Everyone was new once. For many of you, that first day is still to come.
In this blog post, we will focus on three things that young analysts need to be aware of.
Some mistakes are avoidable if you can get your head around them. Others you will probably notice yourself doing anyway. Hopefully you can avoid a few of these pitfalls in your first few weeks!
1. Dealing with Feedback
The biggest issue that many young consultants face is dealing with feedback.
After every project, you will receive a report from your manager, and at some firms like Bain, a performance card from your peers and juniors. Of course this is meant to be productive, and it is. It will count towards your next promotion, internal networking and personal development.
However, feedback can be very direct. Whether that’s because it is a multiple choice exercise – i.e. you were Excellent, Good, Average, Bad – or your colleagues are just blunt, it can be a painful learning experience. Compared with university, professional feedback can be much harder to swallow. You are likely trying just as hard at each project, but the feedback might not match your own estimation of how things went.
Learning to be gracious is difficult. You want to show that you understand and plan to change, without implying that you are already past it. Equally, you don’t want to seem conceited by suggesting that you ‘saw this coming’. Obviously you didn’t, or you wouldn’t have acted the way you did.
What you want to do is say thanks a lot and crack on, good or bad feedback. Preferably, you will take some logical steps towards improving in the areas where you went wrong, but don’t be too faddish with this. You don’t need logical steps to fix your slide formatting, for example. If you work with the same colleagues on another project, make sure to check-in with them on how they felt you progressed in a certain area, or even seek projects which you think will be a particularly positive learning experience.
2. Accepting Corrections
In your first few years you will write an unbelievable number of PowerPoint presentations. These are hard to get right, but your speed and attention to detail will improve over time. However, despite your efforts, your slides will almost never be to your manager’s liking the first time around.
There are often 50+ slides, and each has to be perfect. Consultants stress over these. In some ways, they are right to do so as this is their bread-and-butter. On the other hand, small errors in your slide deck are unlikely to ever prove fatal to the overall success of the project you are carrying out.
At some point as an analyst, the presentation that you thought you had perfected will be questioned by your manager or the client. It might be the formatting, which is retrievable, or worse, the content.
Whatever you do, DON’T be defensive. If they say it’s wrong, it probably is. If they have the wrong end of the stick, you can point it out. However, don’t say that you saw the mistake but didn’t think anyone would mind. This is one of the silliest things you can do as a consultant. It reflects negligence on your part and condescension towards your client and colleagues in that you don’t think their standards are as high as your own.
It is likely that at times you will have to re-do large portions of your presentations at the very last minute. Accept this graciously. Bankers do it all the time. Whether you thought it was your very best work or not is not a reflection on you, but a reflection of where you are on the learning curve. You may be thinking it, but do not say ‘surely this is fine!?’
3. Networking Proactively
Lots of newbies get so caught up in their day-to-day work that they forget to engage with the firm where they are working. You can do this in lots of ways, but it is crucial that you build a relationship with the people in your office as soon as possible. Do not only focus on people who you think can help you or whose projects you want to be a part of. This will be obvious, and will either make you look silly or actively turn people against you.
Don’t feel weird about asking more senior consultants for coffee. Take the opportunity to ask them about what they do, how you can get involved, and their past experiences. If they are half-nice they will accept. Remember, if you are taking a genuine interest in your colleagues then there are really no stupid questions!
In the meantime, just make sure to be as friendly as possible. Whether you’re talking with the receptionist or CEO, just focus on being likeable and respectful. If you’ve got those two things in the bag, then you will get a chance to show people what you can do.
Will is the founder of The Cambridge Consultant, a site which focuses on everything consulting – how to get in and get on!
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