In nearly every consulting firm, sooner or later you’ll have to prioritize a specialty to formally begin establishing a focus area for your consulting career. Just to be clear, by specialty, I mean a specifically defined industry (e.g. industrials, pharma, etc.) or functional area (e.g. cost cutting, organizations, etc.) that the firm has built a practice around.
Every consulting firm does their specialty assignments a little differently. Some firms even do campus or experienced hire recruiting based on specialties. Others have their consultants specialize after some time as generalists. In any event, a consultant or prospective consultant must decide which specialties to identify as top priorities. Generally speaking, firms greatly value input regarding desired specialty since it is a good practice to ensure their talent is specialized in an area that they are interested in. However, the firm is the final decider on where its people specialize.
In this post, I will highlight seven considerations on how to think about targeting a specialty:
1. Going with the People That You Like Working With
Time and again, the happiest people I have met in consulting are those who joined a specialty where they really enjoy the people they work with. I have met some that even confess that prior to joining a specialty they had zero interest in the specialty nor any real professional background in it. This is in many ways a smart strategy since consulting is very much about intense collaborative teamwork and being around people that you like makes consulting easier and more enjoyable. Many have noted that the personalities they get along with best just so happened to be in specialties that weren’t on their original radar. Going for people can however be risky because in consulting people come and go, either moving to a different practice within the firm, hopping to another firm, or even leaving consulting altogether. It is plausible for someone to join a specialty and then see major personnel shifts within a year or so because a lot of colleagues just happened to find new opportunities.
2. Alignment with Professional Background
The easiest way to join a specialty (generally speaking) is to have a well-aligned professional background. This can be helpful in that there is a relatively small learning curve, and you enter with lots of credibility to be considered for engagements and other leadership opportunities. Although this might be convenient, I have also met people who have done this and regretted it due to a sense of missing out on opportunities to adventurously try new things.
3. Work Life Balance
Every firm has specialties that due to a combination of leadership style and historical client norms have generally (though never guaranteed) better work-life balance scenarios. For those who seek to minimize the work strains of consulting for family or personal reasons, such specialties can make sense. However, such specialties generally are not involved in the cutting edge in technological and business advances. For those who like to be involved in the latest and greatest of things, such specialties might not be the best choice.
4. Being on the Cutting Edge
Every firm also has specialties that are heavily involved in the cutting edge, which regularly work on issues that are talked about in the news. For those that join consulting to be on the cutting edge, these specialties can be especially appealing. However, these specialties generally also have the reputation as being the most taxing, meaning that you should reasonably expect to work late nights and weekends more so than other specialties.
5. Positioning for a Post-Consulting Career
It should be noted that many consultants move on to new roles after some years in consulting and involvement in specialties increasingly are becoming more important in determining exit opportunities.
For consultants, it is increasingly difficult to matriculate into an exit opportunity without prior industry or functional experience. Thereby for those who have very strong inclinations for their post-consulting career, it can be smart to focus on a specialty that helps you get there.
Industry specialties often have location trends. For example, in the US, the oil and gas industry are heavily based around Texas and some bordering states. For those who aspire to live in New York City, specializing in oil and gas does not make sense. Prioritizing a specialty that caters towards your future location interests is something smart to think about.
6. Business Resilience
There are some consulting specialties that are less susceptible to shocks such as recessions and pandemics, and they are not necessarily the ones that you would expect. It can be important to consider how resilient a specialty has been historically against external pressures. It can be very disconcerting when projects are hard to come by simply because the specialty you chose is impacted by forces beyond the firm’s control.
7. Intellectual Curiosity
There is a lot to be said for seeking a specialty out of a passion for learning opportunities. In every firm, there are certain specialties that are known for their research and forward leaning thought leadership. It is an opportunity to have fun with at the very least.
The Bottom Line
A specialty in consulting is like picking out a car. There is no such thing as a perfect car like there is no such thing as the perfect specialty. However, there is a lot of value in knowing what you want out of it and then going for the all-around best choice, while at the same time taking some risk.
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.
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