Want to Be a Consultant Down Under? Tasks, Trials & Truths

tylorbell

Are you considering a career in consulting in Australia?  This video pulls back the curtain: what your tasks will look like day‑to‑day, the common challenges you’ll face, and the truths that no one warns you about. From demanding clients to tight deadlines, from scope creep to burnout —  this is the real consulting story. Perfect for prospective consultants, graduates or anyone curious what it takes.   Are you considering a career in consulting in Australia?  This video pulls back the curtain: what your tasks will look like day‑to‑day, the common challenges you’ll face, and the truths that no one warns you about. From demanding clients to tight deadlines, from scope creep to burnout — this is the real consulting story. Perfect for prospective consultants, graduates or anyone curious what it takes.   Thinking about a consulting career? This video breaks down what no one tells you:  • The daily tasks and responsibilities you’ll handle  • The biggest challenges and hidden pressures in consulting  • The realities vs. expectations — so you can go in with your eyes open  Whether you’re a student, changing careers, or just curious, this is your inside look into the consultant world.   #ConsultingAustralia  #ConsultantLife  #CareerInConsulting  #Challenges #Tasks  #RealityCheck  #BusinessConsulting  #SkillsRequired  #ProjectManagement  #AustraliaJobs  #Consulting  #Berater  #ConsultantAlltag  #Herausforderungen  #Aufgaben  #Wahrheiten  #Karriere  #Projektmanagement  #BusinessBeratung  #ConsultingDeutschland  #Consulting  #Consultant  #Missions  #Défis  #Vérité  #Carrière  #BusinessConsulting  #France  #Compétences  #Management  #Consulting  #CareerAdvice  #ConsultantLife  #Challenges  #Tasks  #RealTalk  #WhatConsultantsDo  #BusinessConsulting  #ProjectManagement  #WorkLifeBalance

Transcript

00:00What the fudge is management consulting and what do I actually do?

00:03Hello, this is Taylor.

00:04I am a 24-year-old management consultant originally from Los Angeles, California,

00:08now currently working and living here in what is right now a very gloomy New York City

00:13for a large international consulting firm.

00:15And since I have started this YouTube channel and started talking about my day job as a management consultant,

00:21I cannot tell you how many comments I have got that sound something like this.

00:24Oh, you're like a life coach. That's cute.

00:27How do you make enough money to live in New York City?

00:29You must have an OnlyFans.

00:30Or what the f*** can you consult on? You just graduated from college.

00:34And I also get plenty of perfectly respectful comments where people are just curious and they ask,

00:38how can you consult on anything if you don't have any experience in one specific industry?

00:43Regardless of the varying tones of these comments that I receive on a day-to-day basis,

00:47I completely understand why the profession of management consulting is a bit confusing.

00:51And yes, even though I have explained it on my channel before,

00:54I still get comments all the time from people saying they still don't understand what it is.

00:58So I am making this dedicated video, hopefully to clearly explain in plain English what management consulting is

01:04and what top consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG actually do.

01:08Real quick though, if you want to hit the thumbs up, that'd be awesome.

01:11And I know you can see the ring light reflection.

01:14Just ignore her.

01:15So what is management consulting?

01:16First, I will address quickly the four most common misconceptions that I hear and tell you what it's not.

01:23But first, I would like to take a minute to thank the sponsor of today's video, Ritual.

01:27When I'm working long hours, which I am a lot of the time, I rely on good habits and routines to free up some of my time.

01:33And this includes having a solid morning routine where I drink a ton of water and take my vitamins before my morning coffee.

01:38This is where Ritual comes in.

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02:15And one of my favorite parts, each bottle comes with a mint tab inside that gives each vitamin a minty fresh taste,

02:22which I'm personally more of a fan of than a fish oil taste.

02:24Click the link in my description and use my code TaylorB20 for 20% off of your first month.

02:29Thank you again, Ritual, for sponsoring this video.

02:31So what it is not.

