Business Expereince

Joining consulting will give you options. You will gain a broader perspective on how corporates work, what good business thinking is, gain contact with business tools, that you are unlikely to get to know if you join your family's business right away.

I've seen a few people coming from families with larger companies (e.g. 100-300m USD revenue) take this route: joining consulting for 2-5 years, and then going to the family business. It is actually more and more standard practice for family members to first gain experience in other companies before joining the family business (can be consulting or not).

If you join now, all your business training will be theoretical, and all practice come from the existing practices in the company you join. There's no opportunity for cross polination - and that is one of the major drivers for improvement in a business - learn from good practices from other companies.

So yes, you should not join your family business. Consulting is just one of the options, and it is a pretty good one. I doubt you will gain the contacts at this point you'd want for your business, but you may be lucky. But most importantly you'll get great training. 

Finally, if at some point you realize you don't want to be in the family's business, you've earned the option to leave. If you join right away, you will become dependent on that business. And I doubt that's a position you really want to have.

Hello there, 
It is very hard to say, as we all want something different in our life and we have different contex, hence I think none of us can give you the best answer. From my perspective (coming to consulting from the industry and having work experience from emerging countries  in APAC, LATAM) I would say.

Joining consulting prior your father's business will give you: 
- Opportunity to work on a different cases and broaden your skills
- You will learn business development, how to target customers, how to pitch them, how to sell, etc. → probably very useful later in your business
- You will learn how to deal with C-level clients
- Learn the highest work ethic and standards
- Gain a wide network
- Open you doors to other work opportunities in case you decide not to join your father's company

All of this will benefit you and eventually later also your father's company.

If you would like to explore some of the career moves, please feel free to reach out directly, I would be happy to chat and to share some tips and stories from my professional career coach experience.

Wishing you all the best,
Lucie

Was this answer helpful?

Hi there,

First of all, congratulations on the career progression so far!

This is indeed an interesting question which is probably relevant for quite a lot of users, so I am happy to provide my perspective on it:

• Generally speaking, I would highly advise you to first clarify your short-, mid- and long-term career goals before thinking about the immanent decision to be taken.
• Moreover, since this is a family business, I would equally advise you to have a talk with your father about his point of view since chances are generally high that family business owners want their children to continue their business.

In case you want a more detailed discussion on how to best decide about your next career steps, please feel free to contact me directly.

I hope this helps,

Hagen

Hi,

I may be missing something….but you are already a business student and close to your father's business → so, you can join the family business straight after finishing studies and learn over the next 2 years lets say?! During this time you can self-learn. There is so much free content available in the open web now. If you then want to scale the business and/or expand internationally a reputed MBA program could help. With this you can focus the studies on specific industry & business skills you want to build.

Experience in management consulting could help too, but this will have to be for 2-5 years at least for you to gain any meaningful experiences & skills in a way that will be relevant for your family business.

And one final point: Please stop using “Third World". This is not progressive. You come from a country which is developing. I personally dislike “developed/developing” too.

Just call your country by its name and take pride.

All the best.

I don‘t think you’ll find the answer you’re looking for on this platform. It is entirely unclear what your drivers and goals are for the short/mid/long term. 

Also, getting involved in family business is not comparable to “normal” job with completely different consequences in case you do/don’t join. For outsiders, this is very difficult to give advice on.

Hence, try and break down your question to more specific points you’d like help with. Then you might just find what you’re looking for.

Hi there,

This is honestly a tough one! And it's an impossible one for us to advise on without knowing you.

You need to think about your values/goals/needs/desires. Write them down. Figure out which are most important and which role meets them.

I'm sorry I can't give more advice, but any advice I give now without knowing you, your situation, the company, etc. would just be biased and mis-informed :)

Hi there,

Very difficult to provide a clear answer as it depends on several elements. In general:

• Joining a consulting company could help to grow your own/family business later on thanks to the skills you will develop there. Several entrepreneurs worked in consulting before founding their own companies (I did the same myself). Even if your family business is already established, you could still help it to grow further
• Joining straight away your family business could still be a good opportunity, but it depends on your current skills, your interests and goals and what exactly you would do in the business
• There could be other options as well, such as joining a startup related to a field close to your father’s business

Best,

Francesco

Hello!

To add on top of what other coaches said, consulting is a great bootcamp for absolutely anyone, regardless of what you are planning to do next with your life. Period. 

Many people who want to be entrepreneurs or continue with family business would spend a few years in consulting to learn the toolkit, that is priceless 

Cheers, 

Clara