10 Important Lessons I Wish I Knew Before Joining Consulting

Hi all, are you interested in joining consulting as a career path? Here are 10 Important Lessons I have learned in my first years as a consultant and I wish I knew them before joining consulting or working life in general. I hope that there are some useful things for your working life.
Here is a summary of the topics 😊
1. Work is endless: Your hard work gets rewarded with more work. No matter when I turn on my PC, I could work day, night and weekends. Someone in India was working before I woke up, someone in the US was working while I went to sleep.
2. Setting boundaries for free time: You determine your working hours! You are the one who should set your working hours.
3. Saying NO: Sometimes it is really impossible to get the job done for two or three people. I needed to communicate about realistic expectations.
4. Communication is everything: Updating about your work is part of your work. I read books about communication at work to become efficient. I would recommend the book “The First Minute: How to start conversations that get results” by Chris Fenning for everyone who is interested, it includes things like the importance about the first sentence e.g. summarizing everything the other person needs to know about the topic within 5-10 seconds.
5. Getting efficient: Get better at what you do or you would never get to take a break. It is very important to quickly learn how to learn fast and automate your tasks.
6. Dark mode in software tools:, outlook, MS Office and browsers etc would mean a lot to your eyes. Your eye will thank you later 😉🤓
7. Blocking a YOU slot: Book yourself a free time in your calendar for learning, trainings and certificates etc. If you don’t prioritize your learning and growth, no one else will.
8. Structure & systems are everything in larger teams. It can become really messy really quick. Always have an overview for yourself about who you can go to about a topic. You can’t nor don’t need to know about everything. You need to know who to ask and who would give you the best information.
9. Asking for the things you want: If you don’t ask for it, you will never get it. My mom used to say to encourage me to ask for things: “When you don’t ask, the answer always a no. If you ask, it might become a yes. but either way, you have nothing to loose. It was a NO to begin with.”
10. Asking for feedback: Feedback is the key for improvement. Think out of as a learning opportunity. If you want to grow, you need input. Say thank you, consider what can be relevant for you and move on. Sometimes it is very useful and sometimes it is just the opinion of one person. Learn to understand the difference for youself.