02:33Here are two comments that I received from some people on a video just earlier today

02:36that almost perfectly illustrate the first example of what it's not.

02:40Homer Simpson says, Instagram and YouTube gave American women a sense that they are all unique

02:45and artistic, but really they just copy every single thing to gain their own attention.

02:50Okay, that part's kind of irrelevant, but the next comment is more illuminating.

02:52Next comment says, LOL, agreed.

02:54Thank you for saying it.

02:56Also, with regards to consulting, I have a few female friends on Instagram who have started their own

03:00business of either life coaching consulting, fashion consulting, or fitness consulting.

03:05That's cute and all, but with today's cost of living and inflation, I ask myself,

03:10how are these people pulling in enough income?

03:12The reality is, all they do is flood Instagram with their ideologic feel-good quotes.

03:16Thank you to these people for leaving the comment because again,

03:18that is almost a perfect example of what it is not.

03:21It is not any kind of independent consulting from being a fitness coach to a life coach to a love doctor.

03:27My name is Alex Hitchens and I'm a consultant.

03:30That being said, of course I understand why that is a misconception.

03:33The verb consult in the English language simply means to seek advice or information

03:37from someone who has expertise in a particular area.

03:40So if you so much as know more about coffee than the average person,

03:43and you make money by teaching someone else how to brew the most delicious cup of coffee,

03:48it wouldn't be that crazy if you called yourself a caffeine consultant.

03:51So yes, that's a silly example that I just made up, but as you can see,

03:54the technical definition of the word consultant can encapsulate a lot of people.

03:58So it's a term that gets thrown around a lot.

04:00And I suppose it's understandable why someone would see me and assume I'm some sort of life coach.

04:04Maybe I fit that mold, or at least I appear to have my shit together on YouTube, I guess.

04:09This is absolutely nothing against life coaches or fitness coaches.

04:12I think it would be incredible to make a living doing that.

04:14I'm just saying that this category of consultants is different than management consulting.

04:18The second thing that it is not is an MLM, which stands for multi-level marketing,

04:22basically a pyramid scheme.

04:23Now, I don't get this one quite as often, but I was in Starbucks a few months ago,

04:27and a woman and I started talking.

04:28Eventually, she asked me what I do for a living, and I told her I was a business consultant.

04:32To which she replied, oh, so like an MLM.

04:35She was sweet.

04:35She just didn't know, although she did pitch me her MLM right after that, so.

04:39Before telling you the third thing that it's not,

04:40again, if you would care to gently demolish the like button, I would appreciate it.

04:44All right, moving on to the third thing.

04:45This is a misconception that I get a lot, and it's that I.

04:4924-year-old Taylor is the one who personally marches up to the CEO of these Fortune 500 companies

04:54and tells them everything that they're doing wrong and who I think they should fire.

04:57This misconception is hilariously portrayed in the movie Office Space, which is one of

05:01my favorite comedies, and in that movie, two consultants come into a company and basically

05:05decide that half of the employees should just be fired.

05:08As much as I love that movie, this is not what consulting is actually like, but we will

05:12dive into what my day-to-day actually looks like in just a little bit.

05:14And the last thing that it's not is independent business consulting.

05:18I get comments from people all the time that assume because I did my undergrad at a business

05:21school that I independently consult for businesses on my own or that I own my own business doing

05:26this, and this is not the case.

05:28Again, totally understandable why someone would think that because, of course, independent

05:31consulting is a thing.

05:33A lot of folks who are in a specific industry for a long time and garner a ton of knowledge

05:36on one specific topic will often do independent consulting for other companies on the side

05:41or after retiring.

05:42Of course, you do not have to be near retirement age to do this.

05:44That's just an example.

05:45So these are the most common misconceptions that I hear, that I am some kind of life coach

05:50or that I am the one personally walking up to the CEO of these huge companies telling

05:54them what they're doing wrong or that I'm an independent business consultant.

05:57Now that we've addressed these misconceptions, let's talk about what it actually is and what

06:01I do all day.

