What Is the Best Consulting Firm for Me?

Every consulting firm is unique. If you are interested in working in consulting, the available options include working for the typical strategy consultancies , more specialized boutique consulting firms, or for the so-called inhouse consultancies which are basically internal consulting firms of big companies. The big players in strategy consulting know how to set the tone by means of branding, demanding projects, internationality, and last but not least through attractive salaries. Boutique consultancies have the advantage that consultants may work in their favorite field in order to evolve into specialists. Inhouse consultancies are becoming more and more important for the job market, since employees are looking for more promising work-life-balance properties in their employers. Moreover, you'll be able to do your own networking in a big firm, and therefore lay a solid foundation for the transition into the later stages of your career.

What Are Necessary Skills for Me as a Consultant?

You'll have to bring certain abilities to the table, but it's about more than what's on your resume. Despite an excellent academic education, your future employer will also look for working experience, especially if acquired abroad. Particularly if you studied business/economics, you'll be expected to have at least two internships on your record when being interviewed.

Do I Need an MBA to Apply for a Job in Consulting?

While an MBA can be beneficial, it's not a strict requirement to apply for a consulting job. Consulting firms often seek candidates with diverse educational backgrounds, including natural sciences, medicine, and pharmacy. They highly value organized and analytical working behavior. Beyond educational qualifications, firms also emphasize soft skills such as communication abilities, self-confidence, and analytical skills. Even without significant practical experience, if you demonstrate these qualities, you could potentially be considered for consulting roles. Some firms may also offer workshops and mini-MBA programs to further develop your skills once hired.

What Are the Benefits While Working as a Consultant?

Working as a consultant offers several benefits. While the role often requires long working hours, especially for those starting their careers, it compensates with high salaries. Additionally, the experience you gain as a consultant can lead to promising career advancements and opportunities for personal development, extending beyond the realm of consulting. Many consultants leverage their experience to transition into roles in large industrial companies, smaller boutique consultancies, or startups, which can offer diverse career paths.

Get to know top consultancies, and stay up to date on current career events and job offers.

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Ayming UK

Boutique Consultancy

Innovation: Ayming UK is an international innovation and performance consultancy, combining highly specialised knowledge – across a range of fields – with hands-on collaboration to enable our clients and their people to go further.

In addition to the above, Ayming is Europe’s largest R&D incentives advisor, with offices across Europe, Asia and North America, and research and development incentives experts in every sector, from construction and engineering to biochemistry and sustainability.

In the UK we work with hundreds of SMEs and Large Companies every year, helping them make the most of their research and development. This isn’t just about filling in R&D incentive claims. We work with both finance and technical staff to understand our clients’ business, their goals and objectives, and then to uncover qualifying research and development expenditure.

Here at Ayming, helping our clients with their R&D incentive claim is just one part of our innovation advisory. We act as an innovation partner to the majority of our clients. So, not only do we help with your R&D incentive claim, we advise on best practice in recording research and development activity within your projects to help with future claims, we advise on business process and how you can better approach future innovation, and how you can utilise R&D tax credits to improve cash flow.

People are a company's most important resource. While R&D enhances products, our People Consulting enhances People, equally critical to business success. By finding new ways to engage and motivate employees, we help companies reach their potential.

We base our work on a deep understanding of need and context because every case is different. We deliver real results by executing and implementing projects alongside our clients on the ground and seeing them through until they make a genuine impact. A collaborative, human approach mixed with digital efficiency brings new energy to organisations by helping improve decision making at all levels.

We build trust and a supportive environment of continual improvement. Through extraordinary relationships, we achieve extraordinary results. In research and development funding alone, we generate €1bn a year for our clients. Together we go further.

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Application & Career

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What to Expect in the Application Process at Ayming UK

1st Stage Interview

Written Assessment

Pre employment assessments

1st Stage Interview: This will cover the following:

Your current motivations & why Ayming – as a Brand and as a Company?
Your knowledge of R&D, the definition & the R&D scheme
This stage will also cover your suitability, capabilities, and your experiences to date.

Written Assessment: You will be asked to complete a technical written report (please note, the technical assessment will only be used to assess your writing style).

Pre employment assessments: This aims to provide us with measurable, objective data that will provide us with a better all-round view of your suitability within the team and the advertised role (candidates will only receive the Pre employment testing if they are progressed after the 1st stage interview)

The assessments will cover the following:

Mechanical reasoning – this assessment evaluates your understanding of basic mechanical and physical concepts.
Communication – this assessment evaluates your communication skills.
Working with data – this assessment evaluates your ability to work with data, including handling data correctly and performing basic data analysis.
Project management – this assessment evaluates how well candidates can manage projects to achieve goals (this assessment is not based on PM Methodology, but rather assesses your ability to make the best decision in a specific context).
DISC: The DISC assessment is a behavioural assessment, that focuses on how you express emotions within the four behavioural types of DISC: D (dominance) I (Influence) S (Steadiness) and C (Conscientious)

Final stage: The final stage will be a meeting with Mark Smith (R&D Partner) & Njy Rios (R&D Director)

Discover Your Career Opportunities at Ayming UK

One of the key components of building Ayming UK has been empowering the careers of our Aymers to enable them to achieve their personal goals. Central to that is a clear and transparent framework so that you know what you need to do to achieve your goals. Our ethos to ‘promote from within’ has long been a strategic objective for the Group and drives our programmes in supporting our Aymers throughout their career development here at Ayming UK from induction to senior roles and leadership. We continually research and invest in initiatives to help advance our Aymers career.

As such, we have developed Consultant and Leadership Frameworks which outline ‘what good looks like’ in each role, from Associate Consultant to Director, and provides a clear career path for all.

The Consultant role offers an exciting and highly rewarding career option for those who thrive within a fast-paced environment and drive themselves to hit performance targets.

Here at Ayming we have two pathways:

Consultant: become a leader and progress into leadership positions
Specialist: develop your career as a specialist consultant

The Traditional Leadership Pathway (Consultant pathway)

Associate Consultant > Consultant > Senior Consultant > Assistant Manager > Manager > Senior Manager.

The Specialist Pathway

Associate Consultant > Consultant > Senior Consultant > Principal Consultant > Senior Principal Consultant > Managing Principal Consultant

For the avoidance of doubt, the specialist pathway relates to both Tax Technical, Engineering, Natural Science, and IT Specialist technical disciplines. Additionally, employees who opt for this route will be responsible for delivering complex technical deliverables without formal managerial accountabilities.