china daily雙語新聞：改行作管理顧問要做好心理準(zhǔn)備
Hilary Thomas had a distinguished career in medicine as a clinician, academic and medical manager when she started to think about a career switch. But it was a diagnosis of breast cancer that gave her the “psychological impetus” to become a management consultant.
“I finished my treatment and I worked throughout, which made it clear how much work defined me,” says Ms Thomas, who joined KPMG in 2009 and is now a partner and the most senior clinician in its UK public sector healthcare advisory practice.
“Like a lot of journeys in life, it wasn’t exactly planned. If you’d said to me 10 years earlier that I would be a management consultant, I wouldn’t have believed it. I don’t think it was even clear in my mind what the term meant exactly.”
She found the change bewildering at first: “My first three months was a culture shock. I came from organisations where you can’t exercise a lot of autonomy and suddenly my environment was very different, where there wasn’t a lot of hierarchy or structure.
“As a doctor or medical director, the lines are clear. But an associate partner in an organisation with 10,000 people has very different drivers. My first three months were very shaky and I thought I’d made a mistake but when I started to win work and to enjoy the client interface, I delivered.”
She not only delivered but was joint winner of the business services category in this year’s prestigious First Women Awards, sharing the honour with Aimie Chapple, managing director of Accenture. The awards recognise trailblazing women across industry.
Management consulting firms caution those thinking of making such a career switch to think long and hard – not only about whether they have the right skills but whether they can change gear from more traditional command and control structures to work more autonomously.
For those who can, the rewards are manifest in terms of diversity of challenge, achievement and, of course, financial.
“Clients are attracted to management consulting firms with staff who know their companies and industry and the challenges they face,” says Alan Leaman, chief executive of the Management Consultancies Association, which represents more than 60 per cent of firms in the UK.
“A lot of people want to be management consultants. While a lot of others are staying put because of the economy, there are still more applications than places because it’s so attractive.”
A large cohort of people enter the sector after university while still in their early 20s, he says. A growing number of apprenticeships are also on offer for those with good A-levels.
But the sector is also open to mid-career specialists with a proven track record who can demonstrate a good command of “soft skills”.
“You might think you know how to be a management consultant but it’s very difficult. You have to manage or work in a consulting team, deal with demands from clients, and know how to work with a client who’s convinced they have the right solution but actually has to rethink. It’s like diplomacy,” he says.
“Management consulting firms are very good at drawing in people from industry or the public sector and putting them through their own bespoke training and linking them with mentors and great teachers.”
It is impossible to describe a “typical background” of new recruits to Boston Consulting Group, says Patrick Roche, principal and recruiting director for the firm in London.
“The common theme in what we look for in candidates is more around a transferable skillset and an ability to demonstrate impact in their career to date. The average age of our experienced hires works out to be around 30 but the range is large and reflects the breadth of levels at which we hire,” he says.
“The majority of our experienced hires would have between three and seven years of industry experience but we also have senior advisors working at BCG who may be former chief executives with more than 25 years of industry experience.”
Particular sectors of interest are transport, extractive, utilities, power, renewable energy, technology, medicine, and telecoms, says Gerard Gallagher, markets leader in Ernst and Young’s advisory services arm, who himself made a career switch from chartered engineering.
“Financial services remains very relevant but I think that bubble will slow down,” he says.
The management consulting sector saw fee income growth of 14 per cent from the private sector last year, compared with 12 per cent the previous year, according to an MCA report. There was also a rebalancing effect on the consulting industry’s activities from public to private sector. The ratio was 80:20 private to public, with further private sector growth foreseen by most consulting firms, it said.
“People need to prove their expertise and large transformational project skills, their ability to work in a risk environment, and to deal with strategic risk,” says Mr Gallagher. “Practical IT skills and financial skills are needed for all our units.”
He recommends the path he took -- which involved taking an MBA before switching to management consulting, a view echoed by Mr Roche.
“At BCG, we recruit for, and at, all levels – from associate right up to partner level. While our associates and a proportion of our junior consultants typically come straight out of university, the majority of our recruits come with some form of industry experience,” he says.
