This past New Year’s Eve, I was surrounded by people sharing what they were thankful for in 2019. Since then, I have put much thought into thinking about how thankful I am to work for a consulting firm that empowers me to make time for my personal life’s priorities. Maybe I was overly pessimistic about consulting life, but based on the tales from the MBA recruiting story mill, I expected to put my personal life on regular pause as I lived the hustle of unpredictable and demanding work hours. Without a doubt I have had to make personal sacrifices and work many long days in order to deliver excellent client work. However, what surprised me was how every single leader I have encountered has executed the firm culture of valuing people’s personal time. This has been manifested in a number of specific instances, such as:
- Project planning conversations whereby the leader made a special effort to prioritize maximal schedule predictability in order to safeguard the personal life and health of team members
- A leader proactively coordinating for a teammate to cover for me for a few days so that I could attend a wedding.
- Leadership working hard to get a colleague onto a project that was in close proximity to a sick parent.
This time valuing culture has allowed me to confidently coordinate with project leaders in order to maximize the time I have available for family, friends, and myself. I have been able to be there for their important life moments and even recently achieved a personal goal of mine of hiking a glacier in Iceland. Not only has this made me more invigorated to effectively build products on the tough days of client delivery, but I ultimately find myself enjoying my overall life quality much more than I thought I would in this profession. Most of all, it makes me proud of my firm and ever so grateful for my circumstances.
It is worth emphasizing that I have been able to make this supportive work environment work for me by doing two things:
- Clearly communicating my personal life goals and interests to my leadership
- Aggressively going after excellence in client delivery and strong work progress during my working time in order to have more credibility in seeking any schedule changes needed to support my personal life.
Interestingly, back when I was doing consulting recruiting in my MBA student days, I didn’t really pay attention to conversations about work-life-balance because I honestly thought I could do without it for a few years in consulting. When I was networking and interviewing with my current consulting firm, I did note how they did uniquely emphasize a firm culture that cares about people’s personal lives. Little did I know that what I once didn’t care for is one of the key things I cherish about my firm.
I share this because I want to nudge those seeking to matriculate into consulting to think about their firm’s relationship with their personal time. Obviously, a consulting career impacts personal lives because work needs to be done on a timeline. For me, having a firm that values my time means I truly only miss what I have to, and I am empowered to carve out time for important events and personal life goals as much as possible.
I challenge prospective consultants to think about how they best position themselves in that type of work environment. This starts by developing a clear understanding of how their firm is likely to value their time. After all, projects and Power Points will always be there. As for life’s important moments, once they are done, they are gone forever, and you can’t have them back.
Hall Wang is a dual degree MBA and Master of Public Policy graduate from Georgetown University who has recently matriculated into a major management consulting firm. He has worked at America’s most innovative companies including Blue Origin and Facebook, as well as having done two combat deployments as a US Army Officer.
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