. It's not the case as in many other larger companies that
your colleagues can just pick up the work, can just help you out necessarily can just do the work for you, for whatever reason, you
do not really manage. Of course there will be a project lead who will coach you, who will help you, who will really benefit you also try to develop you, and in difficult
meetings, also join you. But even then very early
you will have meetings. With also rather senior
clients on many projects. Alone, you will sit alone with them. And then, again, for all kinds of reasons that wouldn't be unusual that maybe a client isn't happy with you, with your work, with the
value that you deliver with the results that you bring. And he will criticize
you and you might not get along well with him, or her,
or whatever the client is. The client might complain
to your project lead, to your partner. And then
depending on how it goes, I mean, again depends
on the circumstances, but then rather quickly sometimes you will really also be very quickly in the focus of the critique. And if this happens, also just mentally, psychologically that
can be extremely tough. Imagine going into the
team room every day, you're working with clients who you know don't like you don't appreciate you don't want to work with you. And of course this also often
has political reasons, right? Some clients might
literally be incentivized to not make you succeed, to make you fail. And of course, in an ideal situation your team will recognize
this, will help you out. will support you, And this is also how it is most of the
times, but not always. And you know, this can really be tough. And I also made a video about that, talking about stress and
anxiety in situations like this I will link it somewhere above here where I'm sharing things like this. And I also explaining a bit
more also more personal stories. But I mean, I can tell you,
let, let me be honest here. I have projects where I really
just felt like so miserable. It was psychologically so bad. I remember one time I just
went to the client toilet locked myself into a toilet cabin and just because I couldn't
handle the situation anymore in the team room, sitting
together with the colleagues just coming out of a client meeting just really being heavily
criticized by the client. And then also often feeling powerless because sometimes of course the criticism is right, but especially as a junior, you will lack sometimes
also the political agility to really play this in the right way. There are also things that
are out of your control. And very frankly, I've seen colleagues who just were crushed by that. I mean, who really spent
like one or two years in this atmosphere and
really psychologically mentally, probably even had like some more or less like lasting damages from that because it can be like extremely
difficult, extremely tough. And if you do not develop some some really mental resilience strategies then this can really take a toll on you. And again now, I, also
don't take me wrong. I don't want to now make
consulting sound like mental abuse or anything like that. I mean, clearly there are many, many other things where you
have much worse experience than what you can experience there. But again, a thing on some people it can be extremely tough,
extremely difficult. I for sure had my dark moments as well. I believe there's like,
almost no consultant for sure no consultant I personally know who didn't have like one or two situations on projects, but I really feel badly also really mentally for
all kinds of reasons. Of course, the great
thing in consulting is that then, after the project is always the next project where you then work with a new team, with a new client, with a new situation. And also here in terms of your career only if you fail on one project, for whatever reason this doesn't mean that you need to leave the firm or that you need to get
kicked out or whatever, right? I mean, it's not like that, but still, this mental pressure is a thing. And also like to compare
this to some other jobs because I mean, there
are jobs where you just go into the office, you sit
down there, you do your work. And then at 5 or 6:00
PM, you leave the office. And then at home there's
really nothing else you need to think about anymore. Like you have like an empty head. These are these more, If you
want to call it this way, simple jobs, I don't know, don't mean this in any derogatory way,
but this for sure is not how your job in consulting will be. I mean, you will leave the office, You will sit at your desk at night, late at night still continue to work potentially late after midnight, next morning, back in the team room. And then on the Friday on the weekend. Yes. Like there's a strong culture at least what I experienced to not work on the weekend, but for sure, you're already thinking of Monday. I mean, clearly it's not a job that you just have an empty head once you're home or anything like this. Especially if you compare
this to some other careers. So this is the first
truth, The first downside the first thing you need to
be aware of; this pressure. And of course, many
things I just talked about are very closely and directly related also to the learning curve. I mean, these are situations just while you learn so much, I mean, it is just because you
are under so much pressure that you develop yourself
in such a quick way that you need to learn
this political game. You need to learn to
interacting with senior clients that have their own agenda and so on. I mean, also again you
need to understand that this is closely linked, right? But still, this is part
of the reality as well. This is what it is. So hope I didn't talk
already talk too much and too long here, I
have a bit of a feeling this one might get into
a bit of a longer video but let me now take a sip of coffee here. And because of the second
point, I want to talk about the second thing
that I believe really people underestimate
is this travel aspect. And I know I said this
in the beginning that I don't want to talk too much
about the obvious stuff. So let's cover that quickly first, right? So what I mean what is the obvious stuff about the whole travel discussion? Of course you will be away
from home Monday to Thursday. Again, I will link another video up here where I talked about the typical work week in the life of a consultant
if this interests you. How, like, the schedule
looks like where you are at what point in time,
at least, especially like until end of 2019 before the
current health situation. Of course, most people are at home office but how this plays out,
have a look at that video. But what I really mean
with the travel is that it's really more than that, right? And of course the one part of it is that it can be very glamorous and, you know you might fly business
class around the country a lot of course that feels glamorous. You have all the status cards of all the airlines, of all the big hotel chains. You might stay in some great,
very, very amazing hotels. These are the nice aspects.
