Looking back to consulting recruiting in graduate school, I always think about how interesting it was that so much of the conversation among candidates was about getting an offer from a top consulting firm. Yet, I don’t remember many conversations about succeeding within a consulting firm after joining. I want to shed some light on that vastly underappreciated matter by examining the important topic of how to identify and sell your competitive advantage.
During the recruiting process, firms screen candidates for potential to succeed given the firm’s business portfolio and culture. However, while having potential is one thing, being able to navigate within a firm is another matter entirely. Granted there are numerous ways to succeed at a consulting firm, but upon joining everything is once again about seizing opportunities. Landing engagement roles, securing additional responsibilities, and sometimes even obtaining opportunities to attend social events can require selling yourself.
You can’t win every battle, but in order to stay on the front foot it helps to appreciate your core strengths that are valued by the firm. Some firms label this “building your professional brand”. I like to think of it as “defining your competitive advantage” and then staying on message to coherently and consistently sell it. Lackluster salesmanship may not be professionally fatal, but it will likely mean that prime opportunities will go to people who are more appreciated and trusted players.
In order to define and sell your competitive advantage, there are 3 fundamentals that you need to understand.
1. The sincere truth
Any professional sales pitch should be based on reality. The worst thing you can do for your professional reputation and long term career success is to sell yourself based on falsehoods. This could be professionally disastrous. For example, claiming to be a coding maven could lead you to an engagement where coding knowledge is essential. This could set you up for failure and destroy your credibility. It will also be much easier to sell yourself and stay on message when your pitch is grounded in reality.
2. Skills the firm values
Most consultants can draw on multiple skills and experiences that make them uniquely valuable. However, defining your competitive advantage means highlighting factors that your firm actually cares about. Much of this comes down to supply and demand. If all of your peers are marketing people and the business has a shortage of operations people, it makes sense for you to differentiate yourself by highlighting your operations experience.
At times you will have to reconcile what you genuinely have a competitive advantage in versus what is relevant for the firm. For example, you may have a competitive advantage in government change management, but since you are not in the government consulting practice, it is not relevant.
3. Going beyond the cookie cutter
Even if you have found a genuine professional competitive advantage that you can pitch, your efforts can still fall flat if your messaging is not interesting and memorable. Most engagement managers and firm leaders interact with so many people that resonating with them can be a challenge.
For some consultants, pitching their competitive advantage can be easy – tied to impressive projects or brands they may have previously worked with (e.g. a famous tech company, or a major bank). However, for many consultants, resonating means developing a concise yet punchy story. In highlighting my competitive advantage for client empathy, I reference how I learned to patiently listen to people’s problems while working at a government mental health clinic. Another colleague highlights his forte for user experience by referencing how he was responsible for building a critical functionality in a well-known appliance. By introducing something unique or relatable, you can thereby become memorable.
The bottom line is that, in consulting, meaningful opportunities are often only made available to those who make a compelling case that they uniquely deserve them. As a result, it is smart to go into consulting armed with well-defined competitive advantages that you are ready to sell.
Hall Wang is a dual degree MBA and Master of Public Policy graduate from Georgetown University who has recently matriculated into a major management consulting firm. 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.
Image: Pexels
🔴 Interested in consulting?