Consulting work and classification
Simply put, consultation is actually like a doctor in an enterprise, providing diagnosis, and the enterprise is a patient. When problems arise, consulting companies are responsible for providing answers or solutions.
In addition, the work structure of consulting companies is usually divided into two dimensions, one refers to "industry", such as health care, financial services, consumer goods, industrial products, energy, technology ...................................................................................................................... Such as sales, marketing, organization, pure strategy, finance, business model, IT…… ... ...
Enter a consulting company, and you will do any case in such a two-dimensional network. This case may be the sale of medical care, and the next case may become the finance of consumer goods. In other words, each case will be under a different combination of dimensions. After two or three years, it will no longer be ordinary, and it will gradually move closer to an industry or a function. Everyone's expertise and direction are different.
The difference between an investment bank and a consulting company
From the perspective of insiders, there are mainly the following differences:
Money. Simply put, investment banks have a lot of money (about twice as much as consulting companies, that is, the annual salary is about $300,000, and McKinsey is about $65,438 +0.5 million). Although investment banks don't need to travel, their lifestyles are worse than those of consulting companies. It means "average weekly 100 hours" (if the consulting company looks at the office, it may not be "average 100 hours") and it means "working for two days on weekends". People from consulting companies are unlikely to go in because this industry makes money, but people from investment banks value money more. As far as learning is concerned, both places can learn a lot.
Every day of counseling is completely different. Usually, I will fly back to my hometown regularly on Friday, and fly to the client (possibly anywhere, Japan, Chinese mainland, Europe, America and the Middle East) on Sunday night or Monday, which means that I am basically traveling five days a week.
As for lifestyle, it depends. In some cases, it is about 60 hours a week. At McKinsey, managers only take one case at a time. When a partner has three or four cases at the same time, he may fly to three or four places a week. Lifestyle will also vary with different companies or different bosses (partners). For example, BCG's Chicago office will come slowly at seven or eight in the morning and leave at seven or eight in the evening. When they come back, they really do nothing, about 40 to 50 hours a week. But in an Asian office, it usually takes about 60 hours, and the concept of 60 hours is to go to work at 9: 00 a.m., not 9: 00 p.m. (because there is a meal break in the middle), so I go home and get off work at least 10/1o or 7: 00, and then go to bed. Of course, in case there will be a terrible state, such as 100 to 1 10 hours a week …
Usually 40~50 hours or 100~ 1 10 hours, what is the consultant doing?
Mainly can be divided into:
Data analysis → Get information from customers or marketing departments and analyze it with your own team. After discussion 1 → analysis, discuss with the whole team 1. After discussing 1, there will be output. The output of discussion 2→ discussion 1 will be given to the customer (not directly to the CEO, that is the last level). Usually, we will have a simple discussion with the customer's director or manager level first to determine some directions. Discussion 3 → Or discuss with the company's partners to see if there is any problem in this direction, and if so, where it needs to be changed.
Therefore, the consultant's daily work mainly revolves around these four links. Generally, there is a final report in the middle of the year. Only in this report will the respondent of this case, that is, the CEO level of the other party, be briefed. Many times, it is "necessary" to go to the client to discuss, and the information is convenient, which is why consultants fly around.
The value and uniqueness of consulting work: one of the four "upstream" of global salary work (but not as good as banking), that is, the treatment received today is similar in both Taipei and new york. High exposure (for the top management team), a young man in his thirties or even twenties can discuss things with the CEO (in his fifties and sixties) on an equal footing (only three kinds of people in the world have this opportunity: consultants, investment bankers and politicians). Very fast career track, it only takes eight to ten years to become a partner from a consultant of Post MBA (such time can only be a manager in a Fortune 500 company). There are many access opportunities. Consultants will receive many jobs in the third year of the second year, and they are likely to be strategic directors of fortune 500 companies.
In addition, the word "learning" is very important. The average consultant team is twenty or thirty years old (the youngest is twenty-two to twenty-three years old and just graduated from school), but usually the client team of a client is forty years old (the director level is about fifty years old and the highest is about sixty years old), which is like a young man trying to teach him "how to manage this company" in front of a client. However, when the other party has been working in this industry for twenty or thirty years, the consultants only started reading their annual reports a week ago. Even they don't know what the other party is selling, but they should be able to "talk" with each other immediately. At first, counselors even tremble at the sound of greetings, so it is conceivable how fast they learn in this process. After a year or two of training, they will get the hang of it. For example, to understand what a company wants to see, the problem now is probably from.
In addition, in a general company, the boss may do whatever he says a few years ago, and then he will start to do some more professional work, but the consultant comes in at the beginning and acts like "What is the goal of this company in the next ten years? How to achieve it? " This is one of the reasons why so many MBAs want to be consultants as soon as they graduate.
