According to a Statista report, the number of management consultants has been growing rapidly since 2012. The report also found that management consulting jobs have been increasing every year, reaching 734,000 consultants in 2020 for the USA alone. This blog article will shed light on the basics of management consulting, what management consultants do and what it takes to become one, through the interviews with two bright and enthusiastic management consultants: Thuy Le from August Associates and My Dang from Boston Consulting Group. With years of consulting experience and unique perspectives, our two experts give insightful answers to the most asked questions about management consulting below.

1. What is management consulting? 

“Management Consulting is mainly to help businesses to solve the problem. The problems usually come from the management team agendas.” Thuy Le

“Basically, Management Consulting is to advise your clients on anything regarding how to manage their resources in order to produce what firms are producing.” My Dang

2. What is your typical working day as a management consultant?

“As a consultant, you have your own responsibility to deliver specific analysis. Your day might start from desk study, collecting data and then, later on, validating your analysis with clients. Sometimes, you have to collect data from the clients and talk with them to understand the data whether you have a good understanding of the data or whether it brings any insights. After many hours of data analysis, you will validate the results with the clients. Eventually, you will pitch the result to the management team who will verify the results or ask questions.” Thuy Le

3. How did you become interested in consulting?

“When I was interning at a fund in real estate in the USA, we were working on projects of co-living spaces. I was in charge of the final due diligence but also analyzing the strategy of those companies. From that, I realized that I love to work more on the strategy, authorization and direction to understand why a company succeeds instead of looking at the financial matrix.” My Dang

4. Why do you choose consulting rather than private equity?

“ I want diversity at work in terms of tasks. I not only want to work in Finance but also analyze the operation of a company, work on deals like due diligence, supply chain and marketing. Also, diversity is in terms of industries because I don’t only want to work in a specific industry but rather switch between consumer goods and infrastructure on those things. In most funds, you still need to sectorize yourself unless you are really small funds so I want a real diversity.” My Dang

5. What advice would you give to young fresh graduates with no working experience, who want to break into a Management Consulting career?

“We are looking for you who are very brave and bold to learn as much as they can and then make their own decision on how to go forward. Even though you have to admit that you might not know everything but based on the data that you have, this is what we have to do.” Thuy Le

“In the first year of your career, you want to learn and I think that is not about learning but learning to work with different kinds of people, environments, cultures.” My Dang

Want to connect with our experts and author on the topic for more information? Check out their bios below:

Thuy Le,  Aalto University Graduate in Master in Information and Service Management, working as a consultant at August Associates, a leading local strategy consulting firm in Helsinki.

My Dang, HEC Paris Graduate in Master in Management & Master in Finance, working as Associate at Boston Consulting Group, a leading consulting firm in Paris.

Huy La, Author of “Management Consulting Career track – A Tale of Two Consultants”, Karelia UAS Undergraduate in Finance, working as Sales B2B for SaaS products.