Down On Consulting

Loaded questions that require a lengthy answer.

Keep in mind that consulting can be a lot of a different kinds of consulting - IT consulting, strategy consulting, financial advisory consulting, accounting, legal advisory, strategic sourcing, turnaround bankruptcy consulting, forensic data consulting ("find out who knew what when"), etc. They are all going to be a bit different in focus, and all going to be vary with each firm. Obviously, the ones you know - McKinsey , Bain, BCG, BAH, etc tend to brand themselves as "strategy" firms, but if you are interested in management consulting, keep your mind open to what areas you want to go into. One of the key downsides to MC is that you risk becoming a jack of all trades, but a king of none. What I mean is that MC is great for learning a little about a lot, but not a lot about a little. You won't develop the same deep industry knowledge that corporate paths will take you. If you know what areas interest you the most, then consider branching out beyond meerly the traditional McKinsey, Bain, etc lists to more specialized consultantancies (LECG for instance does economic consulting, primarily anti trust related work. A niche, but an interesting niche). If you have no clue, then the broader consultant road might make more sense.

The life of a consultant will largely be dependent on three things: (1) The quality of the partner and project (2) Whether the project is fixed bid or T&E and (3) Whether or not the client demands 4-1 or 5-0, and honestly I guess there's a fourth - luck. So lets talk briefly about this. First, quality of project and partner. The culture of a firm and culture of your engagement partner can drive a lot of the experience. Some are very hands off, some can be very hands on.

For instance, I once had a partner who showed up on site maybe once a
month - it pretty much left the rest of us more relaxed, less concerned and able to live semi-normal lives. On another project, the partner would routinely show up every week, and without fail, the director would have us all running ragged until midnight preparing some deck for the guy.

Then there's the issue of whether or not a project is fixed bid or T&E. Fixed bid projects are projects completed for a set fee - say $2MM regardless of whether or not the firm staffs 4 people, or 8 people for 1 month or for 10 months. Good practice case study for you: If profit is decreasing and revenue is fixed... what do you control? Not surprisingly, a fixed bid project creates an incentive for the partner to staff as few people as possible and have them complete the work as quickly as possible. It's a squeeze your staff mantra. A T&E project, by comparison, will be driven by time and expense. Thus, the partner now has an incentive to staff as many people as possible for as long as possible - instead of rewarding effeciency, the reward is now on inefficiency. Thus you stretch your staff. I'm not suggesting that companies do this intentionally - obviously they try to do good work - but it helps to understand what the driving motivations might be. So whats better, a fixed bid project or a T&E? Depends on your point of view. Fixed bid will end sooner, but you'll work stupid hours. T&E will drag on longer, but your hours might be slightly better (though not much). That leaves the issue of 4-1 or 5-0. 4-1 projects are Monday to Thursday onsite, Friday offsite, and 5-0 projects are Monday to Friday onsite at the client. Most consulting firms I know "strive" to be 4-1, and some (see Bain) even go so far as to claim as little as 1 to 3 days onsite at the client. (take it with a grain of salt. the key word is strive). A 4-1 project can be a lot more pleasant than a 5-0er. You get back Thursday night and (depending on the firm) work from home on friday or go into the office. Either way, Friday, by comparison, becomes an easy day. You leave early then, maybe 4, and you ahve plenty of time to go out to dinner with friends. A 5-0 project, on the other hand, can be a lot more taxing. For starters, you might be flying out Sunday night rather than Monday morning. Combine that with only getting back into town Friday evening at 8 or 9pm (or later) - meaning you've lost your friday night - and you literally have about 48 hours in town before you catch another flight.

In other words: A lot of the good and the bad about a project is ordained before you ever set foot there.

And as for luck? In early 2001, after rolling off a project and ending up on the bench, I took some time to go to Vegas with some friends. Sitting at the Bellagio pool (which btw, if you ever do vegas, Bellagio is the only place worth staying. No one under 18, not even with parents, allowed. Makes for a very nice poolside atmosphere with no kids) I spent and afternoon enjoying the hot summer sun while sipping mojitos and caipirinhias. When I returned to my hotel I saw I'd missed a call. Checking the voicemail I heard "... this is staffing... we haev an opportunity for you for six months in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil... please call us..." I frantically called back.... "Oh, sorry we didnt hear back so we staffed someone else. We have something for you in Princeton, NJ".... and thats what I mean by luck (or in my case, a lack thereof).

Hours vary a lot. Expect at least 12 and up to a lot more. On one project, work ran from 7.30am to 10pm or 11pm at night, 4 days a week, and 7.30am to 5pm Friday. Plus three to four hours on Saturday or Sunday to catch up for Monday. It was so harsh I eventually quit. It had a 1 hour commute each way on top of those hours, so I was literally sleeping maybe 5 to 6 hours a night maximum, and working or driving to work or home from work the other 18. It was boderline banking hours, just without banking pay.

So, the day to day activities can vary a lot, but its basically a lot
of:

* Data crunching, excel work, market analyses, research
* Lots of meetings and phone calls
* Putting together decks
* Convincingly navigating industries neither yourself nor anyone on
your team knows anything about (but pretending you know more than the
client)
* Learning to work with senior mgmt at clients

So a bit more about the hours, just in interest of full disclosure:

Your monday will end late, there's no excuse for it not to, especially if you flew in that day. Expect to leave at 7, check in at hotel first, dinner at 8. Could also be 8, dinner at 9. Dinner, more likely than not, will be with your team. Get used to it. The rest of the week will follow a similar schedule, breakfasts at 7.00am, client at 8am or 8.30am, (never later), leave around 8 or 9pm, sometimes later, sometimes dinner with your team, sometimes dinner in your hotel room. Often late nights, and lots of experience coping with delayed or missed flights.

So what's good about MC?
* It's a great way to "try before you buy" - lots of industries facing
lots of diverse problems. If you have no clue what vertical you want
to bail out in, MC is a good way to try and discover that.
* Lots and lots of miles and hilton points and hertz points. Some road
warriors take entire vacations for the cost of food and taxes.
* Change to be staffed in really cool places - eg Rio
* Don't be surprised if clients approach you about jobs once you've
been on the project for a while

So what's bad about MC?
* Don't underestimate the travel. It gets old. fast.
* Jack of all trades, king of none syndrome
* The hours can be harsh depending on what you are used to - expect 12
at least.
* Quality of the work and interest level of the project can vary a
LOT. Some are fun, some suck. Some are short, some aren't.
* You are pretty much hated by every employee the second you arrive and you can count on about 90% of them not wanting to help you. There's three reasons for this: 1) You make them look bad by being there, 2) You get paid a lot more than they do and 3) Consulting firms often make the client employees pull data sets, find contracts, etc - then use all that in their presentations to mgmt and give no credit to whoever the poor sap was that gathered all this stuff was.