06:02Let's start with a definition from the internet to lay some groundwork and then we'll actually

06:05talk about it.

06:06Management consulting is the practice of helping organizations to improve their performance.

06:10Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons,

06:14including gaining external advice or accessing consultants specialized expertise.

06:19And then the top result for what does a management consultant do exactly?

06:22Google says a management consultant works with company leadership to assess the company

06:26and identify problems, gather information and implement solutions.

06:30Management consultants frequently work in teams and most work for consulting firms rather

06:34than being on the payroll of the company that they are analyzing.

06:37This is all true, but what does it actually mean?

06:39What does it look like in practice?

06:40And what do I do on a day to day?

06:42And how can I, someone without expertise in any specific industry, consult on anything?

06:46I think the best way to explain is by telling you a little bit about one of my most recent

06:50projects and what I actually did for it.

06:52But first, I keep saying project.

06:54What even is a project?

06:55How long do they last?

06:56And how many consultants are on any given project?

06:58So in consulting, work is divided up by projects, which almost always takes the form of one business,

07:04the client, asking a consulting firm to help them solve a specific problem.

07:08However, unlike the Google definition that I read that said consultants come in and assess

07:12the company as a whole and identify problems, it is actually a lot more specific than that.

07:16A company might ask a consulting firm to evaluate their supply chain for a specific product or

07:21to evaluate how attractive a new market might be.

07:24But I've never seen a company say, hey, come evaluate our business as a whole.

07:27I'm sure those projects do exist, but I personally have never seen one.

07:30Now, these projects can last anywhere from two weeks to six months.

07:33In fact, some companies actually have consulting firms on retainer.

07:36So that way, there's always a group of consultants there to help them figure out various challenges.

07:40But from what I've seen, the average project length is about two to three months, I would say.

07:44And how many consultants work on these projects?

07:46Well, it's not just entry-level consultants like myself.

07:48There is a hierarchy.

07:49I have shown this diagram on my channel many times to explain this, but here it is again.

07:54And it's just a bonus if you like the office as much as I do.

07:56So on any project, you will typically have a variation of one or more entry-level consultants,

08:01like myself.

08:02Let's call these people associate consultants.

08:04Each firm will have a different title for them.

08:05Then maybe the project will have a senior associate consultant, and then a consultant.

08:10And almost every project will have a project leader or manager.

08:13And then there might be a principal, and finally, a partner.

08:16So this seems like a lot, but not every single project will have one of these.

08:19On my last project, which I'm about to tell you about, it was just me, my manager, and a partner,

08:24which was a pretty slim structure.

08:25And on the other hand, some really large projects, let's say one where the client is

08:29and there are six different work streams on this project,

08:31the team hierarchy might look something like this.

08:34It's all dependent on the work that that project will entail

08:37and how many people it will take to properly cover that amount of work.

08:40Okay, so now that you know the typical length of a project and the hierarchy of a team,

08:44let's talk about what a real-life project might actually look like

08:47and one that I worked on and what I did for it.

08:49So within management consulting, I work mainly on the strategy side of things,

08:52which can include projects that focus on corporate strategy,

08:55business model transformation, economic policy, mergers and acquisitions,

08:59organizational strategy, functional strategy, strategy and operations, and digital strategy.

09:03That's just a list that I found online.

09:05So as you can see, it's usually a lot more specific than a company saying,

09:08hey, come evaluate us as a whole.

09:10So for that project that I actually worked on,

09:12the client was a large professional services company

09:14and they approached my consulting firm to help them figure out

09:17if they should try to aim to have net zero emissions by 2050.

09:21And if so, what the cost might look like

09:23and what steps they would have to take to do that.

09:25Specifically, they wanted to know if they should do it within the emissions guidelines

09:28of the Science-Based Targets initiative,

09:31which is a collaboration between the UN and the Worldwide Fund for Nature

09:34and a few other organizations.

