If you love solving problems! want to explore and work in a variety of industries all over the world. Then consulting is the right option for you to opt for as a career.
Consulting is a business that deals with bringing up solutions to real-world Business Situations and Problems. Companies require Fresh, free from any kind of Bias attitudes, Methodical, strategic perspectives, and immediately actionable insights.
The consultant plays the role of a General expert who is primarily trained to provide businesses function and meet their targets successfully. Such insights into Business require Top-notch management skills to Build and expand the list of Loyal and permanent Clients.
Corporative firms across the world depend heavily on consulting companies to keep them updated with new strategies and insights to maintain and sharpen their edge in the competitive world.
Why choose Consulting as a career?
It is noted that a lot of MBA graduates choose to consult as their top Career option to work with various industries around different sectors. It also brings the excellent opportunity to make a healthy corporate connection around different and main pillars of well-known corporations. The challenges that every business faces give an individual who is working as a consultant an opportunity to upgrade their knowledge through dynamics and Multiple industries.
The consultant has access to these three assets in the corporate world.
- High Compensation
- Build an excellent professional network
- Work experience in multiple Industries
What are the top types of Consulting Careers? What do they do according to their post?
Consulting agencies are one of the largest recruiters of MBA freshers. Consulting covers many different fields and many consulting firms follow a particular type of business sector. It Could be a mainstream focus- like strategic and operations consulting, niche markets- like Real estate design, or others. As a consultant, you will be one of those to look after one of these areas.
1. Strategic Consulting
Strategic Consultants look after the big companies, with Bigger problems such as
- Market Entry/ Exit.
- Portfolio management,
- Mergers and acquisitions
2. IT/Technology Consulting
Technology consulting will fall broadly into the technological and IT sectors. Technological legwork, Reviews, Possible outcome research. It deals with the factors like –
- Data volumes
- The size of the customer base.
- Details to be captured
- Integration with the upstream and downstream systems.
3. Operation consulting
This sector deals with the manufacturing-type situation, reducing assembly line defects in a limited period on a limited Budget.
4. HR consulting-
As companies try to improve the productivity line through their employees, HR consultants have to play a very crucial role in assisting companies with bringing up employee-friendly HR policies like improving the performance management system and guidelines.
Skills of a Smart Consultant
The demand in Consulting fields is reaching heights these days, which makes these fields hard nut to crack. Consulting Companies are tough to get hired because of their Choosy Attitudes. They look for very specific Skills while recruiting candidates.
What are those top three skills you need to be prepared with if you are aspiring to be a consultant?
1. MS-excel
Knowing MS-excel is one of the major skills to learn if you are preparing to become a consultant in any field. You can also take the course of learning MS-excel on the job but grasping the Advanced formulas while doing the Job can become a lot of work to do and you are dragged behind because you are lacking in the basics of MS-excel.
What are these advanced Formulas that are used widely over the industries which are used apart from basic maths formulae like Sum, Multiply, etc.-
- Index match
- xlookup/vlookup.
- Indirect
- Sumif / sumifs
- Countif / Countifs
Star note- make limited use of Pivot Table and Vlookup to your sheet to make it dynamic and advanced at the presentation.
2. Analysis and synthesis
In the terminology of Consulting these two terms are crucially handled.
Term Analysis is when you properly organise, present and examine/ study a particular data set.
Term Synthesis is when studying the whole process jot down together, in short, you combine the different pieces in the case. For example- when you read a chapter including different paragraphs and at the end, you are asked to write a summary of that particular chapter. So, summarising the whole chapter is done with the process called synthesising.
The clients approach a consulting Company to synthesise their current situation. Analysing is the primary process where you just examine the happening situation but synthesising is something where you jot down the whole process which leads to actionable Insights.
3. Financial Modeling
Financial modelling is a crucial skill in the case of Financial companies. It is also proven to be a demanding skill for Consultancy agencies. Consultants look after the different firms in case to analyse how the particular company is going to perform financially in the coming time.
Consultants don’t particularly work under Financial Models they also work for different models but the primary tool for any Model is MS-excel.
Final words
Stepping into any career option comes with a lot of Dedication, hard work, and High adapting skills. Consulting is one of the best and most high-demand career options among fresh MBA graduates because of its luxurious luxury, but it also comes with multiple challenges. Stepping into the consulting field requires motivation and passion. Keep your Solid determination fixated through the storms of challenges, surely you will be touching heights soon.
Good Luck!
