Senior Consultant
IMPOWER
What prerequisites are needed to work in consultancy?
Finishing university with a degree in Sports Coaching Science and no real idea of what I wanted to do, I joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) as an Aviation Firefighter. I served for 4 years and moved around a number of RAF bases, completing a 4-month tour to the Falkland Islands during my service. Upon leaving the RAF, I found myself at a crossroads in my career but knew that I had a passion for helping others and supporting individuals to achieve their potential.
I found myself working in Special Educational Needs for a couple of years, both residentially and educationally, before coming across a role in Children’s Services that suited both my skill set and my ambition to support individuals. My experience in the RAF also led me to spend time as an on-call firefighter in my spare time alongside my full-time employment. With my experiences during my time as a Firefighter in the RAF, I knew that this would be a good opportunity for me to both give back to my neighbourhood whilst also feeling a great sense of enjoyment and pride in supporting others in their time of need.
After 4 years on the front-line in Children’s Services, I decided that I was ready for a slight career change and started working in mental health at the local university, where I met some incredible individuals, both colleagues and students alike.
Why am I telling you this and what relevance does it have to consultancy?
While working in university mental health, I was contacted by an ex-colleague who informed me that she now worked for a consultancy that solely focused on supporting the public sector and they were looking for new consultants to join their expanding team. Amazing I thought, the only problem was… I had no idea what a consultancy was or what they did, and quite honestly, I was worried that it may be “too corporate” for someone like me.
So, I took a bit of time researching and looking into consultancy, what it was, what services it provided and asked myself if this was an industry that would align with my values to support others. After trawling many different blogs, articles and pages, I concluded that consultancy was… well, it was a service that supported others with creative problem-solving and improved their outputs in different ways.
With various changes in my career to this point, and a young family at home, I was conscious that my next step needed to be a role that aligned with my values but also could offer career opportunities and progression… so I decided to take a chance and enter an industry, which if I am fully transparent, I didn’t know a huge deal about.
What were my first impressions of consultancy?
I can still remember my first days and weeks in consultancy and vividly recall the feeling of imposter syndrome. Not because of the company or colleagues, as they were all super supportive and couldn’t have been more helpful, but more so because I felt like I was coming into this industry later than others and with less credibility and experience than others. I had the preconception that everyone in the consultancy industry had come from similar educational backgrounds and experiences, but this certainly wasn’t the case. As the days continued and as weeks turned into months, I found myself building confidence as I started to understand the value that I could add from both my life experiences and previous public sector employment. I could see that I was adding value both to the project team I was working on and also to the client in building credibility and becoming a trusted advisor. The penny dropped for me that the consultancy industry isn’t a tick box for employing individuals with the same set of prerequisites or educational backgrounds. The real way to build credibility and trust with a client is to utilise the full skillset of the team. It’s about building a workforce who understand the industry in which they are supporting and bring fresh, innovative ideas on how to approach a problem differently.
What advice would I give myself if I could go back in time?
From someone who didn’t really know what consultancy was a few years ago, and who has an unorthodox journey into consultancy, my final thoughts are that there is no “one size fits all” consultant and that all team members have their own valuable experiences and knowledge.
If I could go back to my first few weeks in consultancy and offer myself some advice, it would be: ‘It is okay to feel imposter syndrome and to question where your skill set may fit is more common than you think. Trust in your skill set and your experiences and try to establish where you can contribute and add value to the project or client in your own unique way’.