Management consultancy is an attractive career and regularly attracts individuals from varied backgrounds, across all ages. It offers a variety of projects, constant challenge and opportunities for personal development. In a large practice, this may involve working all over the world with multinational clients.
Some typical career paths
Richard Samuel (25), Consultant, Hitachi Consulting
Richard was recruited by Impact Plus in September 2005, before joining Hitachi Consulting when the firm was acquired in April 2007. Prior to joining, Richard completed a degree in International Business at Nottingham Business School. The course enabled him to work for a heavy engineering firm in Yokohama, Japan for six months, before studying at Örebro University in Sweden for a further half year.
"My degree course gave me great exposure to different cultures and took me right outside my comfort zone; I knew I wanted to continue this personal challenge, which is why I choose a career in consulting".
Upon completing his degree, Richard won both the first prize for the undergraduate category of the annual awards for Business and Management students run by the Association of Business Schools (ABS) and the coveted, ‘Business Student of the Year’ award at the National Business Awards.
Richard now puts these skills to good use at Hitachi Consulting, where he is aligned to the Organisational Change Management practice, specialising in business change and transformation management. He is currently working with a top five bank on one of the largest transformational programmes in the Financial Services industry.
Richard has found the professional opportunities at Hitachi Consulting exceptional. "The roles I have had over the last few years have provided some excellent personal challenges and plenty of variety" He added, "Hitachi Consulting offers the best of both worlds: the agility and flexibility of a niche consultancy with the financial backing and international reputation and operations of a Fortune 500 company."
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Virginia Gardner (32), Senior Consultant, Deloitte
Virginia joined Deloitte a year ago having spent 9 years in the Army after leaving university with an English degree. "My Army training prepared me well for working in a constantly changing environment with a wide variety of people," explains Virginia. "In both the military and consulting, you have to be proactive, quick to use your initiative and able to think around a problem."
Virginia’s induction at Deloitte lasted two days and provided a comprehensive introduction to the firm. She was also assigned a mentor for the first few weeks. After three months, she attended the one-week Deloitte Difference course on core consulting skills.
Virginia is currently working on a costing project for the Ministry of Defence, which involves helping to scope and then implement the ‘whole life’ costing process, ie from procurement to disposal.
"I enjoy working with bright, proactive people who like to get the job done. The work is fast paced and interesting – there is always something new to learn and be involved with. It is also a lot of fun and people are very supportive of each other." The downside is the mobility expected of consultants. On average she is away from home three nights a week.
The Deloitte culture is one of the main reasons why Virginia joined the firm. "I would describe the people here as intelligent, friendly and proactive – the consulting style is very collaborative – it’s all about people, both client and consultant, working together to get a particular project done - and done well."
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Tania Ceitil, Consultant, Atos Consulting
Tania completed her postgraduate studies in Organisational Psychology in Johannesburg, South Africa while working for the Outsourcing division of Accenture. Gaining hands on HR experience through a couple of internal roles, she ultimately joined the world of consulting doing HR systems work, specialising in e-recruitment.
After 7 years at Accenture in South Africa, Tania decided to move to the UK in 2005 on her Portuguese passport. “The attraction for me to move over, as with so many people, was to work internationally and of course the travel opportunities, which I am happy to say I have both enjoyed to date. Working in the UK and Europe has been an interesting learning curve for me. I believe that I have gained invaluable experience and built complimentary skills that will only increase over time, especially within HR Transformation, which is what I am hoping to focus on over the next few years.”
Currently an executive consultant in the People & Change practice of Atos Consulting, Tania worked on various projects at top law firm, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer for over a year before taking a sabbatical to travel for 3 months. Since returning, she has been doing change management work for Premier Foods but will be moving to join the HR Transformation group as a Manager for Accenture in March 2008.
“I really enjoy consulting. Working with good people, and the variety of work that can be done is great, although many clients don’t like consultants and that can be challenging at times”
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Jason Belmont (31), Consultant, Hay Group
With just over two months under his belt, Jason Belmont may be one of the Hay Group’s newest recruits but he brings a wealth of business experience in both financial services and internet consultancy to his new role. A graduate in Hispanic Studies from Bristol University, Jason initially worked as an equity analyst, focusing on Latin American markets and spending time in both London and New York. However, he found the work repetitive and decided to take an MBA at the ESCP-EAP in Paris.
After graduating Jason spent time with two different web consultancies and experienced the collapse of the internet boom at first hand. He then looked for an environment where he could build on his experience. "Hay seemed a real ‘one-off’ – a specialist consultancy, heads and shoulders above the competition - which had a real understanding of the internal elements that influence organisations."
