Many graduates and young professionals are looking to land a career in the consulting field. One of the main questions is: “Can you become a consultant?” Do you have the qualifications to become a consultant?
Given the reality of the current labor market and its changing dynamic landscape, the expectations of organizations and professionals continue to increase regarding jobs for the future. In addition to what is caused by the continuous trend of smart transformation and automation in the constant reform of organizations’ business models and modifications of systems, processes, and entire companies to keep pace with these changes and shifts. These developments also affect consulting firms, often contracted to provide support and assistance in complex change initiatives. Or the transformations organizations face. As a result, consulting professionals and emerging talent expectations are on the rise. Raising the bar for requirements to become a consultant.
Here is an overview of the essential qualities and skills that you must possess to become a “consultant”:
1) Academic qualification
Practically all consulting firms rely on candidates to have a minimum university qualification to work as consultants. The training courses and certificates obtained alone are not necessarily the most critical factor for entering this field. Therefore, even if young people do not take the usual course of graduating in “Business Administration,” they can often enter the profession with a qualification from other disciplines. An example of this is mathematics, law, psychology, or others. The main factor required in the applicant’s personality is his academic level of thinking and persuasiveness and how he can be a good consultant.
2) Work in a team
The consultant must be able to work well in a team. A group of consultants assists clients of consulting firms in a multidisciplinary context to meet the challenges posed by the client. From day one, the consultant usually assumes a certain level of responsibility within the work team. However, team goals always remain a top priority.
3) Work under pressure
The consultant’s work is often associated with many pressures related to the nature of clients and places of employment. The consultant must have good presentation skills under these pressures and circumstances surrounding his consulting missions. Some clients’ projects have implementation deadlines, so consultants must be flexible to meet these deadlines. In some instances, the consultant needs to take drastic measures and actions for the client. For example, reorganizing and restructuring the organization can make employees, or other stakeholders put the consultant under severe mental stress. Moreover, he is often involved in large-scale projects with huge interests. And is associated with high and sensitive financial and risky matters, where the error here should be zero. The consultant takes on this task under high pressure, especially when moving up the career path.
4) Analytical skills
The development of the work of business organizations and their increasing dealing with big data and analytics increases the demand for analytical and quantitative skills on the part of the consultant. He regularly conducts research using his abilities and skills to collect and analyze data and present findings to clients. Note that this skill is essential for the consultant in our time.
5) Dealing with others
The consultant spends most of his time working and communicating with clients. For example, he advises his clients on strategic concerns or provides them with track support. Especially at the entry-level, a consultant spends around 80 % of their time with customers. The relationship with these customers forms the basis of every consulting services firm, demonstrating the importance of maintaining excellent client relationships. Thus, the consultant must have the appropriate interpersonal skills.
Apart from verbal communication, they work on listening, negotiation skills, and body language.
6) Logical thinking and problem-solving ability
As a consultant, it is essential that you have excellent problem-solving skills. Based on the available and sometimes incomplete data, you often have to understand the complex challenges that customers pose in a short time and create viable solutions to offer them. Note that due to the expected lack of data for analysis, the consultant needs to find or anticipate reasonable and acceptable solutions from clients based on logical reasoning.
7) intellectual curiosity
The consultant must possess the skill of intellectual curiosity and a high degree of proficiency. Since he frequently works in various sectors and fields, it is of paramount importance that a consultant can find simple solutions to complicated issues. For this, intellectual curiosity or thinking “outside the box” is necessary to address the problems.
8) Driving
Leadership is another essential quality that a consultant needs to possess. Besides managing individual tasks and responsibilities, he needs to demonstrate leadership skills towards his clients.
Based partly on his input and his method of dealing with tasks or problems, he must find solutions. And to guide them during the implementation of his advisory tasks. Moreover, once a consultant has worked in a company long enough, he also needs to lead more junior consultants.
9) Leadership and initiative
The consultant needs to be entrepreneurial and show enough initiative. Since he often spends most of his time solving complex problems, he constantly needs to find ways to improve things. And translate them into concrete, actionable plans of action. An example of this behavior is reviewing his knowledge of a particular topic to address a problem better. Which leads to him being more respected and appreciated by his management and clients.
Many graduates and young professionals with an academic background in business administration or economics are increasingly choosing a career in consulting. Annually, thousands of experienced professionals also enter this field, either by choice or by working for an organization as an experienced consultant or independent consultant.
Accordingly, many things are expected from practicing the job of a “consultant,” including “high workloads and pressures,” “long working hours,” and perhaps “business trips and frequent travel.” On top of this are ‘high income,’ ‘appropriate career development opportunities, and ‘high level of responsibility.
Whatever the case, there are conceivable enough reasons why a “consultant” job is an attractive option for graduates, new professionals, as well as for experienced talent.
