How can I equip myself with consulting skills as much as possible when I work at corporate/tech?

Hello!

You should try to get exposure to senior people, high accountability -if possible leading projects-, high and quantifiable impact, etc.

Furthermore, if there is one thing I wish I had done before joining McKinsey, that would have been Excel. It can really be a game changer, so I would really focus on that (more than pptx, industry knowledge, etc., that are nice-to-have, but not deal breakers).

Excel skills are part of the core skill-set of consultants, and it´s great that you want to practice them. PFB a list of the most popular commands:

• Basic operations: SUM, SUMPRODUCT
• Text transformations: CONCATENATE, LEFT, RIGHT, & operator,
• Connecting different datasets: VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX(MATCH(),MATCH())
• Conditional-based operations: SUMIF, COUNTIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIFS, COUNTA
• Learn how to analyze data using Pivot Tables

There are plenty of online materials:

• Microsoft Support: https://support.office.com/en-us/excel
• Kubicle: https://kubicle.com/personal (go for the 7 days free trial - Excel for Business Analytics)

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi there,

Happy to help as I pivoted from a tech role into consulting! You want to make sure to get the following oportunities to the largest extent possible:

1. Leading teams
2. Running projects
3. Working with clients
4. Working with senior-level leadership
5. Driving corporate initatives, pivots, strategies

You have to put in the extra hours to learn all the core skills required of a consultant. I am sure in corporate/tech you will have learned a lot of important skills required in consulting, e.g. problem-solving, analytical thinking, etc. However, the consulting industry is extremely competitive and unless you are an all-rounder, i.e. strong analytical thinking and communication skills, as well as having fundamental business knowledge, it will be very hard to land a job in one of the top consulting firms.

In simple terms, management consultants are expected to analyze and address problems and focus on improving the value of a company over a short time frame. They are extremely efficient at connecting the dots between complex sets of issues and creating a structured plan on how to approach a problem.

Apart from problem-solving skills, it is necessary to also focus on the importance of clear and precise communication. Management consultants are trained in communicating complex ideas simply, creating a story that can be followed and remembered, and tying recommendations with actions where the company should head.

If you are interested in equipping yourself with all the necessary consulting skills but have limited time due to your job, I would recommend you to join the course https://leap-pro.strategycoglobal.com/.

It is a 4-weeks course for working professionals with the goal of equipping participants with the skills of high-performing industry consultants. The course benchmarked practices from top management consulting and distilled the knowledge into bite-size daily modules, which only requires 1-hour per day. It can be taken up by people of any background as it does not require a business education.

Good luck with your journey to increase your consulting skills!

(edited)