Every one can make it to consulting

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Life As A Consultant

Living a life as a consultant

It's often asked what life would be if you become a consultant. Will you get to enjoy travelling around the world or will you drown in work from day till night? Honestly speaking, there's no correct answer for this as it depends on how you manage your time. Some may argue that the work-life balance is the top priority for people who want to maintain both a professional and social life. While others have said that if you want to get promoted quickly, it is better to engage 100% in work.

From an ex-managing consultant's perspective, I think it's highly critical to focus on work during your first two years as this period is the key factor to tell how far you can go in the management consulting industry. You will face challenges and pressures and from all aspects of life, from work to family or friends. However, those will help transform your career if you make it because after all if you plan to become a consultant, you should have already known its nature. Strenuous as it sounds, there are certain advantages that are so deserving to sacrifice a few years of your life. Firstly, you will have the opportunity to learn more and do more. Management consulting comprises of so many things and the more you know about different fields (energy, construction, banking, etc.) and different markets (North America, East Asia, Europe, etc.), the better equipped you are for future projects. What's more, both your seniors and your clients will also be impressed with your experiences and achievement. That is to say, if you want to move up to a higher position with higher salary, it seems to be a lot easier. Not to mention that there are plenty of networking chances when you work around the world and get to know top companies' executives as well as other colleagues in various offices. Being a managing consultant, your social circle will play a very important role throughout your career. For example, exit options are likely to be always available if you more people know about you.

Nevertheless, focusing 100% on work can be quite a mental challenge. Everybody is bound to make mistakes and in case you're burdened and stressed by work, it's absolutely necessary to have your family and friends around. That being said, try to spend some quality time during your days off and keep in touch with your loved ones. Relationships outside work are equally important so don't let yourself be forgotten.

In a nutshell, it is hard to keep things balanced if you have big goals and great plans, but give it a try first to see how things go and decide yourself what's worth your time.

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What do consulting firms do?

This is a big question for many outsiders since consulting can be such a wide and hard-to-defined job. In this article, we will focus on the task of management consulting firms. What do they actually do and how do they manage to perform their tasks as their client's wish?

First of all, it is not a myth that big corporates usually go look for management consulting firms when they want to cut down some costs. Since they are not sure what business portfolio to downsize or get rid of completely, they will turn to a third party with expertise for the most objective result. In another way, consulting firms can be seen as doctors for companies, who will give the "patient" a check-up and then recommendations in a strategical way. Moreover, in case they want to expand to a new market or a new industry, it is very likely for them to hire firms with such strong backgrounds in that field. In this context, the "patient" is considered as an athlete who's going to compete and the "doctor" is there to help them succeed.  The expected outcome is an improvement in performance, maybe higher profit or possibly a better way of doing things. On the other hand, it's not just corporations but also the public sector, such as governments, non-profit organizations, hospitals need a management consulting firm to cater for their specific needs, which are typically related to more savings and reducing costs.

Essentially, consultants are hired to solve these problems. Their daily job will be working with numbers and then analyzing them. They also have to do tons of research before and during their project to know the client's need as well as possible. In other words, they are paid to think of a solution to the problem. However, consultants must bring deliverables in a short amount of time, since there is obviously a timeline engagement to meet. Thus, the pressure is no joke and they need to make sure the expectations of clients is not overrated. In other words, the job of a managing consultant is being able to come up with a valuable implementation in a tight deadline while remaining realistic and goal-oriented.

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Becoming a Management Consultant: Opportunities for those who dare to challenge themselves

How to become a management consultant in the market which is bustling with names such as McKinsey, BCG ... In the face of severe economic storms, customers (within the scope of the article, please use the word "customer" to Describe how businesses use consultants) utilize resources from consultants. Who can participate in consulting?

Being called a business doctor requires that you have the skills, knowledge, skills, logical thinking and other competencies needed to diagnose and treat the condition. success. The above requirements have made many people evaluate this difficult work, not suitable for professional so it is difficult to participate, so who can participate in this job? The answer is that all those who are passionate, willing to learn and accept the challenge can join this profession.

According to McKinsey, professional consultants come from a variety of backgrounds: 72% have engineering backgrounds, 7% have social skills, and the rest are economics specialists. At the same time, leading conglomerates such as McKinsey are always open to newly qualified graduates and dare to challenge themselves.

Diverse choice

Most large corporations have multiple consulting services. Clients are currently recruiting rather than a few consultants to develop strategies, evaluate the effectiveness of the organization, apply technological solutions and advance to e-commerce. Because of the diverse nature of the industry, when choosing the management consulting industry as the future career path, you can choose different areas to develop your future.

Some areas of management consulting:

- Strategic Management

- Financial management

- Information Technology

- Marketing management and distribution

- Human resources management

- Operational management

- Quality Management

- Knowledge management

- E-commerce

- Social responsibility in business

The way to become a professional management consultant

To become a professional consultant in a consulting firm, Prof. Friedrich Bock - EMBA MCI program instructor has five basic levels: information analyst, consultant, senior consultant, director of consultants, associates which are the basic model that the consulting firm is applied in the training and development of personnel. These five levels reflect the professional status of the consultant as well as the knowledge, experience and responsibility of a project as well as the company. And according to the professor, a basic principle that consultants want to develop themselves needs to update their knowledge and experience to the higher levels. The average time taken by an information analyst to become a partner in a consulting firm can be from 15 to 20 years in the profession and through a variety of projects and activities. With the diversity of areas in the consulting industry, as well as the requirements for staffing and the length of time required to become a partner in a consulting firm, are great challenges for those who dare. commitment But in return you will receive a huge amount of knowledge, supporters for businesses, units difficult and will earn a lot of money with what you have invested. Therefore, it will be an opportunity for you to challenge yourself.

