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I’m 24 - 2 years of public accounting 11 months now of software configuration consulting.

I have my mba as well.

I enjoy my job, but I want to be in a strategy type role - maybe project management office or some type of strategic cost saving role

The software I configure is niche, but I earn 95k.

Any help is welcomed

3 yoe in consulting with some technical experience. Applied for over 200 jobs and have had very little success. Throughout this I have developed my cv which has resulted in more interviews but no offers. I have also adjusted my expectations but even applying for positions lower than my current one isn’t even getting me to interview stage.

I have had 15 1st stage interviews, 11 2nd stage interviews and 0 offers.

What am I doing wrong? I have B4 experience, a degree and a postgraduate - why am I crashing and burning so hard?

Very frustrated and have had the help of a career coach but I can’t help but feel that trying, applying and interviewing is a waste of time.

Hello,

I hope you are well. I'd appreciate your perspective on my situation. I'm a marketer who recently joined an outsourcing company that specializes in providing services mainly for consultants and strategy executives (research, analytics and technology solutions). My goal is to generate meetings for the sales team to close deals.

However, despite trying everything in my playbook, I still haven't scheduled any meetings. I've tried various approaches, messaging, and targeting methods, but all in vain.

The company already works with consultants and has many active contracts, which adds to my confusion. It's proven that the company's services are valuable to consultants.

Do you as consultants really need these services? mainly research, and would you hire an outsourcing company for it?

I'm reaching out to understand whether I should continue with this approach or with the company and be patient, and whether my strategy of sending targeted emails is effective.

Thank you for your help! I appreciate it!

We have a team working on site and one of the C-suite who’s frustrated with his own team keeps using them as his personal side kicks. It’s not just that the team can’t focus on their actual deliverables but also him being abusive.

The partner is well aware of this but doesn’t do anything because it’s an important client and the guy is C-suite. Client pleasing and bootlicking is a general issue at this firm too.

The team is looking at me because I’m next in our hierarchy and I’m struggling what I should do.

My thought is to get a separate resource for myself and take over this guy so that the team can focus on their actual work. And while this may not change his abusive personality, maybe I as the more senior person can take the hits instead of the team. Would also try to have that separate resource be male to at least avoid that last point below.

Specific issues that happen:

• He bombs the team with random requests and changes to previous requests every ten minutes or so. Sometimes you get several 1-line emails over a course of ten minutes.

• He demands unreasonable timelines that are impossible to deliver. As in “get this done within the next ten minutes, it’s simple”.

• He can get verbally abusive, calling our people “stupid” and “useless” when they can’t deliver his unrealistic timelines. (He’s even worse with his own staff.)

• He may get outright childish and throw a tantrum, such as taking away our team’s charger when he’s upset about the team pushing back on his unrealistic timeline (not sure whether this is to put pressure on them to deliver faster or just his anger). I kid you not and this guy is 60yo and a C-suite of this group company.

• He made inappropriate comments towards one of our female staff. Nothing too obscene but kinda flirting in a joking manner.

Basically you worked hard to land a new role, one that is definitely a genuine promotion, i.e. significantly increased responsibility, different scope of role at the company, higher seniority (think change from individual contributor to global lead or practise lead), and the company feeds you some variation of the standard line as to why they can't give you an increase that would put you at market rate for that role. E.g "we don't give raises out of cycle" or "we can't pay you that much because even x person in the team doesn't get that much". Even better, they dangle the carrot and say in x months something might happen depending on y..

Curious to hear real stories of how this went, even from HR folks who've been involved or aware of this situation happening.

This isn't my first rodeo, I know that moving companies is always the way if comp is what you seek, but what are other options if you like the company/work and don't want to leave?

hotkeys? macros? favourite excel functions? tips for perfectly aligning shapes in powerpoint? hit me with what you got

What are the best modelling resources?

So far, I've found the BeyondFormulas course to be excellent, but are there any others out there?

I've seen Management Consulted's modelling course, but it's very basic stuff.

Is an "agenda" slide at the start of your presentation a nice add-on?

Or, is it really essential to give, often time pressed attendees, a roadmap where you presentation is going to go?