Several disadvantages of consulting work are very long working hours, ranging from 60 to 1 10 hours a week. The concept is that they will be at least at 1 1 pm, and sometimes even at 4 or 5 am, because the problem must be solved in a long time. Frequent business trips may bring you together every day, that is, pick up your luggage or fly, talk to your customers when you get off the plane, make a briefing at night after the talk, and then pass it on to your partners. The client has to ask questions that he or she can't understand the most, or the most difficult questions, even often involving "political" questions, so when the consultant wants to solve this most complicated problem in such a short time, he or she should be very resistant to pressure (which may also be the upward side). The unique culture of consulting industry is "no promotion", that is, if you don't promote from consultant to hiring manager or project leader in two to three years, you will be out, and if you don't promote from project leader to person in charge in four to five years, you will be out, which means there is great pressure to do every case. Spend more time maintaining your interpersonal relationships, including family, boyfriend and girlfriend … and so on. After leaving the consulting company, most of the jobs are local salaries, which means that even foreign businessmen, the money taken by the same director is much worse than that of other countries. Therefore, it has also caused a phenomenon. Although he is only in his thirties, he may not be able to give up his position because of his high salary at the beginning in a consulting company, and accept some job opportunities that are only half or two-thirds of his original salary. These jobs are actually not bad, which will definitely limit his career development.
The way out after consulting the company
Can be seen from two directions:
One is that if you stay in a consulting company, you will be the project leader in two to three years, that is, leading a team, and you will be the leader (manager) in two to three years. After that, you should start to cultivate your own customers, establish relationships with your own customers, and further become a partner is to bring about transactions; For the company;
If you leave a consulting company, there are generally three directions (whether voluntary or passive). The first is to be a director in an ordinary company. In that case, the upward side means that the job is more stable (and the lifestyle is better) than that of a consultant, and the downward side means that the salary may be worse (or higher, of course). The second is that after someone buys a company, he needs someone to help him run the company, and he also needs someone to help him see if the company is good. These are the specialties of consultants. Of course, this part of the pay is high, but the lifestyle is not so good. The third is to go to an investment bank as an analyst to do research, because this is also the specialty of consultants.
In addition, some people voluntarily leave the consulting company to go to the industry, but they may return to the consulting company after staying in the industry for a period of time. It is also very welcome to stand in the position of the consulting company.
The difference between an MBA degree and a job or promotion
Does having an MBA degree affect your job or promotion? There are many factors depending on the region. In the inland areas of China, it's still much worse to have an MBA. Of course, the most direct reason is the brand. Because when you want to enter a consulting company, HR will have an impact when screening resumes or CVs (of course, if there is a doctor who is more difficult to get than MBA, it is no problem).
However, there are exceptions. For example, in Japan, most universities have been sitting in universities after graduation, but the reason for this phenomenon is that the MBA of famous American universities is actually useless in Japan; But even if most people enter the consulting company, the market they face is mainly Europe, America or Greater China, so it is quite critical to have an MBA degree.
Of course, the MBA degree represents not only owning a brand, but also a very important part. There is a certain gap in many "reactions to people and things" and in some business common sense, otherwise communication will be difficult, so relatively speaking, basic business common sense and business language are necessary before entering a consulting company.
Interview process and skills
The consulting firm pays most attention to three points in selecting candidates:
Is there any way to solve the problem? In other words, if you can't solve the ambiguous problem-the solution logic is not clear enough, you will definitely not enter the consulting company. You must be a good team player, that is to say, if you are used to working independently, you are definitely not suitable for consulting companies, because 60~ 1 10 hours of ClientSide is working with a group of people. Be able to explain and even defend your decent idea, that is, be able to assure customers why the proposed solution is this way and not other ways. This is also the reason why consulting companies attach great importance to case interviews, because only in that process can we see whether you are an eloquent and expressive person, and there is definitely no problem in communication.
Try to embody the above three characteristics in your resume. If you have consulting experience in related companies, it is best. For example, the following internship experience mentioned how to gain recognition (convince others) and learn to communicate (teamwork) through project scheme design (solving problems).
Template link:? Consulting resume template (highlighting internship experience)
You can also tap your potential from other project experiences. For example:
Of course, these three characteristics are mainly observed in case interviews. Usually, in the interview process of consulting companies, it takes at least four to five case interviews to get an offer from the first level.
As for tips, some main suggestions are that "case interview" must be practiced. Most famous MBA students have experienced at least 20 exercises on campus and during the interview. In addition, the interview process for summer interns and full-time jobs is exactly the same. If summer interns behave well and are willing to stay, they will not interview again, but in fact, summer interns are often more difficult because of the small number of places.
Consulting industry internal introduction above! I believe you have got a lot of information. If you want to enter a consulting company, you must prepare more cases during the interview. Of course, as the first step of screening, resume is also very important. Come and finish your resume with super resume. There are many experienced tutors in the industry who provide revision counseling services.