I recently received an email asking me some general questions about consulting and thought it might be useful for some of you out there. I won’t go into details about the kind of work I’m doing, but I’ll give some general insights/info about what it’s like to be in Consulting. I hope some of you find this helpful…
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Gary wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
I just finished reading all of your entries today, after starting a few days ago. I wanted to learn more about what you do as a consultant (i.e. hrs per week u worked, what type of person would enjoy it, free time you have, pros and cons) I’m currently applying to, and awaiting word from, MBA programs. Didn’t apply to Stanford though, sorry! I do have a friend at Stanford, who is probably a part of the graduate club you’ve mentioned a few times….if that makes up for it haha.
I’m coming from the film industry, looking to transition into marketing for an internet/media/entertainment film. I’m curious about consulting, but probably don’t think it’s the right fit for me.
Thanks for your help,
Gary”
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My response:
Gary, I wish I could go into extreme details for you on this one because there’s a lot that can be said about being a Consultant. Since I can’t do that, I’ll try to give you some good general information about the industry that can help you make a decision about whether you’d be interested in it:
The job: When people ask me what I do as a Consultant, I always tell them “I help diagnose business problems and come up with a way to cure them.” That’s probably a huge oversimplification of the job, but it does cover a lot of the bases involved. A consulting team will work with the client to figure out exactly what a given problem is and how it is affecting their organization. Then, it will do a bunch of analysis to find out the roots causes of the problem so that a solution can be developed. Finally, the team does additional analysis to develop a set of potential solutions and presents the best to the client organization in the form of recommendations for moving ahead.
Who would be interested in it: Just about anyone who like solving difficult problems would probably enjoy working in Consulting…on a basic level. There are some parts of the job, like crunching Excel models, participating in client meetings, writing out decks, etc, that might bore some people, so I won’t say that all strong problem solvers would like it. But, for people who like a good mental challenge and an environment where you can (READ: must) learn a lot in a short amount of time, this is the perfect sort of job to help strengthen their core analytical and problem solving skills.
The hours: It’s hard to say how many hours someone would work each week in Consultant because a lot of it is based on a number of factors, such as topic and duration of the study, project manager’s style, and efficiency of your own work. A consulting study can range from a private equity focus (usually longer hours and shorter duration) to operations management (somewhat shorter hours and longer duration), so the focus of the study can introduce big swings in the expected work daily work schedule. Also, much of a team’s daily work lifestyle depends on how the manager runs things. Some managers are efficient in their planning and project scoping and their teams end up with manageable lifestyles. Other managers may not keep tight reins on the scope of work early on and, as time passes, their teams may have to work into the late hours just to get everything done. Finally, if you and/or your team work slowly, then you’re pretty much destined to be working long hours in an attempt to get all of your work completed (you can’t make a turtle run a 4.2-second 40-yard dash). On average, you should expect something in the 50 to 80 hours per week range…I know that’s a large range, but there’s so much variability involved that I didn’t want to go with a small range and set incorrect expectations for people.
Free time: Much like the average hours per week, the answer for the amount of free time is “it depends”. If you’re on a good lifestyle study, then you’ll probably have plenty of free time on the evenings and weekends to do whatever you might want to do. If the study requires longer hours, then you might have to work until your standard bedtime (or later) during the week or on the weekends. This sort of variability in lounge time often keeps candidates from considering a career in Consulting because they place high value on having time to kick it. As for myself, I don’t mind working late as long as I’m learning and producing some interesting work products and analysis, so the occasional shortage of free time doesn’t bother me much.
Pros/Cons: I can’t really say if a characteristic of Consulting is a pro or a con because that depends on what a given person’s preferences are. I can state a few general things about it and then let people decide on their own:
- At some point, Consultants will have to travel for work. This could be good for folks like me who don’t mind flying several times per month, but it would be a killer for someone who would rather stay local
- There is uncertainty in staffing because you never know what sort of projects will be available when you roll off of a study. Some people try to time their roll-off dates to coincide with the start dates of studies they’re interested in, but I haven’t heard about too many successes with this tactic.
- You will be working in teams in almost all instances. This is great for people like me who enjoy working with others, but others are “loners” and do better working independently.
- You will work with a wide variety of people from project to project. Consulting firms often have an overarching corporate culture, but individual office cultures can mean that you could get staffed with people that are very different from folks in your home office…keep that in mind
- In most cases, you will be expected to hit the ground running and contribute almost immediately at the start of your time on a study. This can be difficult when you know nothing about the industry and topic area, but it can also be a “stretch” challenge that will make your problem solving game stronger in the long-run.
That’s about all I’ve got for now. It’s a shame that you didn’t apply to Stanford because you’d have a ball there. Also, since you’re coming from a work background in film, you could have benefited from all of the creative types that are students there. At any rate, I wish you luck with the schools that you applied to. Take care.