I started part time consulting for a company a few years ago but there wasn't enough work for me to go full time. My contact at the company, a supervisor there offered to hire me as a contractor and to pay me a full 40 hours (at a slightly lower rate) regardless of the work load. I accepted his offer and this went on for about a year and a half without a hitch. I was available for them at least 8 hours a day for them but generally it was about 3-5 hours a day and I would invoice them 40 hours.

Unfortunately, this supervisor that hired me got canned and the guy replacing him wants detailed time sheets of my work. There is no way I can stretch my work to cover 40 hours. If I'm just getting fired then that's fine, but I'm afraid that the previous supervisor convinced me into lying on my time sheets and I can't get a hold of him. What should I do? Should I contact an employment lawyer just in case?

I'm a campus recruit , currently working in D as a PMO, should I shift to a dev role or just continue in PMO as I have plans to get an MBA in the future? Idk why I feel PMO has no scope at all.

Hi everyone at r/consulting!

I’m starting a new streaming show dedicated to exploring real-life stories from the consulting world about data. We're looking to feature a wide range of experiences, from triumphant project wins and valuable learning moments to the occasional mishap or funny fuckup in the wild.

Would any of you be interested in joining as guests to share your experiences? Whether it’s a complex problem you solved, an unexpected project twist, or a humorous anecdote, we’re excited to hear and showcase your stories.

If you're interested or want more details, please comment below or DM me. Looking forward to connecting with fellow consultants who are eager to share their tales and insights!

Thanks!

Is your company doing fine, or are they right-sizing with layoffs? Post location with your response, please.

Guys, new to creating decks for clients, need some help.

I wanted to create a deck for a company highlighting how can add on a new source of revenue through advertisements, and I am stuck at how to prepare the projective financials for the ad revenue and costs involved, is there a format that I should follow, or a template that I can draw reference from.

I'm considering eventually going freelance, and want to start building a website showcasing my personal portfolio of projects and services I feel I would enjoy offering. I'm currently in the life sciences management consulting/strategy consulting space.

Could you please share any leads to personal / individual portfolios that you thought were interesting?

I'm looking for both design and content ideas. Thanks in advance.

After 3 years in consulting it’s the blood in your veins if you don’t leave. I absolutely love this shit. When I work 80 hours and bill 40 I edge myself to sleep staring at my YTD billables.

So, I’ve been an independent contractor for a few years but I’ve just received my first contract with a small firm that requires their contractors to be insured for professional indemnity, public liability, and workers comp.

I have no qualms about getting insured, my issue is because I’m based in Thailand I’m having a hard time finding coverage. Most local providers will only insure registered companies (and I’m not quite at a point in revenue where it makes sense to register as a business yet) and the ones in Hong Kong or Singapore can’t insure me unless myself or the client is based there.

My client is based in London and Melbourne, I also have a UK passport but no bank account or address as I haven’t lived there in 20 years.

Does anyone know if I’d be able to get coverage from the uk given my situation or know of any providers here in APAC that I could get coverage from?

TIA

Hi all,

My friend runs their own individual consultancy as an S Corp. They will need a 1099 person for a temporary project coming up with a client.

They want to charge the client $200/hr for that 1099's time and pay them $100/hr for their time.

Is this a normal split? I understand that ultimately it could be the lowest dollar amount the 1099 person will accept, but what is a good way to think about the numbers here? What is normal split in a super small firm? Does the S Corp have to set aside 20% for taxes off the bat?

If the project goes long and they end up hiring the 1099 as W2, how does that change the calculus due to employee expenses like unemployment insurance, pay rolel taxes, etc?

Hey everyone,

I have a question regarding fixed fee project.

With a fixed fee project the client doesn’t know how many hours the consultant has to complete the project. The client just pays and receives the deliverables that are in scope.

Let’s say I was given a fixed fee project of 50 hours. Would it be in my best interest to use up all 50 hours even if that means padding my numbers?

This would help with my utilization. But I just wanted to see if this is best practice.

Thank you!

Searching for Purpose - 27

A man screams outside,

what is he searching for?

I scream on the inside,

will I find my way?

​

Who am I?

What should I do?

Don't live in the past.

Don't live in the future.

Pick a path and don't look back,

Will it be fulfilling?

Will I have regrets?

​

Overwhelmed by choices,

stuck in indecision,

Troubled by past job Trauma,

Throwing darts at better opportunities?

​

I'll find my way,

I know i will?

