Expectation 1: I will have fast career progression as a management consultant

The expectation vs the reality

Losing or changing a job regularly appears in listicles about the top ten stressors in modern life. It’s no wonder then that when people apply for a job, they do their research. Exploring what the job will be like, understanding the culture and the people you will work with all help paint a picture of what to expect.

Only after starting the job, however, do job seekers get accurate insights about how closely the job aligns with their expectations — asking questions like, is the job what I thought it would be? Are the right supports in place? Is the workload manageable? Can I progress? Does it deliver on the things promised during the interview process?

This article focuses on the expectations management consultants have for career progression and how, in reality, firms deliver on these expectations.

The expectation

Our research participants describe a primary motivation for joining management consulting firms is to access fast career progression. Common consulting lore holds that ‘one year in management consulting is worth 2, 3 or 4 years in another organisation’ and many see it as a springboard to a lucrative, senior career outside of consulting.

Management consultants expect rapid career progression. Through their work, they play various roles ranging from providing subject matter expertise, to project management, business development, project direction and everything in between. In each of these roles, management consultants learn valuable skills useful to both the firm and to the employee as transferable skills for future opportunities.

While some see management consulting as a long-term career, it’s more common to perceive it as a stepping stone to another profession and a valuable testing and learning zone to figure out what’s next.

“Consulting is more or less an extension of business school. You get to apply what you learnt at business school and the idea is to do it as a short term stint.” Consultant, South East Asia

The lived experience

In general, the expectation of internal progression and promotion does hold over time. However, each firm has different ways of making progression happen. The most successful consultants learn the ways they can increase their chances of progression.

These include:

Doing more than just project work. Excelling on project work is a non-negotiable for success. However, the most successful consultants also find ways to add value to their firm on top of project work. This means doing things like running training internally, building up intellectual property for the business, contributing to recruitment and marketing activities and helping with business development at all levels. These can be self-directed activities but, particularly for newer consultants, are often done alongside or at the direction of more senior colleagues.

“It’s really about juggling between billable and non-billable [work] and about being smart about demonstrating why your utilisation isn’t high.” Manager, Australia and New Zealand

Networking internally to find sponsors and advocates. Management consulting is a networked business. Most firms have very fluid structures where consultants work across teams according to business needs rather than direct and constant line managers. Therefore the onus is on the individual to find someone that will keep an eye out for their progression. This means more junior consultants have to find a senior person or persons to align with who will ensure they get picked for the most suitable projects and, importantly, advocate for them at promotion time. Promotions are often managed by a consensus of senior leaders, so having someone willing to put forward their case is essential for success.

“The Director was the only one who knew what I was doing at any given time — so I realised it was important that he could advocate for me . I knew I needed his support to get anywhere.” Consultant, Australia and New Zealand

“It helps to be an extrovert — you have to get in the faces of partners and treat it as internal business development.” Manager, Australia and New Zealand

Developing a ‘personal brand’ and being ‘known’ for something. Due to firms’ networked nature, if a consultant can become a senior person’s ‘go-to’ on any number of topics, they are likely to be more successful. But personal brand goes beyond skill set and also applies to how consultants present themselves. Additionally to being excellent consultants, the people who succeed are likely to be seen as ‘polished’ and ‘confident’. In a client-facing business, appearances matter and this plays out internally too.

“You have to know how to build your own brand — my firm had personal brand sessions to coach people in this stuff — to be honest, it made me feel a little bit sick.” Manager, Australia and New Zealand

Moving through the ranks quickly requires a thick skin. Management consulting is driven by a high feedback culture. Consultants talk about getting constant feedback to accelerate the pace and quality of their work as well as increase the value they bring to the firm and clients. Each firm manages feedback differently. Most consultants will get frequent informal feedback on tasks they are completing and formalised feedback at the end of each project (durations of projects can be weeks to months long). Additionally, many firms have a twice-yearly company-wide feedback process, considering all the previous six months’ work. Feedback is usually focused on molding consultants to the firm’s grading rubric, which clearly lays out the skills and competencies required get to the next level. Any aspects where consultants fall behind are identified as focus areas for the six months that follow to ensure that each person meets all the essential skills needed to be successful.

“It’s all geared towards identifying your areas for improvement. We have a number of parameters and each round of feedback you’re tracked on how much you are or you are not making progress on these.” Consultant, South East Asia

“You learn to be okay with having your flaws pointed out [and how] you could - and should - be doing better in the system they’ve conceived of.” Consultant, South East Asia

In conclusion

The reality of the consulting firms’ model combined with their close performance management means that not everyone will progress to the next level. It’s a high-intensity work model and few who start as graduates finish up as partners. Succeeding is hard and relies on relationships as well as delivering high-quality work.

“Two years is a pretty decent tenure — the model wouldn’t work if everyone made it to partner so… do good work, focus on the next thing and that’s it.” Manager, South East Asia

Management consultants expect they will have career progression opportunities inside firms, which is mostly true. However, to unlock that progression consultants require: resilience in the face of feedback, savviness to navigate firm cultures, strong relationships and — of course — consistently stellar performance on their projects.

In the next article from HoC, we will unpack another expectation that consultants have about working in management consulting firms and continue to share more findings from the ongoing research.

If you would like more information on the project or to be involved as a research participant, please reach out at hello@humansofconsulting.com.

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