FAQ's On The Pros and Cons Of A Career As A Management Consultant.

Why you should want to be a management consultant

• Because you are not content to join as an officer cadet. To work your way through the ranks, ok - advancing by talent but also held back by lack of experience and seniority. You want to be parachuted onto the front line. It will be dangerous and you will confront an enemy battle hardened and stealthy. But you want to do it anyway, you want to make a difference and quickly.

• Because, unless your daddy is a big-shot, it is the only way to get into a big company near the top and tackle a one-off problem without the burden of every-day line management stuff.

• Because you can rise above your technical qualification and think about management and (hopefully) strategic issues. If you aspire to the top, it is the perfect training ground for ignoring disciplines and thinking laterally.

• Because you will be working with colleagues of a similar bent. Energetic go-getters like yourself but from a different background. You will spark off each other. You will learn important tricks really fast. Tricks like planting an idea for them to adopt as their own, like seeing the wood for the trees.

• Because it is the short-cut route to the top. You were placed at the top and you intend to stay there. You deal with the top managers and if you do a good objective job, you will get approached. It beats mind-numbing interviews into a cocked (top) hat

Why you would not want to be a management consultant

• Because of the stigma. "Management consultants borrow your watch to tell you the time". Definition of an expert " X " unknown quantity, Spert " a drip under pressure" Very funny.

• Because you might not get the chance to consult at all. Management consultancy is a big generic label. You might be placed to fact-find only, to implement only, to satisfy a political brief where the answer is pre-determined.

• Because consultants are advisers. It may not suit your character. Advice can be very subtle with no kudos to the giver. You may want direct control, consultants work through others.

• Because a proper management consultancy assignment is very hard work. Situations have to be assessed real fast, people have to be weighed up real fast and emotions put to one side, objectivity is all. Time pressure is extreme. Not everyone is cut out for this .

• Because domestic/social life can go up in smoke, the lifestyle may be unacceptable

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