For the small percentage of the world population who are in the consulting business, it may not be a mystery (for the US, the estimate is about 250,000 consultants per wetfeet.com, which makes less than 0.1% of the population or 1-in-1000). But for the vast majority of the people, consulting is still a “new” and increasingly interesting field of occupation, where more and more people would like to jump right in. I think the world needs more consulting talent, and my objective is to inspire the future generations of consultants, and hopefully take part in cultivating, educating, and preparing some of them for a successful consulting career. If you want to be encouraged on the future prospects of consulting, I highly recommend the HBR article “The Rise of the Supertemp“. First of all, no single corporate job could beat the combination of experiences, learning, and fun I have accumulated in my consulting career, and that’s why I love being a consultant. Looking back, I have fond memories of helping a medical device manufacturer redesign its entire supply chain planning, supporting a consumer packaged goods company in the Midwest to optimize its global manufacturing and sourcing network, spending time in Mexico and Honduras training client teams, conducting full operations diagnostic of a diaper manufacturer company in Turkey, helping a US-based Private Equity firm assessing a target company in Education industry, preparing project proposals for leading global retailers for their distribution network optimization and even spending considerable time in trash collection stations and landfills around the country to optimize their operations. More recently, having a chance to live in Rome, Italy for about 3 months to support a major humanitarian logistics organization and projects we took on as a company in India, Turkey, Rwanda and in Europe are all adding up to great excitement, pride, continued learning and fun. In my latest blog post “Launch your startup and go global“, I believe I have captured some of this excitement and learnings. I have been invited to speak at universities such as Carnegie Mellon University and Georgia Institute of Technology to talk about how to be a consultant, and what skills are needed to be a successful one. Judging from the interest of both undergrad and grad students, there is a significant amount of enthusiasm in the new generation to be consultants. Whether the reason behind it is financial, prestige, experience, learning, resume-check-box, or others, I see the common theme in student questions that they want to be consultants, but they don’t know how and they cannot exactly articulate why. Moreover, I am meeting an increasing number of experienced professionals (an early, mid, or late stage in their careers) who are interested in getting into consulting or start their own consulting business for a variety of reasons, and the same theme holds true: how to be a consultant and what skills are needed. Let’s get to the bottom of things, and discuss what skills are essential in a successful consulting career first. Then, I will leave it to you to think about “how” you can be a consultant given your own circumstances. If you have time, you can see here the full video/presentation of my talk/lecture in April 2014 at Georgia Tech, organized by PhD2Consulting Club: “Preparing for a Consulting Career: Problem-solving, Executive presentations & Storytelling”. Consulting is a lifelong journey for some. For some, it is a stop-gap until the next “full-time” gig. Regardless, you would need only two skills to be successful: 1. Problem Solving Skills, 2. Presentation Skills. I can hear some say: “BUT, you need much more than these two. You need expertise in specific topics, you need experience, you need x, y, z…”. I hear you loud and clear. But without these two, others have minimal impact. And with these two alone, you can be a great consultant.
1. Problem solving
What is more challenging: problem-solving in a client setting or problem-solving in a case interview? I think it is more challenging to do the case interviews because you are under time pressure, you are being directly interviewed for your abilities by a senior consultant or partner, and the topic is most likely about something you have no clue about. I mentored many candidates before they went into their interviews with McKinsey and other firms. I conducted a good number of first/second round interviews with other candidates. I also presented on this topic multiple times. So, here are some of the best strategies when preparing for a consulting interview (a key component of the interview process where they measure your problem-solving skills): Before the case:- Get a practice partner
- Find a case coach
- Read case examples
- Practice & practice
- Relax & get curious
- Listen and/or read
- Understand objective
- Clarify and ask
- Take time to think
- Structure
- Hypothesize
- Analyze/solve
- Sanity check
- Recommend
- Synthesize
2. Presenting
When I was presenting about these two core skills last year, I gave 50/50 importance to problem-solving and presenting. Because they are complimentary, I thought and they should be equally important. But last year changed my view slightly. I think presentation skills are more important than problem-solving. Given the technical or business skills/insights, you can solve a problem, at least eventually 🙂 But presenting a problem and its solution to an audience effectively is a much challenging skill, and therefore it is a more rare skill in the professional world. Presentation skill does NOT mean Powerpoint or Prezi. It is all about communication, and about telling a story that is easy to follow and understand; that has a purpose and an impact. Every one of us uses presentations in our lives. Verbal or visual or both, we all communicate with each other, within technical teams, to leadership teams, and so on, on a regular basis. One day, a department head in my former company asked me to put together a training material to teach the entire department staff how to make great presentations. After spending some time thinking about this topic, here is what I prepared for this very first training session I conducted, which was much more than just “presentation skills”, but more about “story-telling”:- Emotions: Presentations (or any communication) are significantly more emotional than they are logical; so, learn to address people’s feelings
- Audience: Understand your audience, and customize your messages and story to their needs and expectations
- Top-down: Leverage “Pyramid Principle”, top-down messaging, giving the key message first, then presenting the supporting facts if needed
- Structure: Structure overall story, structure choices/options, structure pages, structure everything
- Color: Add color to your presentation by using some proven techniques such as jokes, quotes, provocation, analogies or some great charts
