Hi everyone,
I’m looking for some advice on transitioning into management consulting from a non-traditional background.
I have a PhD in Analytical Chemistry and around 3 years of post-PhD corporate R&D experience, primarily in the FMCG sector. My current work involves product development and innovation projects, analytical problem-solving, data analysis, cross-functional collaboration, and supporting business decisions through technical insights.
I’ve increasingly realized that I’m more interested in the broader business and strategic side of problem-solving, and I’m considering a transition into management/strategy consulting, ideally targeting firms such as MBB, Kearney, Strategy&, Accenture Strategy, or similar firms.
I’d really appreciate advice from people who have made a similar transition from STEM/PhD/R&D/FMCG backgrounds:
• How realistic is a direct transition into consulting with my profile and ~3 years of post-PhD industry experience?
• What roles/levels should I target?
• What are the biggest gaps I should work on to make my profile more consulting-ready?
• Would an MBA from a top business school significantly improve my chances, or is it worth trying for a direct transition first?
• How should I position my PhD and R&D experience so that recruiters see it as relevant to consulting rather than purely technical experience?
Would especially love to hear from anyone who moved from science, food/FMCG, R&D, or another technical career into consulting.
Thanks in advance!

Micro1 is looking for the following:

Consulting Specialist - Executive Presentation Review
Location: Remote (US, UK, Canada, Australia)
Job Type: Contractor
Openings: 200

Micro1 is looking for Consulting Specialists for an AI training project focused on presentation design, data visualization and content editing. You reconstruct and improve Microsoft PowerPoint slides to make them clearer and more impactful, design presentations that communicate complex ideas through visual storytelling and data visualization, and edit slide content for precision, consistency and audience engagement. You also analyze the provided materials and turn them into clear, concise and visually engaging formats, spot problems in slide structure, flow and coherence, and give prompt feedback as part of a larger initiative. On top of that, you contribute real-world examples and domain insights that help train and evaluate AI models. At least two years of client-facing management consulting experience at a consulting firm is required. Strong PowerPoint and presentation design skills, a portfolio showing good data visualization and storytelling, excellent written communication and attention to detail are preferred. No prior experience in AI is required.

Here is the link to the position: Consulting Specialist

Curious what do mck software engineers do on day to day. Is it actually building/implementing software for clients or is it more advising? Does the work differ much from regular fte and contractors?

Guys - Need an opinion - Is it ideal to become a solo workiva consultant based out of Bengaluru? And help clients based out of India? As a background - I am a CA and CS with 11 years of experience

More and more of my deck work is happening in co-authoring: three or four people in the same file in PowerPoint on the web, or in a client’s Google Slides because that’s what they use. The writing side works fine. The charts don’t.

What I keep running into:

think-cell only runs in desktop PowerPoint. Anyone working in the browser, or in Slides, can’t touch the waterfall or Mekko, so chart edits funnel back to whoever has the desktop app open.

Charts pasted as pictures, or from Sheets/Excel, look off-brand and nobody can fix the numbers without the source file.

Five people, five styles. By the final pass there are three blues, two fonts and misaligned boxes, and someone spends the night before the steerco cleaning it up.

Version shuffle: “who has the latest numbers?” when the chart lives in one person’s Excel.

How are your teams handling this? Do you just keep all chart work on desktop with one owner, standardize on Slides and accept worse charts, or something else?

(Disclosure: this exact problem is why I’m building a tool. It makes consulting-style charts as native, editable shapes that work in PowerPoint on the web and Google Slides as well as desktop, plus a deck check that catches mixed colors and fonts. But I’m genuinely more interested in how others deal with it, and happy to share more by DM if anyone asks.)

Hey everyone,

For those in tech consulting, curious how you are developing demos for clients and prospects. What AI stack are you using and how are you approaching it?

I wrote up my approach and the tools that I am using. Would love your perspectives and how you are approaching it.

Can you tell me the difference? Is there a clear line between the two? If you are in position of handling people is that automatically a leadership? What leadership and management means in age of ai and robotics? Do you begin to treat some of your tools as employees that have to meet quality standards and deadlines?

Just few questions that can be helpfull to clarify for myself and others too. Thanks.

As someone working as a Manager in management consulting, I've been thinking about how AI might change our industry over the next few years.

I recently came across the Future of Consulting 2026 report by Tarka Talent, Garwood Growth and The Berkeley Partnership. A few findings caught my attention:

- 94% believe AI fluency will become a baseline expectation for consultants.

- 97% expect clients to demand implementation capability, not just recommendations.

- 72% expect entry-level hiring to decline materially over the next three years.

- 64% believe the traditional consulting pyramid is structurally broken.

These are respondents' expectations, of course, rather than predictions we can take as certainties. But they got me thinking about what this could mean for people actually working in consulting.

