Hassan AhmedThe number one factor that draws students to management consultancy is the diversity of work. As a consultant you will work on a range of projects, with a variety of colleagues and clients. You will gain experience across sectors, industries and even countries, as many consultancies also offer opportunities to travel.
Why Become a Consultant?
You Get The Best From Yourself
You put in some of the best years of your career, working hard to build your skills, without the same challenges. Working under pressure, with people you can learn from and manage, but with minimal supervision – that’s ideal. During the day, you get to do the work you love, and at night you get to focus on yourself and your future. Instead of managing the people you work with, you will have people manage you. You will be given challenges that will stretch your skills and you can learn from the masters.
Your Salaries Will Be Great!
Consultants live a great and spend big. The average salary can be up to £150,000. You will also have some money riding on the projects you work and if you do well, you get rewarded with bonuses. Those incentives are given on project and individual basis. You may get a bonus as high as £10,000 if you work on a successful project. Those bonuses are often shared but as an individual you could get a bonus as high as £100,000.
A Career With A Long Time Scope
Consultants work for a long time. The majority work in their 50s and most make it to their 60s. You can work in your 50s and put in six years before you have even paid back your student loan. The longer you work, the better your knowledge grows and the more you are rewarded. There are plenty of areas to specialize in within the consultancy world, but you need two to three decades of expertise to be considered a senior consultant.
Better Work-Life Balance
Consultants like their work and they like their lives, too. They are often partly self-employed, so they can work during the week and then take the weekend off to relax with their families.
What’s even better? The consultants receive great rewards for their hard work and self-reliance.
You Get To See The Bigger Picture
When you work as an employee you are confined to the daily tasks. You see your work as a sequential activity and get promoted by completing the tasks.
A consultant sees the bigger picture. While a lot of the work is project-based, it is the responsibility of the consultant to ensure there is a continuous business development. A consultant has both strategic and tactical tasks.
In the business there are three levels: consultants, junior consultants and associates. Associates are in the management consultancy to develop skills, and make a quick money. Junior consultants are in the business to make money and they are usually professionals. As for the consultants, they are the gold diggers, the ones that can differentiate themselves from the others and move the whole business forward into a new, better direction.
You Get The License To Solve Problems
A consultant can do the job of an employee, but with the power to think and act independently. A consultant can think beyond the boundaries of an organization. He or she can think like an owner; like a decision maker. The consultant will have the complete freedom in the way of solutions-development. There are few boundaries in the business. You can do what you like and you are encouraged to voice your opinion, regardless of your position. As long as your ideas work, you will be rewarded. A consultant is someone who gets empowered by the knowledge and responsibility that comes with taking on a task. The location of your office or how you spend your days off is of little concern to a consultant. A consultant is judged by the results.
Location Freedom
One of the best things about the management consultancy business is that you can work anywhere in the world. You will only have to put in a couple of weeks of face time each month, and can work from wherever you please.
