Hi, I'm kchoi! Welcome back to my channel. A few weeks ago, I asked my Instagram followers
to submit their assumptions that they have about consulting and consultants,
so I'm going to be reacting and responding to some of those assumptions in today's video.
But as an added bonus, this is a collaboration with two lovely ladies here on YouTube who also
make consulting and career related content, but let me actually let them introduce themselves.
Hey guys, my name is Sanjna and I currently work for one of Australia's Big 4 banks within
the risk assurance space. Prior to joining the bank as a risk manager, I was working at KPMG
and i was working within the risk consulting or internal audit division. And I'm obviously from
australia if you couldn't already tell by the accent, so if you are interested in knowing a
little bit more about the Australian work culture and the work life then be sure to subscribe to my
YouTube channel and my Instagram page, both called Success by Sanjna. Hey, I'm Kajol. I'm a strategy
and digital consultant working in London in the UK and I work at a Big 4 firm too. In my spare time,
I also have a YouTube channel where I talk about consulting, entrepreneurship, and productivity, so
definitely go check it out. As you can see we're all based in different places. I'm in New York,
Kajol is in London, and Sanjna is in Sydney, so we will be providing different countries'
perspectives on these assumptions. Of course, these are all just based on our personal
experiences and opinions, so take that with a grain of salt. This is really just something that
we thought would be fun. Before we jump into the assumptions, if you want to see more consulting
related videos, then please hit the subscribe button down below, and while you're there hit
the notification bell too so you can be notified whenever I post a new video, and definitely go
subscribe to Kajol and Sanjna's channels. Their videos and their channels will be linked in the
description box, so after you watch this video you can go watch their assumptions or their
reactions to the assumptions on their channels as well. All right, let's jump in. The first
assumption is that consultants are overworked and get no sleep and just have no work-life balance.
I would say from watching my friends who work at or have worked at big consultancies, that is
the impression that I got - that they worked very, very long hours, very long weeks,
and they didn't get so much work-life balance throughout the week. I think maybe on the
weekends, I would see that they would play really hard and then during the week they
work really hard. The reason I'm focusing more on the experiences that my friends have had working
at big firms is that for me personally, I have a pretty good work-life balance. I work at a smaller
firm and while there definitely are some days or weeks where I'm waking up really early and just
logging in more hours than normal, all in all I feel very much in control of my work and my
personal life and I have the ownership I guess, or I'm empowered to take the time that I need,
regardless of the time of day it is. So for example, if I've got a gap in the middle of my day
where I don't have any calls, I feel okay taking a longer lunch break or
going for a workout or something, and not just being chained to my desk the whole day,
and that's because to make up for that, I might have woken up really early and started my day
very early. There is definitely that work ethic and many hours that get put in but I personally
don't feel lacking in the work life balance arena. I actually feel like i have like really great
work-life balance compared to some of my other friends. So that's my personal response although
I have seen - like my own assumption is also that other consultants who work at different larger
firms don't have the best work-life balance. The second assumption is that they get paid well,
and I think yes, at least in the US, I mean consultants do earn kind of more on average than
other roles, but they don't earn as much as like software engineers, at least I don't think. So
it's not like the highest earning job, but it does feel like for the work that you do you get paid a
lot, especially as like an entry-level analyst or associate consultant. Again, I'm thinking
more of bigger firms, I'm thinking of my friends who went into consulting right after college and
hearing their starting salaries it was a shock to me, especially you know because I
didn't start out in consulting. I started out working in public relations and as an intern
right after college, so I had a very different experience there, but i do think the assumption
is true in general and particularly in the US. When i was in london for grad school and
I was looking at consulting roles there, the salary is definitely lower but you also get
like different benefits in the UK versus the US. I'm sure Kajol will speak more on this,
and i'm very curious to see what her perspective is there. The third one here is Monday first
flight, out Friday last flight out. That is not true for me personally, but again,
this is like a theme here... I know that for my friends who have worked at Big 4 or MBB firms,
this has often been the case this is because traditionally, or like, what you usually see
in consulting is consultants are staffed onto a single project for several months at a time
and they're going on-site to the client's office or headquarters and are working there the whole
week. Where I work, we have a different type of staffing model and I'm on multiple projects
at once, not just one project at once, and I'm not traveling every single week to every client.
Before the pandemic, I was traveling maybe once or twice a week for different milestones across the
different projects that I'm a part of. Sometimes I might have been on the first flight out on a
Monday or the last flight out on a Friday, but that would have just been coincidence. There are
also many times that I was flying on a Wednesday night and then coming back the next day.