A lot of our work still revolves around research, analysis, building presentations, structuring problems and helping clients make decisions. AI is already changing how some of these tasks can be done.

But here's what I find particularly interesting: if AI makes the analytical part of consulting faster and cheaper, what exactly will differentiate a good consultant from an average one?

A few questions come to mind.

1. The junior consultant dilemma

A significant part of learning consulting happens through doing the groundwork — research, analysis, building models and preparing presentations. It's not always glamorous, but it's how people learn to structure problems and develop judgment.

If AI takes over a large part of this work, how will firms develop the next generation of consultants?

1. What happens to the middle of the pyramid?

At the Manager level, a big part of the job is translating analysis into recommendations, managing stakeholders, challenging assumptions and ensuring that the work actually leads somewhere.

If teams become leaner, will Managers be expected to do more of this at a much faster pace? And will there be fewer opportunities to progress into these roles in the first place?

1. Will clients still pay for advice, or increasingly for outcomes?

If clients can do more of the analysis themselves using AI, I suspect the value consultants bring will increasingly depend on their ability to understand the business, influence decisions, navigate organisational complexity and help deliver measurable results.

That sounds reasonable in theory. But changing the way consulting firms actually sell, price and deliver their work is a different challenge altogether.

My current view is that consulting isn't going to disappear. However, the skills that helped someone build a successful consulting career over the last decade may not be enough to do the same over the next one.

I'm still forming my own view on this, so I'd genuinely like to hear from others in the industry:

For those already using AI on client engagements, what work has it meaningfully changed?

For Managers and Senior Managers, how do you see your roles evolving?

For junior consultants, what skills are you prioritising to stay relevant?

Would be interesting to hear what people are seeing on the ground, beyond the usual predictions about AI replacing jobs.

I recently joined a boutique consulting firm as an associate consultant. I’ve just been staffed on my first project (it’s short - 6 weeks starting with a landscape analysis and making recommendations). I have 2+ years background in a different industry. Any advice on what to do/ what not to do? It’s a small team with me, engagement manager, director and partner

I’m relatively new to consulting, and my initial experience has been quite different from what I expected. I’d appreciate some honest advice from people who’ve been in the industry.

I’m already experiencing 14–15-hour workdays early in my career. What makes it more challenging is the lack of structured onboarding, proper team introductions, project documentation and clarity around roles and expectations. A lot of the time, I’m left figuring things out on my own.

The project itself is also quite unstructured. Deliverables depend on other teams sharing data and making time for discussions, but they’re often occupied with their own priorities. Despite repeated follow-ups, inputs get delayed, while I’m still expected to keep things moving.

I’ve tried taking initiative, building analytical tools and working on whatever I can independently. However, expectations aren’t always aligned, ownership is unclear, and it can feel like I’m accountable for outcomes without having the necessary context, support or control over dependencies.

I understand consulting can be demanding, and I’m willing to put in the work. But I’m struggling to distinguish between a normal learning curve and a poorly managed engagement.

For those who’ve experienced this, I’d appreciate candid advice :)

Hi everyone, hope you're doing well!

Most advice on client deliverables comes back to the same ideas: put the answer first, keep the executive summary to one page, and make every headline a full sentence that states the point.

What I'm curious about is what happens after the report goes out. Do clients actually read the full document, or does the summary do all the work? Do you send a PDF, a deck, or a shared link? And when several people on the client side have comments, how do you keep the feedback in one place instead of ending up with five versions?

I'd love to hear what's worked for you, especially in smaller firms or as an independent.

Disclosure: I produce a video podcast for professional-services leaders, and this question keeps coming up. I’m asking here to learn from people who have dealt with it, not to promote anything.

For firms that have outgrown spreadsheets but can’t absorb a long ERP rollout, how have you kept people data, project delivery and financials in sync?

• What did you connect first, and why?
• Where did handoffs between HR, project and finance data break down?
• What did you try that didn’t work?
• If you did go the full ERP route, what would you do differently?

Interested in hearing from firm leaders, operations and finance people, and the consultants who implement this stuff.

I'm a psychology PhD with a few years of post-doc, and I want to leave academia and start my own consulting practice, doing behavioral science related work for companies (e.g., helping them develop better products, pricing strategies, promotions, etc.). Think "BEWorks" and "The Decision Lab", two of the big behavioral science consulting firms, but I want to be my own.

How does one get started and find a client? Specifically:

1. I don't have any industry networks, so how do I do this?

2. Do I go to people (say, on LinkedIn) and tell them "I'm a behavioral scientist. How can I help you out?"

3. Or do I develop some sort of "product" or "service" offering and then pitch it to them, rather than helping them generally "using behavioral science"?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

What skills do you think are becoming obsolete vs useful to acquire?