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Gary wrote:
“Hey Marquis,
I just finished reading all of your entries today, after starting a few days ago. I wanted to learn more about what you do as a consultant (i.e. hrs per week u worked, what type of person would enjoy it, free time you have, pros and cons) I’m currently applying to, and awaiting word from, MBA programs. Didn’t apply to Stanford though, sorry! I do have a friend at Stanford, who is probably a part of the graduate club you’ve mentioned a few times….if that makes up for it haha.
I’m coming from the film industry, looking to transition into marketing for an internet/media/entertainment film. I’m curious about consulting, but probably don’t think it’s the right fit for me.
Thanks for your help,
Gary”
—————————
My response:
Gary, I wish I could go into extreme details for you on this one because there’s a lot that can be said about being a Consultant. Since I can’t do that, I’ll try to give you some good general information about the industry that can help you make a decision about whether you’d be interested in it:
The job: When people ask me what I do as a Consultant, I always tell them “I help diagnose business problems and come up with a way to cure them.” That’s probably a huge oversimplification of the job, but it does cover a lot of the bases involved. A consulting team will work with the client to figure out exactly what a given problem is and how it is affecting their organization. Then, it will do a bunch of analysis to find out the roots causes of the problem so that a solution can be developed. Finally, the team does additional analysis to develop a set of potential solutions and presents the best to the client organization in the form of recommendations for moving ahead.
Who would be interested in it: Just about anyone who like solving difficult problems would probably enjoy working in Consulting…on a basic level. There are some parts of the job, like crunching Excel models, participating in client meetings, writing out decks, etc, that might bore some people, so I won’t say that all strong problem solvers would like it. But, for people who like a good mental challenge and an environment where you can (READ: must) learn a lot in a short amount of time, this is the perfect sort of job to help strengthen their core analytical and problem solving skills.
The hours: It’s hard to say how many hours someone would work each week in Consultant because a lot of it is based on a number of factors, such as topic and duration of the study, project manager’s style, and efficiency of your own work. A consulting study can range from a private equity focus (usually longer hours and shorter duration) to operations management (somewhat shorter hours and longer duration), so the focus of the study can introduce big swings in the expected work daily work schedule. Also, much of a team’s daily work lifestyle depends on how the manager runs things. Some managers are efficient in their planning and project scoping and their teams end up with manageable lifestyles. Other managers may not keep tight reins on the scope of work early on and, as time passes, their teams may have to work into the late hours just to get everything done. Finally, if you and/or your team work slowly, then you’re pretty much destined to be working long hours in an attempt to get all of your work completed (you can’t make a turtle run a 4.2-second 40-yard dash). On average, you should expect something in the 50 to 80 hours per week range…I know that’s a large range, but there’s so much variability involved that I didn’t want to go with a small range and set incorrect expectations for people.
Free time: Much like the average hours per week, the answer for the amount of free time is “it depends”. If you’re on a good lifestyle study, then you’ll probably have plenty of free time on the evenings and weekends to do whatever you might want to do. If the study requires longer hours, then you might have to work until your standard bedtime (or later) during the week or on the weekends. This sort of variability in lounge time often keeps candidates from considering a career in Consulting because they place high value on having time to kick it. As for myself, I don’t mind working late as long as I’m learning and producing some interesting work products and analysis, so the occasional shortage of free time doesn’t bother me much.
Pros/Cons: I can’t really say if a characteristic of Consulting is a pro or a con because that depends on what a given person’s preferences are. I can state a few general things about it and then let people decide on their own:
- At some point, Consultants will have to travel for work. This could be good for folks like me who don’t mind flying several times per month, but it would be a killer for someone who would rather stay local
- There is uncertainty in staffing because you never know what sort of projects will be available when you roll off of a study. Some people try to time their roll-off dates to coincide with the start dates of studies they’re interested in, but I haven’t heard about too many successes with this tactic.
- You will be working in teams in almost all instances. This is great for people like me who enjoy working with others, but others are “loners” and do better working independently.
- You will work with a wide variety of people from project to project. Consulting firms often have an overarching corporate culture, but individual office cultures can mean that you could get staffed with people that are very different from folks in your home office…keep that in mind
- In most cases, you will be expected to hit the ground running and contribute almost immediately at the start of your time on a study. This can be difficult when you know nothing about the industry and topic area, but it can also be a “stretch” challenge that will make your problem solving game stronger in the long-run.
That’s about all I’ve got for now. It’s a shame that you didn’t apply to Stanford because you’d have a ball there. Also, since you’re coming from a work background in film, you could have benefited from all of the creative types that are students there. At any rate, I wish you luck with the schools that you applied to. Take care.
This is a great post. Hope you keep on blogging. =)
Agreed. Covered the basics and insightful. Thanks for the peek into the consulting work.
Great insight! thanks so much
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