And yes, this is nice, and even after several years,
I still enjoyed that, okay? I mean, with the downside of course that you are away from
home, away from the family. This is still the nice aspect. But still the reality is
that not every project is in a nice big city where you have this infrastructure where
you can enjoy all this. And for me, probably
at least every third or every fourth project
for me was at some place very deep, like in the middle of nowhere in the countryside where it
was really difficult to get to. I mean, I will remember being like at some very very rural location in the UK. there was only a discount
carrier taking you there. So for sure, nothing like business class or any like great status with lounges or so experienced at the airport. Then there was a long
ride with the, with a car. Then we need to get that location on the logistics would
take you hours every day, would mean that you would need to wake up I believe I was waking up at 4:00 AM every Monday just to get there. And it was like super late when
I arrived back on Thursday. But then also these places often there aren't great hotels
or anything like that. So especially at this
point, I was in a hotel. It was like really not a great hotel. And I'm, I'm not like, it's not even that, you know, I'm the guy who
to whom it is so important, that it's so luxurious or whatever but it was really not a great place. It was in the winter, it was cold I remember freezing at night because the heating in this hotel
wasn't working properly. I just needed to like
take several sweatshirts on just because I was literally
freezing there, right? The food was super bad, there was not any restaurant close by that had well, like a decent food quality. And of course, this is so demoralizing. If, you know, you work so much, you work so late and you
are in the hotel room and then it's cold and the food is bad. And I mean, this just adds so much to this also really mental
pressure that you have. And again, there are some glamorous parts. Sometimes it can be great. Again, I had great
experiences in amazing hotels. Of course, these are the nice sites but don't underestimate
how many also very big very large companies have sometimes their headquarters at
very, very rural places. Or of course, you are not
always at the headquarters. Maybe you are working
in, in, in production. And then you are in
some production factory somewhere in the middle of nowhere working with these people, um, it can be tough. And this again, adds to this mental situation, to the pressure. It adds to this overall sometimes really really bad situation that you
can then find yourself in. This is just also part of the reality. This was the second point I
wanted to share here today. The third point is the learning curve. And specifically what's maybe not so great about the learning curve. Because most people want
to join consulting, who are interested in a career
in consulting do this because they believe that the
learning curve is amazing. And again, like, overall, I agree. Overall I believe the
learning curve is great is amazing, at least much better than most other career
paths that you can take. Because specifically
you just have exposure to a very high number of industries, a very high number of different functions. Like probably there's no
other career path where like in a couple of years you
will likely have worked in retail, in automotive, in pharma, in telecommunications, I mean, really what you see what you can do is great. Those third, to some extent
it does get repetitive. This is also part of the truth. And probably this is even worse in, for instance, IT consulting types of firms where the projects are even longer the type of projects that
you do are even more similar. But I would argue even
in strategy consulting MBB type of consulting
firms, it gets repetitive. Not necessarily regarding
the contents that you do because often yes, it is different. But even here over time you will be asked to specialize more and more, After two or three years,
you will really focus much more on specific industries, specific types of functions,
of types of projects because of course is
then valuable knowledge. And then of course, everybody
wants you to do this again because this is the
really something you've learned, that you're really good at. I mean, it makes sense, but of course then the content start to
repeat after some time. But even if you do do different things the overall structure, the type of things that you do are very similar. I mean, always like in
the first week, you always have a client kickoff, to
prepare this client kickoff. Then you start the project,
you have expert calls, calls with internal
experts, other partners who did similar things
already in the past, maybe some external aspects,
experts that you talk to. This is then this next phase. Then you have your
weekly, your fix meetings, your weekly regular
meetings with the clients where then you always prepare
the thorough fix document. You talk about this with the client then you prepare your
analysis, get some data build an Excel model, crunch the numbers derive this, share this
back with the client, discuss it, then every second week you have a steerco. So it's a big steering committee the big committee where usually with board level type of members, you discuss then the results. Again, the process is always the same. The partner comes in,
discuss this with you. Then you do an iteration
loop, another iteration loop until you have the
document then present it in front of the board, get the feedback. So this kind of type of
activities that you do. These types of discussions.