09:36Now, unless you have experience in the climate space,

09:38that probably all sounded like gibberish.

09:40Sorry, I'm taking my jacket off.

09:41I was going to mic myself up.

09:43It sounded like gibberish to me when I was staffed on the project

09:45with zero experience in the climate space.

09:48But that's what consulting is all about.

09:49You're thrown into oblivion and then somewhere along the way,

09:51you figure it out.

09:52So how did we approach this problem?

09:54As I mentioned, the main team was just me, my manager and a partner.

09:57We also had some more periphery partners that gave guidance,

09:59but it was a small team.

10:01And the manager also had no climate experience.

10:03It's usually the partners and the principals

10:05who have a lot of expertise in that specific industry

10:07and help kind of guide the direction of the project.

10:10So in the first week, my manager and I did non-stop research.

10:13We started with any resources that we had available,

10:15including past slide decks in the firm's database

10:18that had done anything similar.

10:19We did a ton of Googling to get up to speed

10:21with all of the acronyms that were being flown around.

10:23And what was probably most helpful was setting up calls

10:26with the heads of each department within that company

10:28to actually get an idea of what their emissions looked like,

10:31as well as the viability of opting for greener options,

10:34both from an implementation and cost standpoint.

10:36So we had this discussion with the head of business travel,

10:39the head of supply chain, the head of power,

10:41the head of real estate, just to name a few.

10:43And we also made plenty of data requests to the client

10:45to get a better idea of what their emissions numbers

10:47actually looked like per department, per office,

10:50because they operate in like 90 countries per year.

10:53Without going into too much detail,

10:54by the end of six weeks, my manager and I had identified

10:57the main levers that our client would have to focus on

10:59in order to reach that net zero emissions by 2050,

11:03which if you're curious, were power and business air travel.

11:06We laid out the steps that they would have to take

11:07to get there, two of the main ones being purchasing

11:09sustainable aviation fuel to offset the emissions

11:12of business air travel and switching to renewable energy

11:14to power their office buildings.

11:16And we identified how feasible these options would even be

11:19given our client's business capabilities.

11:21And finally, the costs that they would have to incur

11:23in order to move forward with this plan.

11:24As I mentioned, my manager and I both had

11:26no climate experience going into this,

11:28but through tons of research, lots and lots of calls

11:30with the head of each department,

11:32lots of helpful guidance from the partners on our project,

11:34and many iterations of the slide deck that we put together,

11:37we were able to figure this out.

11:39And not only did we figure it out,

11:40but I helped my manager present it to the junior clients,

11:43my manager presented it to the senior clients,

11:45and just a few short weeks later,

11:47this company actually publicly announced

11:48that they would be going net zero

11:50using the plan that we laid out for them.

11:52So this project was a bit unique

11:53in that the client very publicly actually accepted

11:56the proposal that we put together for them.

11:58This is certainly not always the case.

12:00But overall, this was probably my favorite

12:01and the most rewarding project that I've been on.

12:04And while no two projects are exactly like,

12:06most projects will follow a similar formula

12:07where a business will approach the consulting firm

12:10and ask them to help them figure out a specific problem

12:12or to research a topic further.

12:14And that's really what the job is.

12:16It's figuring out problems and strategizing

12:17how to improve them through a ton of research,

12:20modeling, et cetera.

12:21Some projects are mainly qualitative

12:23and others are very heavily quantitative.

12:25It really varies.

12:26So you can see that even though I was

12:28a relatively fresh college grad with no climate experience,

12:31my manager and I used the data that we had

12:33and the people who had respective knowledge

12:35within their departments to lay out a holistic

12:37and cohesive plan for this company.

12:39And you can also see that I was not the one

12:41making all the decisions

12:42and marching up to the client barking orders.

12:44Rather, through a very iterative process,

12:46I did a lot of research,

12:48talked to a lot of people,

12:49interpreted their thoughts

12:50and made a lot of calculations with my manager

12:52to arrive at this final result.

12:54It's worth noting that this was just a six-week project.

