I'm a management consultant, ask me anything.

[Mc1234]

Might not be the juiciest thread, hoping to be helpful to those who are considering to work in consulting, so ask me anything!

In most of the big ones it’s up or out, so you cannot chose to stay at consultant level. You could make a sideways move into support services Global Chief of Staff; People lead that sort of thing.

For the poster who asked about the how, in my organisation it is one of a few ways:-
— you go to Oxbridge or similar and join as a grad as part of the milk round; - post MBA after a really decent stint in industry or something like banking.

To be recruited at a very senior level, just below equity partner or as equity partner (much less frequent) you will normally already be a consultant at another firm or someone extremely senior in industry.

We don’t do Degree Apprenticeships. It’s standard academic subject (mostly Economics; PPE and Engineering though we have some history/English/Law in most cohorts.

It is super sad. I have known women who made partner. They were child free or had one child. There was one with 2 kids, she was very good at managing upwards. Before becoming partner she would reply to emails of partners or clients at all hours.

She would leave at 5pm, which is not a problem in itself. If you worked for her you would end up working until all hours of the night, she would provide 0 support. I had to make things up, and if at 9am it didn't meet her standards she would talk down at me. The problem was the lack of clear guidance.

I realised if I wanted to make partner I would need to compromise my values. I didn't expect her to stay with me, but actually spend time with the people delivering the project instead of focusing on her image. I did not experience the same with male partners because the ones I worked with left their wives to take care of the children.

My Dad was a Management Consultant and worked with some of the greats and some large Companies. Respect to you!

What’s been your most interesting project and why?

do you ever feel like you are blagging and the people on the client company are actually right but you can’t say their right you need to be the consultant saviours so come up with something that seems different .

Can we stop with the insinuation that having only two one child is a sacrifice woman have made to get to the top in consulting? For some people that is a choice and it’s just a bonus that it’s easier to combine with a career than two kids or more.

*only one child

If you are talking about my post in particular. I can’t attest to women’s choices. If I were to make a guess, I would not assume most of women stopped having kids to become partner.

For a women to reach the top of her career in any industry it incredibly hard whatever their support network and responsibilities. If I were to make an educated guess I would assume having less caring responsibilities made it “less hard”.

You said yourself “it is a bonus that it’s easier to combine with a career than two kids or more.”. In such a competitive career anything that is slightly easier impacts who makes it at the top.

Consulting partners can have huge impact on companies and influence the economy. It is a shame that they are not more representative, in a variety of ways, of the general population.

Ps: I have an “only” by choice. Do you think you might have read it that way because of the only child stigma?