Management consulting

atmosphere of tact, trust, politeness and friendliness. This is important because the impact of the consulting practitioner’s personality must be minimized to keep it from becoming another variable in the existential setting and so contributing to the complexity of the situation. Beyond this, success will depend on the persuasiveness and tact of the consultant in dealing with the client.

How to interpret these requirements

Box 36.1 summarizes the key intellectual abilities and personal qualities of a management consultant in telegraphic form. It could be argued that only a very mature and exceptionally capable and versatile person can possess all the qualities mentioned. In recruiting a new consultant, it is therefore necessary to consider what qualities the person must possess on recruitment, and what qualities he or she will be able to acquire, or improve, through training and experience.

36.2 Recruitment and selection

The foundations of a successful career in consulting are laid at the moment of recruitment: only candidates who meet certain criteria will have a good chance of becoming fully competent consultants and moving up the career ladder to their own and the consulting firm’s satisfaction. Hence a careful search and a thorough appraisal of candidates are extremely important.

Recruitment criteria

While consulting firms apply different criteria in recruiting new consultants, a comparison of their practices allows for some general conclusions concerning personal characteristics, education, practical experience and age.

Personal characteristics were discussed in section 36.1.

Education is carefully examined in every case. A university degree (first degree, master’s degree or doctorate) is required for all management consulting positions. The relevance of the field of study to the particular field of consulting is considered, and in some cases candidates must have a specific educational background, for example, a doctorate in psychology, or a degree in computer science. The consulting firm is equally interested in the performance of the candidates during their university studies, in particular in project assignments during which the students have practised fact-finding, communication and other consulting skills.

Practical experience (a minimum of five to ten years) used to be required by all consulting firms, but this has changed in recent years. Some important firms have started recruiting up to 30 to 50 per cent of new consultants directly from university or business school, particularly in special fields where it is difficult to recruit people with required technical knowledge and experience

784

Careers and compensation in consulting

Box 36.1 Qualities of a consultant

(1)Intellectual ability

●ability to learn quickly and easily

●ability to observe, gather, select and evaluate facts

●good judgement

●inductive and deductive reasoning

●ability to synthesize and generalize

●creative imagination; original thinking

(2)Ability to understand people and work with them

●respect for other people; tolerance

●ability to anticipate and evaluate human reactions

●easy human contacts

●ability to gain trust and respect

●courtesy and good manners

(3)Ability to communicate, persuade and motivate

●ability to listen

●facility in oral and written communication

●ability to share knowledge, teach and train people

●ability to persuade and motivate

(4)Intellectual and emotional maturity

●stability of behaviour and action

●independence in drawing unbiased conclusions

●ability to withstand pressures, and live with frustrations and uncertainties

●ability to act with poise, in a calm and objective manner

●self-control in all situations

●flexibility and adaptability to changed conditions

(5)Personal drive and initiative

●right degree of self-confidence

●healthy ambition

●entrepreneurial spirit

●courage, initiative and perseverance in action

(6)Ethics and integrity

●genuine desire to help others

●extreme honesty

●ability to recognize the limitations of one’s competence

●ability to admit mistakes and learn from failure

(7)Physical and mental health

●ability to accept the specific working and living conditions of management consultants

785

Management consulting

from business firms. The idea is that talented and dynamic individuals will quickly acquire the necessary practical experience by working in teams with more senior consultants. Executives in business and consulting firms tend to agree that recruiting young consultants without experience is not ideal, but they see no alternative.

The age at which candidates are recruited reflects the required education and experience. The lower age limit is usually between 25 and 30 years. In many cases there is also an upper age limit. It may be difficult for a senior manager or specialist, who has reached an interesting position in terms of responsibility and pay, to switch over to consulting unless he or she is directly offered a senior position with a consulting organization. This happens only in special cases, for example, if senior people have to be recruited from outside to start new lines of consulting or head new divisions.

As a general rule, most consulting firms try to avoid recruiting new staff at senior level. Consulting emphasizes certain work methods and behavioural patterns, and some people would find it difficult to learn and internalize these after a certain age and at a high level of seniority. Also, it is not always easy to adapt to a firm’s culture and style. The upper limit for recruitment therefore tends to be between 36 and 40 years. Of course, if an individual decides to open a private consulting practice, he or she can do it at any time. There are retired business executives and government officials who start consulting at the age of 55–60. Some managers who are made redundant turn to consulting, at whatever stage of their career they are, rather than look for another management job in a saturated labour market.

Recruitment sources

There are two main sources of recruitment: business enterprises and universities. But any other source is acceptable, provided it gives the candidate the required experience and skills. Many consulting firms advertise job opportunities in business journals and management periodicals, thus opening their doors to any candidates who meet the criteria.

A good source might be client organizations, although under normal circumstances a consultant should not use this source owing to conflict of interest (see Chapter 6). But there are exceptions. A client may willingly authorize a consultant to offer a job to an employee whose personal qualities would be better utilized in consulting than in the present job.

When recruiting directly from universities and business schools,2 consulting firms aim to get the best students. They may interview 20 or more candidates for one position. In some countries, consulting careers with leading firms enjoy such a good reputation that the best graduates are interested.

However, consulting firms compete for recruits among themselves, with other professions and with investment banks, IT service providers and other firms, including those in the most dynamic and forward-looking sectors. Therefore the relationship is often reversed: it is not the consulting firm that chooses among

786

Careers and compensation in consulting

numerous high-quality applicants but the young graduate who can choose among several attractive job offers. Consulting firms cannot afford to recruit mediocre people, and they therefore seek to make consulting careers attractive.

Interviewing and testing

Candidates for consultants’ posts are usually asked to fill in an application form (personnel questionnaire), supply a detailed curriculum vitae, and provide other evidence of professional work achievements (articles, papers, doctoral thesis, etc.). References given by the candidate and other references identified by the consulting firm are generally carefully checked for every candidate who looks interesting (by correspondence, personal visits or telephone calls).

Applicants may be subjected to multiple interviews: by the personnel officer, a manager of the consulting firm, a supervising consultant to whom the candidate might be attached after recruitment, and one or two other consultants. Emphasis is on obtaining as complete a picture as possible of the knowledge and experience of the candidate and of personal characteristics relevant to consulting.

In some consulting firms tests are used as aids in selecting new consultants. These include both cognitive tests (designed mainly to measure knowledge) and psychological tests (related to personality, attitudes, interests and motivation). If personality and attitude tests are used, the results should be evaluated by a professional psychologist. Tests can convey useful information about the candidate, but their importance in the choice of consultants should not be overrated. They sometimes provide distorted information because of the ambiance in which the test is administered, or because some tests that are widely used become well known and hence less effective. In general, mature candidates do not like these tests.

Medical examination

A medical examination will generally be required, as is usual in the case of longterm employment. This will take account of the lifestyle of consultants, which in most cases is more demanding on the individual’s physical and mental fitness, resistance and endurance than many other jobs with a comparable technical content.

Selection

As any new entrant to the profession is seen as a potential career consultant who may stay with the firm for many years, the selection of those who will be offered employment requires careful evaluation of the applicants, based on all information provided by each applicant, reference checking, multiple interviews and, possibly, tests. Managers of consulting firms should avoid making final decisions on selection without consulting a number of experienced colleagues: every recruitment warrants a collective assessment.

787