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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.
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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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