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Working environment and life at McKinsey: What I like and do not like

McKinsey is a global leader in business strategy consulting. With new graduates, becoming a McKinsey consultant is a dream come true for many people. First of all, they will have a very professional working environment, very high salary and very personal experience. I would recommend this article to those who are pursuing the dream into this prestigious corporation.

The first is life at the McKinsey: Points I do not like

Work life could not balance. Typically, the project itself that finished before 11 pm night is called good lifestyle and working at night is routine. In short, in the weekday you are the victim of work, just eat, sleep and do nothing else. By the end of the week to sleep a bit and then go out to play all day. In addition, the travelling is continuous. Within a day that morning, you are in Indonesia, afternoon in Singapore, evening in Vietnam, is completely normal in McKinsey. Although staying in 5-star hotels, flying to many different countries each week will likely make you excited initially, but will be depressing afterwards.

Personally, I think men are better with the life at Mckinsey, women are maybe unsustainable (at least for me). Nearly 2.5 years and a half work in McKinsey, I almost lost contact with friend and somehow family a lot! However, the dedicate time has been determined to be worth learning. There are a few colleagues who share with me is 1-2 years doing McKinsey 3-4 years doing elsewhere. It is too well because of too much learning, too many works too, so this is the fair point.

The second is the working environment in McKinsey

AWESOME!

Learning opportunity: You have the opportunity to study a variety of subjects in a very short time and have countless resources to learn. The company has a learning portal (like intranet, there are many courses like publications, courses, web. To learn, you just sign up or search is a series of materials related to the topic you find out for you to read, and experts (before every study, I usually reach out to the expert on the topic you want to find out. Talking and asking them what they cannot find, answers or trends and so on.

People: have to say that McKinsey's people are awesome. Everyone is smart but very collaborative and helpful. Everyone is open to sharing or helping you. Unlike other companies, access to McKinsey is very high. Talking to Director or Partner is a daily affair. As each team also has leadership that you meet at least 1-2 weeks, sometimes go through the room "I talk to you a little," then sit talking. At McKinsey, there is no hierarchy, same expense policy. In addition, everyone is super smart so you can learn a lot when working with the colleagues and leaders, and always challenge yourself. The last point on people is the global reach. The team at McKinsey is always mixed from different countries on the same project (due to related experience) and partner/expert is everywhere. Doing a study in the US where the team is full of people, all skin colour is normal. Which is McKinsey culture “work hard, play hard” so I super enjoy.

Growth opportunity: In the company, everyone will have an official mentor, who always listen to always understand you give the roadmap to improve yourself, they care you as a person.

Finally, one thing I emphasize to you is that it should be passion driven, otherwise McKinsey will be a nightmare for you.

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The Rise Of Global Consulting Firms

When speaking about management consulting firms, naturally big and prestigious names like McKinsey & Co., The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Bain & Company, or in short “MBB",  would spring in mind. Indeed, these firms are so big that their activities expand to more than just one or ten countries, in fact, they've become biggest global management consulting firms

In the rise of globalization, it is essential for businesses to find and enter new markets around the world. As a result, the main clients of big consulting firms are usually multinational corporates who want to broaden or sometimes downsize their business portfolios. That is the moment firms jump in and offer a solution as well as navigation. On the other hand, governments can also be potential clients when dealing with foreign matters involving economics settlement externally or internal development. Lately, the Brexit department of the UK has made headlines when they were exposed to hire McKinsey to advise on the national problem. That is a reason why many firms want to go “global" to reach out to a bigger pool of clients and while doing so, increasing their band image. Take a look at MBB firms, when searching their names on Google, the describing phrase they use is “global management consulting”.

So far, the number of offices of big firms are rising and there’s hardly any sign of slowing down, especially in the Asian market. Bain & Company currently has 50 offices worldwide, while BCG has 90 offices, and McKinsey is leading with 120 offices. It can be concluded that firms are heading towards a more diverse and sustainable growth. They open up new branches in major cities across the world, and each will play a critical role in keeping the headquarter informed of regional change as well as finding new clients. Global management consulting firms also appear to be the most reliable source when companies need strategy consulting as they believe that these firms have better global perspective along with local insight to leverage their business. That's why beside giant corporates, local companies with a strong dominance in the respective market are highly promising clients to consulting firms. Looking at China, where the presence of global corporates is limited and under strict surveillance of the Chinese government, domestic business rise and take over the domestic market as a result. Not to mention that the market here is huge and powerful, thus, it is easy to understand if local companies are much more potential clients.

Further reading: Top Management Consulting Ranking

                          Top management consulting salaries

Furthermore, global management consulting firms can enjoy other advantages such as attracting a bigger pool of talents. Rather than just working at North American or European offices, overseas students can come back to their homelands like China, Japan, Singapore or even Vietnam to work at prestigious and world-renowned firms.