Hilary Thomas had a distinguished career in medicine as a clinician, academic and medical manager when she started to think about a career switch. But it was a diagnosis of breast cancer that gave her the “psychological impetus” to become a management consultant.
“I finished my treatment and I worked throughout, which made it clear how much work defined me,” says Ms Thomas, who joined KPMG in 2009 and is now a partner and the most senior clinician in its UK public sector healthcare advisory practice.
“Like a lot of journeys in life, it wasn’t exactly planned. If you’d said to me 10 years earlier that I would be a management consultant, I wouldn’t have believed it. I don’t think it was even clear in my mind what the term meant exactly.”
She found the change bewildering at first: “My first three months was a culture shock. I came from organisations where you can’t exercise a lot of autonomy and suddenly my environment was very different, where there wasn’t a lot of hierarchy or structure.
“As a doctor or medical director, the lines are clear. But an associate partner in an organisation with 10,000 people has very different drivers. My first three months were very shaky and I thought I’d made a mistake but when I started to win work and to enjoy the client interface, I delivered.”
She not only delivered but was joint winner of the business services category in this year’s prestigious First Women Awards, sharing the honour with Aimie Chapple, managing director of Accenture. The awards recognise trailblazing women across industry.
Management consulting firms caution those thinking of making such a career switch to think long and hard – not only about whether they have the right skills but whether they can change gear from more traditional command and control structures to work more autonomously.
For those who can, the rewards are manifest in terms of diversity of challenge, achievement and, of course, financial.
“Clients are attracted to management consulting firms with staff who know their companies and industry and the challenges they face,” says Alan Leaman, chief executive of the Management Consultancies Association, which represents more than 60 per cent of firms in the UK.
“A lot of people want to be management consultants. While a lot of others are staying put because of the economy, there are still more applications than places because it’s so attractive.”
A large cohort of people enter the sector after university while still in their early 20s, he says. A growing number of apprenticeships are also on offer for those with good A-levels.
But the sector is also open to mid-career specialists with a proven track record who can demonstrate a good command of “soft skills”.
“You might think you know how to be a management consultant but it’s very difficult. You have to manage or work in a consulting team, deal with demands from clients, and know how to work with a client who’s convinced they have the right solution but actually has to rethink. It’s like diplomacy,” he says.
“Management consulting firms are very good at drawing in people from industry or the public sector and putting them through their own bespoke training and linking them with mentors and great teachers.”
It is impossible to describe a “typical background” of new recruits to Boston Consulting Group, says Patrick Roche, principal and recruiting director for the firm in London.
“The common theme in what we look for in candidates is more around a transferable skillset and an ability to demonstrate impact in their career to date. The average age of our experienced hires works out to be around 30 but the range is large and reflects the breadth of levels at which we hire,” he says.
“The majority of our experienced hires would have between three and seven years of industry experience but we also have senior advisors working at BCG who may be former chief executives with more than 25 years of industry experience.”
Particular sectors of interest are transport, extractive, utilities, power, renewable energy, technology, medicine, and telecoms, says Gerard Gallagher, markets leader in Ernst and Young’s advisory services arm, who himself made a career switch from chartered engineering.
“Financial services remains very relevant but I think that bubble will slow down,” he says.
The management consulting sector saw fee income growth of 14 per cent from the private sector last year, compared with 12 per cent the previous year, according to an MCA report. There was also a rebalancing effect on the consulting industry’s activities from public to private sector. The ratio was 80:20 private to public, with further private sector growth foreseen by most consulting firms, it said.
“People need to prove their expertise and large transformational project skills, their ability to work in a risk environment, and to deal with strategic risk,” says Mr Gallagher. “Practical IT skills and financial skills are needed for all our units.”
He recommends the path he took -- which involved taking an MBA before switching to management consulting, a view echoed by Mr Roche.
“At BCG, we recruit for, and at, all levels – from associate right up to partner level. While our associates and a proportion of our junior consultants typically come straight out of university, the majority of our recruits come with some form of industry experience,” he says.