Nowadays, anyone can start their own consulting business. If you have a computer, a phone, and a place to do your work, you have all the essentials to begin a consulting venture. Alternatively, you can join as an “experienced employee” with some transferable skills from other work experience. To apply for such a role, you can either submit your application online or establish a connection with someone who works there.
Additionally, some people gain work experience in an industry, get an MBA, and then hire them in a consulting firm. In some cases, they may require you to take a test before or while submitting the application. I was drawn to consulting because I knew that it offers the opportunity to work with different clients in various sectors and help them solve various problems. The “big four consulting or accounting firms” are Deloitte, Ernst and Young, KPMG, and PwC. Working with clients can be challenging, and achieving work-life balance can be difficult.
However, at the end of the day, consulting is all about helping others. At its core, a consultant is an expert in something who helps people or organizations. A management consultant or technology consultant is someone who assists companies with their issues. In the typical representation of consulting or the “big four” firms, consultants work on a project for three to six months. At other consulting firms, you may join as an analyst and then progress to senior analyst and associate consultant.
Some people stay at their consulting firm for years and make progress on that scale. As the company implements changes, my job is to help people in the organization understand why the company is moving forward with a certain strategy, how it will benefit them and their customers. There are also large consulting firms that focus more on management consulting, specifically strategy consulting, while the “big four” are accounting firms that also offer consulting. We discuss what it means to be a consultant, the paths you can take to enter the industry, the skills needed to succeed, and what you can expect to be paid when starting out. I joined as an associate consultant at my company and wanted to reach the consultant level. When I heard about consulting in college, those were the key firms that people were trying to get into.