It really starts to get repetitive after some point, again, probably much more interesting
than many other career jobs but after you did this a couple of years it doesn't necessarily
feel like this anymore like the very first time, like the very first years you do this. And of course, this is
also part of the reason, why then after a couple of years, many people do switch, right? Many people do then transition. And of course then once
you're project lead the new experience that you add is really managing the team, leading the team. This is a new experience. Once you are then a partner,
here the new experience is really, are you responsible for acquiring new business, doing sales, If you want to call it this way of course this is a new experience. But I would argue
depending on what exactly that you do, but then there are some exit paths that you
could take that really then increase your
learning curve much more. And here one of the things I missed most in terms of consulting
in terms of the learning for sure was really this
operational experience because let's be frank,
it's very different to just be the expert
just tell other people in a smart way, what they should do. You know, this one thing, and of course, this is important and
a great skill to have you understand
intellectually what's right, but then really implementing
something like this in an organization, talking to the people, making them do the things
that you want them to do. All of this might sound
obvious to you as a consultant. And probably I even thought
that this was rather easy, you know, when I was a consultant. But now after a couple of years and more operational roads after I have consulting. So you want to divert for two years at a at a CTO position in a retail company. Now, since this year transitioned into a chief revenue officer position at a medium sized company here in Munich. When you're responsible for your team and you need to talk and
work with real people. And maybe then also with people where not everybody has an Ivy
league education where not everybody is getting
paid a six digit salary because of course these people
are then super motivated, will do everything you
ask them to do, right? But maybe with people
also with other profiles motivating these people, influencing them to really work together with you on the things that are important to you. And then also that they do it the way that you believe is right,
and you know is right. This is really a significant challenge. And I really think that
this is an experience that you do not learn, do not get in consulting because there,
for you often just stops in the theory and is for
most types of projects. So this is my third
point. Let me just recap, First, the pressure that you are on, early on can be immense,
can be unbearable. At least it feels at
times that it's unbearable and can really crush you, especially if you are, like your mental health isn't already in a strong
place at the beginning. You're not really able to build some good resilience strategies here. Second, this travel that just adds on it can be really, really tough for you. And third, the sort of repetition. Yes, the learning curve
is great, but maybe not always as great as
you think it is, or, as you think it will be
when you join consulting. These are my truths. These are the things where I believe that
maybe consulting is not the right career path for everybody. And at least I believe it's very fair that you know about this before you start your career in consulting. This is just my perspective, my opinion, of course, I trust other people might've had different experiences also. So I'm not claiming that this is now the reality, the truth for everybody. I love to get your
perspective on that as well. I mean, what were these
maybe darker moments darker situations, not so
great experiences that you had. Let me know in the comments I'd love to, to, to interact with you on that. As you know, I will do my
best to answer every comment but I trust it would also be interesting to other people watching
this video to learn from your other experiences as well. And, you know it, as always
if you took some value out of this video, I'd really love you If you hit the like button and subscribe for more content like this. Also big thank you to all the members of Firm Learning for your support. I really appreciate it. My name is Heinrich, I
release weekly videos here on my channel, Firm Learning. So stay tuned until next
week until next Saturday, all the best to you, This is Heinrich, from Firm Learning, and bye-bye.