Worked in industry for 20 years, became a VP level, recently started with a boutique software firm (relevant to my industry) a few weeks ago.

I was hired to be their “industry expert”. They basically said when they meet with clients, they don’t always have answers to the industry specific questions. I can help problem solve and help shape the software to their needs. I’d also do some “sales support” insomuch as I’m networked in the industry and can speak to benefits of said software. While I’ve yet to go to trade shows, that will be a part of my future a few times/yr.

In other words….they mostly want to use me for my brain.

I feel a built guilty because I sit on these project calls, and certainly I speak up and add value, but outside of these calls I have little to do while everyone else on the project team is doing more heads down tangible work.

Could be that I’m new, the role is new, etc. but I can’t see a future where my utilization is above 50%.

Is such a role like this normal? Feels a bit too good to be true, but everyone tells me that are thrilled I’m here.

Why is it so bad? We recently transitioned to it and it is like it has been designed by a toddler.

Why is it so expensive? It is complete garbage and is a real burden. It has slowed all of our processes down, and it’s just frustrating everybody.

Wtf

Currently, I work for a software configuration company where we help implement systems in other companies I make about 90 K a year. I have a unlimited PTO and people are great. I’ve been there for about 11 months and before I came here I was in accounting for two years and got an mba

I’m only 24 btw

I just got a job offer to be a senior accountant and analyst meaning I would help with the system like handling support tickets as well as doing accounting close and helping build out reports and stuff like that and when the time comes, I would help implement the software and train the employees on how to use a software. It’s an accounting job with IT essentially. They know I don’t know sap and they want to train me from the ground up

The total Comp for this job is at 110k per year plus 15 K bonus and 8% match

I don’t know what I should do if I should stay in my current company and continue to make about 90 K , I’m fearful that if I stay here to long I won’t have super transferable skills (sql and project management are great but not everyone uses this software - the sql skills are minimal btw too) but I know if I were to go to the new job and make 110K I will be learning a very very popular system (sap) and I would get good accounting experience (the company that’s offering it to me did 1.2b in gross revenue so it’s not a small shop). It’s my understanding that they have a ton on spreadsheets and someone has to modernize biz process and that would be my job

My thoughts are if I leave and I hate it at the bare minimum I can go directly back into accounting, and if I love it I can keep going end goal is to do digital transformation and strategy work.

If I stay put and make an easy 90k, I can leave and do application management work, maybe product management, it’s just hard to tell as not many people leave bc the culture is so good.

I’ll add at my current company it’s fully remote and this job is 5 days a week in office I definitely care about it but also feel like I’m lettting the perks of my current job outshine this one

How is it possible to ever get an entry level consulting job when the majority of them require an active clearance to apply?

• CEO Schweizer says total headcount to rise to about 34,000
• Consulting sector is battling global economic uncertainty

Boston Consulting Group is set to grow by more than 2,000 employees this year, defying an industry slowdown that’s seen the biggest firms slash jobs. "The hiring will bring BCG’s total headcount to about 34,000", Chief Executive Officer Christoph Schweizer said in an interview.

vs layoffs across McKinsey, EY, PWC, Accenture

BCG said tech experts will make up a significant share of its 2024 hires. BCG X, the company’s generative AI unit, now employs more than 3,000 staff. The company is also investing in internal AI tools so that BCG itself becomes more efficient. About a fifth of BCG’s revenue in 2023 came from AI work, with plans to double that over the next few years, according to Schweizer.

Source: Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-24/bcg-defies-consulting-downturn-with-2-000-net-hires-this-year

I am Big 4 Deals Manager/Senior Manager (think EYP SaT, PwC DDV…) in a small but developed market. I primarily do carve-out, divestiture and value creation work.

While similar teams in the US/UK/Australia are organised by industry or function, in our market we are considered as generalist deals advisors. This is most likely a product of our leaders’ capabilities (they aren’t a deep expert in any industry or function) and not enough deals happening in particular industries.

My belief is that historically it may not have been critical to have deep expertise in an area and one could get away being a generalist deals advisor. Our team did relatively well until 2023 when deal volumes slumped.

However, going forward as clients become more sophisticated they will put more emphasis on industry/functional expertise versus just deals expertise.

What is your take on this? Do you feel it will be critical in the near future that deals advisors have deep domain knowledge to bring in business?