"Right from the beginning of the interview process I got a very good feeling about the people and the culture at Hay," says Jason. "This seemed to be a firm that offered something new and challenging, unlike many of the more traditional strategy firms, whose approach felt too close to the rigidity I’d come across in the finance sector. Although I’m still in the learning curve here, this really does seem to offer what was promised at interview – an environment where you can genuinely pick and choose what interests you and what you want to focus on in your work."
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Bill Galvin (33), Consultant, IBM Business Consulting Services
Bill joined IBM five months ago with an MBA from Manchester Business School and ten years’ work experience. He was immediately placed on a client project and is currently working for a FTSE 100 business on a large integration programme.
"Having worked in a range of industries and jobs, I have a broad skill set and range of experience. These were all very useful to me when I started at IBM," explains Bill. "My MBA was project based and included a number of live consultancy projects. These experiences gave me a feel for the consulting environment. Having said that, when I joined IBM the first weeks on project required significant adjustment of my perspectives. I had to get to grips with the consulting role and the extra layer of complexity above the immediate task in hand."
"My induction was delayed until quite recently but it probably helped that I had some experience of IBM and of consulting before doing the course. IBM places a great deal of importance on training and development and provides excellent on-line education programmes. The company is process driven, with a big emphasis on performance. Roles are clear and expectations are apparent so there are few hiding places. This creates a positive atmosphere where everyone is supportive of each other achieving their business goals."
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Surbjit Laroya, Senior Consulting, Atos Consulting
After completing her MSc in Occupational Psychology from Cranfield University Surbjit explains that “my education has helped me to focus on the people aspects of any business environments”.
Surbjit’s career has been spent solely in consulting. Starting work in a niche consulting firm called Human Engineering Limited she worked mainly with safety critical organisations around performance improvement taking into consideration the human factors (limitations and capabilities of human performance). Moving on from this Surbjit joined Atos Consulting within the People and Change Team, where she has worked on both global and European projects for large FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies. She has spent many hours in various countries working on large scale Transformation projects.
Surbjit found that working with experienced consultants and attending a variety of training has allowed her to achieve great depths of personal growth. Surbjit can definitely say that the work has been diverse, highly stimulating, fast paced as well as challenging. “Working on people aspects on an international scale I know is something that is fairly rare these days in Consulting, however with Atos Consulting’s strong European presence this and more has been achieved.”
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Mike Gorham (29), Principal Consultant, PA Consulting Group
Before joining PA six months ago, Mike was running his own e-business consultancy with two partners. The business suffered from the downturn and Mike found himself looking for a job in consultancy. He was impressed with the way PA dealt with the interview process and accepted their offer.
With a BSC in Economics and Philosophy Mike had joined the BOC group graduate scheme. Over three years he learnt about corporate strategy, sales and marketing and implementation of large IT projects. He then did an MBA at Insead and went to work for Zeneca Agrochemicals in business planning for two years.
"When you become a consultant there is a very different feeling to the way you go about your work. You are viewed and monitored more closely. There is more pressure to deliver constantly to very high standards."
New joiners at all levels in PA undergo a one day orientation session, which covers business processes, admin systems etc. This is followed by two days of training on the history of PA, capabilities etc. There is a ‘buddy’ scheme and a more formal mentor system. Within one week of completing the training, Mike was working with clients.
"I chose PA because I liked the people who interviewed me. That first impression has been borne out – I find it easy to get on with PA people. There is a focussed but informal attitude and an incredible depth of expertise. You can always find someone who has been there and done it several times. The senior people are very accessible."
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Elizabeth Briggs (28), Consultant, PricewaterhouseCoopers
Elizabeth joined PwC as an associate in October 1998. Having completed a business degree, she won a scholarship to the ESC in Rennes. She then spent three months travelling in Scandinavia before joining the graduate programme at Courtaulds Textiles in Leicester. Fourteen months later she was headhunted by an agency and was offered the job at PwC.
"My masters degree gave me exposure to different cultures and I learnt about international business. At Courtaulds I was managing 100 people (on the shopfloor) and this brought me down to earth and helped me to appreciate that people have lives outside work."
Elizabeth joined what was Coopers at that time, through the technical route, having implemented ERP at Courtaulds. She soon found herself running a programme at the Global Training Centre in the US. When she returned she joined the Customer Relationship Management group. She is currently developing a CRM business-to-business strategy for a client in the global drinks industry.
"It’s my job to help my clients decide where they want to be, to challenge them and to enable them to achieve their objectives. I always have to stay one step ahead."
Elizabeth is currently based in Scotland and frequently travels around Europe. The rule at PWC is 5/4/3 ie no more than five days working for the client, four days on the client site and three nights away from home. I like the variety and challenge of the projects. You can learn a lot very quickly. I’m working with the latest technology, different clients and different cultures."