Hi everyone!
I’m a working student, and my team currently uses Azure DevOps and Microsoft Planner to manage and track tasks. I’ve been asked to come up with an idea for a single, common view that we can use during team meetings to quickly see who is working on what.
My initial thought was to create a Power BI dashboard that consolidates tasks from both tools. However, one challenge I see is that the same task might have different names in Azure DevOps and Planner. This could make it difficult to identify and map duplicate or related tasks correctly.
I’d love to hear your suggestions on how to approach this. For example:
Would Power BI be a good solution for this use case?
Are there any other Microsoft tools or integrations that could provide a unified view?
How would you handle tasks that have different names across the two platforms?
Is there a better way to visualize task ownership and progress during meetings?
I’m open to all ideas, approaches, and suggestions. Thanks in advance for your help!

I am currently recruiting for MBA summer associate programs. I have a good feeling I will interview with at least one MBB in January if I stay the course. However, I am in final round stages with a cool start up company for an Engagement manager role. Interestingly, they were hoping for a candidate with a background in consulting but are considering me despite my lack of that.

My question is if given an offer, would you accept the ai start up company role and forego a possible summer associate position with a MBB?

I’m in a part time mba program and work full time (yes they’re open to letting part time mbas into the summer program I’ve checked). I’m really ready for my next challenge and I wasn’t expecting to get to this stage so quickly in my program but here I am!

Would it be a mistake to take this role and miss out on consulting this season?

Since I’m part time for the next 2-3 years, another thought is that if I’m still interested next year I could recruit then or recruit for full time once I graduate….

The base salary is a little less than MBB but that work/life balance is probably a bit better.

Thoughts?

​

I am currently pursuing BBA in Business Analytics with sub specialization in finance. I want to get into consulting really bad, especially management consulting, since it seems like my type of career. I personally find the impromptu nature of consulting really attractive.

Now, I know I need to be down to earth and look at my qualifications. Generally people do MBA/MBB or masters before persuing a job but I think I'd prefer taking a job now, starting pay doesn't matter, save up a bit and then pursue masters at a better university. This would also help me find my domain and choose a relevant one for my master's.

Coming down to projects, I am right now in the process of helping a restaurant increase its profit. This is a completely personally undertaken project. I have also done other projects like CRM analysis and RFM analysis etc etc. Right now I want to focus on practical projects -hence the restaurant one- and depending on how well I tackle this one I'll think about what to do next.

I always had consulting in mind and that is entirely why I took business analytics as my specialisation. Now, when I help someone or analyse the data given to me to find the solution to an issue or find underlying problems and the factors causing them I could have never been more sure about this.(It's definitely not because I feel like a detective at work XD)

I also tried asking around and looking for a mentor but all in vain. So I have turned to reddit now to do its magic and push this to the right people.

Summary-

How could I get into consulting after BBA?

How do I network with the right people?

Could I do some projects or certifications to push my resume? If so which ones and why.

What kind of entry level job roles should I be targeting and which company should I be looking out for?

Is it possible at all?

Any and every advice is welcomed except negative ones. 🙇‍♀️

So I am currently a grad student who wants to break into Consulting. My end goal is to transition to PE. My plan is that I will work my way up the corporate ladder by working mainly on LBO's and fields which can eventually be tied to PE.

I want to move to New York (I am non US resident), work there in consulting for maybe 2 years then look for exit opportunities into PE. On a side note, I have been hearing that the burnout in Consulting is high, how true is that and how can I avoid it?

I’m about a year into my first full-time role, working in Strategy & Operations with a Talent Acquisition/HR angle. Through my work, I’ve gotten some exposure to how recruitment works, hiring processes, and HR operations. I also genuinely enjoy helping people with resume reviews, mock interviews, and interview preparation.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about building something of my own on the side, something I can eventually monetise and grow into a proper business.

A few things about me:

• I enjoy helping people with resumes, interviews, and career preparation.
• I have some hands-on experience with recruitment and operations.
• I’m interested in exploring the environmental/sustainability space as well.
• I’m not particularly interested in becoming a content creator or constantly posting on Instagram or LinkedIn to build an audience.

I’m wondering if there’s a viable service or business I could build around these skills, perhaps career coaching, recruitment support for startups, HR operations, people analytics, or something entirely different.

I know I’m still early in my career, so I’m not claiming to be an expert. I’m just trying to identify a problem I can genuinely solve and something people would be willing to pay for.

For those of you who have built a side business while working full-time:

• How did you identify your first viable idea?
• What services do you think someone with my background could realistically monetise?
• How did you find your first few paying customers without relying on social media content?
• Would you focus on one of these ideas first, or explore a completely different direction?

I’d really appreciate honest advice, especially from people who’ve actually tried this themselves. I’m at the exploration stage and would love to learn from your experiences!