What does a consultant actually do?
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- čas přidán 7. 03. 2023
- It’s a question as old as however old management consulting is: what exactly do consultants do all day? In our first-ever “case study” Dan investigates the world of consulting with help from two New York Times reporters and a former BCG consultant.
Video by Dan Toomey and Henry Stockwell
Additional camera by Evan Frolov
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Good Work is a business news channel that explores a different angle of the corporate world. Or something like that.
What does a consultant do?
What case study should we do next? 🕵🏼
It always baffled me how 22-year-olds could get hired out of college into management consulting where the whole premise of the job is that you have industry knowledge and experience to be able to guide other companies, not just recite porter's 5 forces.
Management consultancy is actually a very simple three stage process:
Consultants are basically just influencers of the corporate world at this point
My dad is a really successful private consultant.
I will never forget being 24, one year of work experience in consulting, sitting in a room with 5 highly experienced Heads of Departments, who have kids older than me, and then telling them what to do with their IT systems. It felt.. weird.
As a consultant this is quite interesting and helpful to figure out what I do
"Go to meetings and prepare for meetings." Accurate. We hire consultants and they just sit in meetings and create PowerPoints to show at the next meeting to show what was in the previous meeting.
My dad has always said "A consultant is someone who can tell you what work needs to be done, but can't do it themselves"
Their business model is:
My grandpa was a consultant at the steel mill he used to work at. He used to tell us about how all of his suggestions for improving the mill were completely ignored while he worked on the floor. Later when he was a consultant, his advice was met with "oh wow I never knew that was an issue" or "oh that's a great suggestion sir".
PLS NOTE: The BCG, Bain and Mckinsey actually form a part of the Big Three, more commonly known as MBB. The Big Four is actually a reference to Deloitte, KPMG, PwC and EY - all of which have consulting functions as well.
The fact that consulting is such big business is probably one of the biggest pieces of proof that most CEOs and upper management don't really know what they're doing
My ex girlfriend left me for a young consultant so this is extremely gratifying, thank you. I was a secure overachiever, which is why I'm an underpaid artist.
I had a business professor once, that looked like Albert Einstein.
As a former management consultant, all we do is 1. Listen 2. Run some numbers 3. Recommend decision makers do certain things 4. Recommend decision makers not do certain things.
A typical scenario:
Inflation hits people a lot harder than a crashing stock or housing market as it directly affects people's cost of living that people immediately feel the impact of. It's not surprising negative market sentiment is so high now. We really need help to survive in this Economy.
26 yo Management Consultant here. "Going to meetings and preparing for meetings" is a very good description. At best you take on some menial tasks that still have some tangible value at least. At worst, your job is simply to agree with the client, fiddle with some PowerPoint slides, and show up to meetings you definitely don't need to be at so the client doesn't feel like they're paying for nothing. Easy money for sure.
I became an engineering consultant by accident despite not having a background or interest in engineering. I myself do not know what I do, which makes it REALLY hard to explain my job to people when they ask.