12:57With more time, of course,

12:58there were topics that we could have dug even deeper into.

13:01What we were aiming to accomplish

13:02was to figure out the key things

13:04that our client should focus on first

13:05and the most viable and cost-effective strategies

13:07to get started in those areas.

13:09Over the next many years,

13:10our client will have to perform a lot more analysis

13:12to achieve this net zero goal,

13:14but we gave them a good place to start.

13:16I just don't want to make it seem

13:17like what we did in six weeks

13:18solved their whole entire net zero plan through 2050.

13:21Rather, we just helped them

13:22get to the starting line, basically.

13:24So am I now a climate expert?

13:26Absolutely not, obviously,

13:27but I do know a whole lot more about it

13:29than I did before this project.

13:31And this is how partners and principals

13:32become experts over time.

13:33They work within a specific industry for so long

13:36and form very strong business relationships

13:38with companies in that industry

13:39to the point where they become very knowledgeable

13:41on the topic

13:42and very valuable to their clients.

13:43At this point, you might be thinking,

13:45Taylor, now I get that you didn't have any experience

13:48in that industry as an entry-level consultant.

13:50And I get that the partners and the highest up people

13:53have lots of experience in that industry.

13:55But the people in the middle, like the manager,

13:57shouldn't they also have experience?

13:59Great question.

14:00You're so smart.

14:01The answer is, it depends on the project.

14:03I know it's a meme that consultants say

14:04it depends all the time, but it actually does.

14:07In a lot of cases, like this specific project,

14:10the clients largely pay for the consulting methodology,

14:13which is kind of a glorified way of saying

14:15that they pay us to do a ton of research.

14:17And in a lot of cases, that doesn't even require the manager

14:19to have a lot of experience in that field.

14:21And on other projects, the work might require

14:23a much higher level of pre-existing knowledge

14:26on that specific topic from the managers

14:28and potentially even from the entry-level consultants,

14:30such that when the project is being staffed,

14:32the partner might indicate that it would be preferable

14:34for even the entry-level consultants

14:36to have already been on one or two previous cases

14:39within that same industry.

14:40So that way they already have some background

14:42and they can hit the ground running a bit easier.

14:44What the manager should know how to do,

14:46regardless of whether or not they have experience

14:49in one specific industry, is how to manage a team.

14:52How to take direction and guidance

14:53from the partners at the top, weave that into the project

14:56and give feedback and direction

14:57to the consultants below them.

14:59So hopefully that answers your question.

15:00If you were like,

15:01how could the manager not even have experience?

15:03Yeah, it's a fair question.

15:04So there you have it.

15:05Even though I am assuring you

15:07that you do not need specific industry experience

15:10to land a consulting job right out of college,

15:12I should make clear that it is still a very hard job to get.

15:15During your interviews,

15:16you still need to demonstrate

15:17that you have a strong business sense,

15:19particularly during your case interview,

15:20which I cover a whole lot more in this video,

15:22if you want to check that out.

15:23And also this job is not for everyone.

15:25For many projects, it is a lot of hours

15:28and most people only stay at the job

15:30for a little over two years.

15:31It is also atypical to see the direct impact of your work

15:34like I did for this climate project.

15:36And that's one of the main criticisms

15:37that I hear about consulting that I would agree with.

15:40There are also plenty of people out there

15:41who think that consultants

15:42don't actually deliver value to their clients.

15:44And if you're one of those people,

15:45you're obviously entitled to your opinion.

15:47I don't think management consulting

15:48would be a $265 billion industry

15:51if there wasn't some value add, but I digress.

15:54You can save my thoughts and criticisms

15:55of which there are plenty for another video.

15:58Hopefully this video cleared some things up,

16:00specifically what even is management consultant

16:02and how can a fresh college grad be a consultant

16:05on anything without experience in a specific industry.

16:08Like and subscribe if you made it this far

16:09and I will see you very soon in the next one.

16:11Turtle out.

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