Dear University Student Seeking to Enter Consulting,
Let’s be honest. Due to the global economic and health impacts of COVID-19, getting any job offer just got a lot harder. The consulting industry at large has scaled back hiring, and so securing a consulting opportunity will be difficult. For many of you, the realistic challenge is not to acquire a consulting opportunity today but to play the long game. This might involve investing in improving your competitiveness for the days when hiring picks up and firms seek to grow their staff again.
With that in mind, I recommend you plan your next steps with these three focus points in mind.
1. Pursue opportunities to grow your professional experience. Projects that are unique and interesting are a plus
In the era of COVID-19, previously targeted career pathways may no longer be available. While this is stressful, it is not the end of the world. There are still opportunities available, but you may have to be a little creative. One way to blaze a new trail is to push beyond your comfort zone. I know people who negotiated the last recession by going into public service professions in education or national security. Such professions tend to be more recession resistant and will help you to develop professional skills and garner interesting stories for interviews.
Another opportunity is presented by the normalization of remote work, which is enabling knowledge workers to pursue projects that involve working with anyone anywhere in the world. Obviously, if you are thinking about this route then you need to be careful that you are actually working for a legitimate employer to avoid falling for scams or doing illicit work. However, something like teaching English remotely to students in Korea or doing some website development work for an e-commerce vendor in Ireland would definitely be fine.
2. Embrace roles that develop your leadership capabilities
This can be done via professional opportunities, but also outside them as well. You could take the time to be involved in an affinity organization or volunteer in civic programs. I did this by taking a regional leadership role in my undergraduate alumni association. I know other people who ran for local elected positions or became volunteer fire fighters to acquire leadership experience. In any case, such opportunities can provide leadership experiences that highlight your abilities and further your personal and professional growth.
3. Network your way towards finding quality mentors who can provide guidance and support
One of the most important things you can do professionally is to acquire quality mentors who are happy to give you insightful and honest feedback about your ideas and career path. Sometimes, the hardest part of building a successful career is to find the right mentors to sit on your “personal board of mentors”. The right way to do this is to get to know people who are actually involved in things that you are interested in, and who have the bandwidth to coach you. The wrong way to go about this is to blindly go up to a person of interest and pester them into giving you a phone number so that you can initiate mentorship communication. Yes, I have seen this done before. You want people with whom you share some common ground and who are eager to support your growth.
The bottom line
The challenge for anyone interested in going into consulting tomorrow is to find opportunities today that will allow them to continue growing professionally and individually. Even if you don’t acquire that consulting opportunity down the road, by making an effort to be professionally competitive in today’s difficult COVID-19 business environment, you will also become more competitive to secure professional opportunities that present themselves at some point down the line.
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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