Mine was much more irregular and hard to predict. Number four is you must be extroverted. I wouldn't
say you need to be extroverted, but you do need to be able to have like social connections with
people. Just because you're introverted, it doesn't mean that you can't get along with
people. It just means you know you get your energy from a different place. I don't consider myself an
extrovert. I'm kind of in between and maybe lean more towards the introverted side, and for me,
what is really meaningful is making one-on-one connections with not only clients but also my
project and internal teammates, and I think that is what really helps me to succeed in my role
is being able to establish those relationships which doesn't require you to be an extrovert at
all. I think some people might have the assumption or they might imagine that you're just constantly
networking and meeting new people which can be true maybe at the beginning of a project,
you're meeting your client team for the first time and so you kind of have to turn it you know
up a little bit to make that first impression, but I don't think that being extroverted is a
requirement or even something that gives you a leg up in the consulting world. This next one is fun:
arrogant and know-it-alls, only making slides and Excel, never implementing, and good at everything,
great at nothing. I definitely had this assumption when I was in college and shortly after college,
before i got into consulting or decided to go into consulting. I was just like what are you doing
just making PowerPoints all day and then you're getting paid that much money to do that? But the
way I see it is that your clients are experts in their industry and in their field and consultants,
they're not experts in that industry but they're experts in solving problems and whatever business
problem the client is having because there's so many types of consulting: tech consulting, change
management consulting, strategy consulting. So the consultants are the experts in that area while
the clients are the experts in the industry, and consultants of course need to know a little bit
about different industries that they're helping but they're not there to teach their clients about
the industries that they're in. They're there to help them apply the right strategies and business
solutions to help their organization succeed. The part that said only making slides in Excel,
never implementing is not true, because as I said, there are many different types of consulting
and maybe in certain types of consulting there's less implementation, but there are
also consultants who focus pretty much only on implementation. Tech consultants for example
are often at the heart of implementing a new system or program within an organization. I
think the good at everything great at nothing kind of resonates with me because again,
consultants work with such a variety of clients in different industries. Sure, you might specialize
as you work your way up into an organization, but in general, consultants work with so many
different industries so you kind of know a little bit about everything and there's things that do
like overlap and you can apply based on what you've learned from a different industry,
but as I said, consultants are not experts in any specific industries, but they are experts in
the consulting part of it. The next one is they are good at maths, or math if you are
in the US like i am. I think because a lot of consultants come from a business background,
and if you study business then you need to do finance and accounting which involves math,
that all makes sense, and people also think about spreadsheets, but i mean if you think about it,
like spreadsheets, you don't actually need to be good at math to make spreadsheets,
you just need to be good at doing Excel formulas because the Excel does all the math for you. You
definitely have to have like a good foundation of math and understanding like how to read and create
charts and understand data, but it's not like the main thing or the main strength that you need to
have to be a consultant. I think it's much more holistic than just being good at math. The next
one is they probably had no idea what industry to go into post uni or college #commitmentissues.
I would say that's pretty accurate. Again, I don't think it specifically applies to me because I
didn't go into consulting right after college. I switched into consulting after working in public
relations for a few years; if you want to know more about how I switched from PR into consulting,
I have a video about how to change careers so I'll link that in the description box for you. But I
will say a lot of the consultants I know who started consulting right after they graduated,
they went into it because they knew that it would open up lots of different doors to them
because again consultants work across lots of different industries and solve different business
problems, and so it gives you insight into a lot of different things that you could potentially
go into later. So I would maybe put it a little less negatively. It's not so much you know not
having any idea what to go into, but it's more strategically going into something that can open
up many other doors for you, and allowing you not to commit to one of those things right away. All
right, just a few more the next one is it's all glamorous and aesthetic with the traveling and
work life balance. It's definitely not glamorous. There are aspects of it that are glamorous,
so when you're flying so much and you get status and points, there are times, many times that I've
booked free flights because I had the miles and have also gotten upgraded many times over the past
few years, however the parts of it that aren't glamorous are when you get into your hotel at like
11 p.m, there's nothing to eat so you have to get like a Lean Cuisine from the store downstairs, or
when you get in real late and then you gotta get up super early the next morning for your meeting,
and then you're in a meeting all day and then gotta go back to the airport.
And you basically just flew to go to a conference room and have a meeting. You're not like really
out there traveling and exploring the cities that you're going to. That being said, whenever I do
find the opportunity to go out and explore or to take advantage of my travels, I have done that so
there was one time where i had a work trip to Dublin and that project or that meeting was going
to end on a Thursday, so I decided to extend my trip and then I took a weekend trip to London, so
there are definitely ways to take advantage of it, so in that sense there is some glamour, but
overall it's it's not really that fun to be traveling all the time. My battery is blinking,
we'll see if I can get through these next two. The next one is you can't work in consulting
with a mediocre or low GPA. I think for the most part that is true, especially, if you're going
straight from undergrad into consulting because of the whole recruiting process. It's not just
about your GPA and your resume, but that's kind of the first filter that people go through.
I think if you don't have a high GPA you have to try really hard to stand out through networking
events and coffee chats so while it's not 100% the rule, I will say that from what I've seen,
having the higher GPA just gives you a leg up and opens the door for you a little bit wider
or a little bit sooner than others, but it's not to say it's impossible if you don't have
that GPA. And the last one is it's a career path that you shouldn't stay too long in.
I don't think that there's a should and shouldn't or you know, there's not like a single rule across
the board for everyone. I think some people really love consulting and stay in it for the long haul
and work their way up the corporate ladder, and others, they do it for a few years because they
know they just wanted to get that breadth of experience, and then they go work at a startup,
or they go to law school, or a few other things - I have lots of friends who have gone into multiple
different fields after consulting. So I think it just depends on what it is that you're looking
for. I do agree that it's a great kind of starting career, and can be a springboard into something
else, but that's not to say that you can't stay and thrive in consulting. You don't need to just
use it as a way to move or pivot into something else. All right, so that's it for this video. I
hope you enjoyed hearing my perspective on these assumptions. We got so many more assumptions,
so maybe there will be a part two to this, let me know if that's something you'd be interested in.
Again, go check out Kajol and Sanjna's videos, they will be linked in the description box and
you can see what they think coming from a London or Sydney perspective as well. Let me know
what other videos you'd like to see, what other collaborations you'd like to see with YouTubers
that I maybe haven't met yet. Would love to know who else you want me to collab with in
the future. As always, thank you so much for watching and I will see you in the next one. Bye!
you