The clients won’t be household names. Compensation for your volunteer consulting work is at an exciting zero. Worst of all, it will be just another project that competes with school work, networking, and sleep for a piece of your time. Yet for graduate students seriously considering a consulting career without prior professional consulting experience, I would strongly recommend it. As an MBA student without a consulting background, I was nudged towards volunteer consulting by consultants across all firms that I networked with. I heeded the advice and partook in a school organized volunteer consulting program that was supported by a major management consulting firm whose consultants provided active mentorship. Looking back, that experience significantly shaped my successful recruiting strategy and confirmed my desire to enter the consulting industry.
Let’s first clarify what volunteer consulting is and isn’t. I am referring to volunteer consulting programs formally organized via a graduate program. This occurs with third party sponsorship, often a major consulting firm, or a non-profit organization as in the case of the Board Fellows program. These programs are structured to mirror professional consulting, albeit with smaller scale clients such as start-ups, local non-profits, or small government offices. Volunteer consulting does not refer to project-oriented classes or case competitions. Those have value, but lack the depth, dynamic flexibility, and comprehensive mentorship support that organized volunteer consulting programs provide.
The value add of volunteer consulting can be broken down to three (3) components.
1. Making Sure Consulting is a Good Fit
Volunteer consulting provides a microcosm of the pains and joys of consulting. I remember the sense of satisfaction of influencing our client to change business practices. I also remember how much fun it was to learn about the client’s industry. Yet, I also remember the pain of wading through dense internal politics and having tough honest conversations with my client. On balance, I found consulting desirable, and the experience really built my confidence that consulting was the right career path. That confidence made me more motivated to recruit for consulting, and also a lot more coherent in explaining to others, from recruiters to my parents, why consulting was right for me. However, it also helped me be much more honest with myself about the frustrations of consulting.
2. Identifying Best Fit Consulting Practices
Volunteer consulting programs are generally supported by current professional consultants or those with former consulting experience who serve as guides, essentially playing the role of an engagement manager. My guides were all from the same practice area in the same firm. They were terrifically helpful professionals that were very open in talking about their careers vis-a-vie how their firm did business. However, what was most insightful was going through the process of being led by them to tackle a project using their firm’s standard practices. In essence, it was a backstage pass that allowed me to appreciate the flavor of a consulting firm and how it serves clients. I saw that my guides’ firm operated extensively from pre-established business model templates, which built the baseline of work product. I saw the merits of that business model, but also learned that for me it wasn’t fun to operate that way. During the project, my team and I were able to create some bespoke solutions for the client, and I learned that I really enjoyed the adventure of creatively researching and designing specially crafted business solutions. Hence, when I was recruiting, I made sure to identify firms and practice groups that produce custom solutions. This was tremendously helpful in helping prioritize which practice groups to go after.
3. Appreciating Your Strengths and Weaknesses in a Consulting Context
Everyone thinks they know what their own professional strengths and weaknesses are. Yet a volunteer consulting experience provides a real-life trial that can actually reveal where your strengths and weaknesses lie when it comes to tackling a consulting project. This can be especially revealing in the context of:
- Collaborating as part of a project team
- Strategizing and executing client communications, especially in conducting difficult conversations to tell the client what needs to be heard but is difficult to hear
- Working with engagement managers
I found myself surprised what my actual strengths and weaknesses revealed themselves to be. Yet, by knowing more about myself, I found it easier to talk about my strengths and weaknesses during consulting interviews in ways that are relevant to the industry. As I transition into a fulltime consulting role, I am also better able to strategize what I can do, especially with the resources of my MBA program at hand to mitigate my weaknesses.
Conclusion
Just like with a sporting competition or an artistic performance, the key to consulting success is through rehearsal, and the more the better. Volunteer consulting is simply the dress rehearsal that empowers prospective consultants to stand out during the recruiting process and position themselves well for the live show to come.
Hall Wang is a dual degree MBA and Master of Public Policy candidate at Georgetown University. 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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