In the previous article, we introduced the key skills an effective consultant is expected to possess — but now what?
As an aspiring consultant, simply knowing which skills to show on your CV is not enough; you’ll also need to know how to hone and highlight these skills, which is what we’ll be covering in this article.
1. Problem solving
Problem solving refers to the ability to reliably overcome challenges. While we already do solve problems — big and small — in our everyday lives, you need to be sure to highlight targeted and specific examples on your CV.
With problem solving skills — and all of the other skills you hope to showcase — it is always better to show, not tell. That is, demonstrate these skills with specific examples and action verbs instead of stating “I am a good problem solver”.
The most straightforward way to highlight your problem solving skills is to take part in competitions featuring a prominent element of problem solving. For instance, many Oxford students participate in the Oxford Strategy Challenge, which is a mini consulting experience that allows students to work in teams to develop solutions and recommendations for a real business or local organisation. In a similar vein, business case or creative thinking competitions are great opportunities for you to hone and highlight your problem solving skills.
You can also showcase problem solving skills in less obvious ways. For instance, if you were helping to launch a peer support programme for an integrated youth mental health organisation, this is a big and important problem ripe to be solved. Highlighting the problem solving mindset is as simple as emphasising the rigorous approach you undertook to break down the problem and tackle it in a systematic way, e.g., stating in your CV that you “analysed 8 prominent peer support programmes to identify relevant success and risk factors”.
2. Leadership
What constitutes a ‘good’ leader is hard to define, but it boils down to something like initiative, commitment, and the ability to rally others in support of a common goal. For instance, you can take initiative as a member of an interest group and propose key ideas/events to the committee, and perhaps even take on a role in co-leading these events.
A common misconception is that the only way to effectively demonstrate leadership skills is to run for (and successfully bag) leadership or committee positions. Doing so is certainly the most obvious demonstration of leadership — it shows that you are able to influence and inspire peers, commit to a role, and handle positions of responsibility. For example, you could try taking on the role of President of your school or university club, joining the executive committee of an organisation, directing a production, or becoming the editor of your school newspaper. It can be daunting to run for leadership positions as this entails putting yourself up to scrutiny during the campaign and voting stages, but you’ll never really know until you try.
Don’t be disheartened if you don’t manage to get elected, though — there are many opportunities that do not involve an official title or leadership role. You can still show initiative by starting your own club (and getting others involved), proposing events and activities, or carrying out volunteering projects with other committed individuals. The bottomline is that you don’t have to be a leader in title to be a leader in reality — going the extra mile and thinking outside the box are hallmarks of great leaders.
3. Data and quantitative skills
As one of the few hard skills listed here, data and quantitative skills are arguably easier to develop because they are easier to define. In fact, skills like Excel or Python can be readily self-taught with the wide variety of material online. Online courses, such as those on Coursera or MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) offer introductory courses to statistics, data, as well as a range of analytical tools, often for free. Most of these online courses provide certificates upon completion, which can be a worthy addition to your CV to demonstrate your proficiency in the corresponding skillset. You can also seek accreditations particular to your industry, e.g., Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), or Institute for Human Resource Professionals Certified Associate (IHRP-CA).
A more indirect way of demonstrating quantitative skills would be to highlight areas where you have actively applied these skills in the context of solving a real-world problem. For instance, if you are applying for a role in the financial sector it would be great if you can highlight occasions where you constructed discounted cash flow models as part of a project, or automated workflows using VBA.
4. Communication
Communication encompasses both written and spoken communication skills, as well as the ability to tailor your message to your intended audience. Communication is a skill that is easily honed as long as you consciously make an effort to do so. Start by speaking up in class and answering or posing questions, engaging in debates about interesting topics with friends, or simply striking up conversations with strangers, which is an underrated way to familiarise yourself with the art of interpersonal communication.
Of course, you cannot list “talking to strangers” as a bullet point on your CV, so you will require more tangible examples, such as entering an essay competition, designing publicity materials for a club or society, liaising with stakeholders for events, taking part in debates, or running your own blog.
The key idea is to show that you can communicate effectively with different stakeholders — communicating with a corporate sponsor, for instance, would be vastly different from communicating with a fellow club member, but both are equally important in showing how you adapt your communication styles to different contexts.
5. Teamwork
Teamwork is easy to understand, but admittedly difficult to highlight in your CV — we work in groups almost every day, be it at school, work, or any other commitments we have, but how exactly do you demonstrate the skill of “teamwork”?
It is useful to have specific examples that show how you work in a team. For example, you may have worked with a community organisation to raise funds. Highlight what your role was, and how you worked with and contributed to the team. For example, you may be particularly skilled at art and design, and was therefore in charge of marketing and publicity.
There are many other examples you might choose from to showcase your teamwork skills, whether you were the stage manager of a school play, the treasurer of a student society, or a midfielder on a club football team. In fact, team sports is an often overlooked way of demonstrating teamwork.
If you have attended competitions that required you to work as a team, definitely highlight those, regardless of the nature of the competition.
Teamwork might also be about co-leading programmes for the less fortunate, collaborating with other societies to organise the largest in-person consulting event since COVID-19, or even just fostering a welcoming environment by engaging participants.
Final thoughts
Opportunities to develop consulting relevant skills abound, you just need to be willing to seize them. It is also important to remember that being an effective consultant goes way beyond simply mastering the 5 skills outlined in this article. As a consultant, you will need to constantly up-skill in order to remain adaptable, on trend, and able to deliver reliable value that for demanding clients.
Lucas Foo is a Psychology, Philosophy, and Linguistics Undergraduate at the University of Oxford. He enjoys drawing insights from ambiguity to create real and positive impact.
This article is co-authored by Yunzhang Liang, a History undergraduate at the University of Oxford. She enjoys reading, writing, thinking, exploring, and connecting with like-minded individuals.
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