How Do Management Consultants Travel?

As a management consultant of Bain, Deloitte Consulting, McKinsey and other top tier consulting firms, you have to consider traveling as part of your weekly schedule. Since the bulk of your work has to be done at the client’s office, you will spend a lot of time with the management and employees.

Your presence at the client’s office gets a lot of things done. There you will interview people, gather information, analyze data and present key findings to executives. It is also a good means of getting first-hand experience with their culture, an important consideration in coming up with practical recommendations. On top of this, the more the clients see you working on the project with determination, the more they’ll trust your capabilities.

Location of Clients

Traveling gets in the way when clients are located in disperse locations. In big cities where they are close to the management consulting firm, this isn’t a main concern. However, for those who need to take a plane or train for hours, traveling can takes its toll on you. You will get physically and mentally weary. You’ll feel that way because you’re subconsciously resisting the movement of the vehicle to maintain balance. At times, this fatigue can somehow affect your performance at work.

Family Life

If you’re constantly on the move, you’ll have less quality time with your family and friends. In most cases, you will be in the client’s office from Monday to Thursday, and you will be back at the firm on Friday for your other responsibilities. However, due to unforeseen or incidental necessities, there are possibilities of staying with your clients all week. This has an impact on your weekend. And if your client is located very far away, you might get home in weekends. You may frown at how this schedule affects your family life. However, since it’s a job requirement, you just have to find other means to compensate your absence from home.

Length of Service

During your first year or two at a consulting firm, you will normally get random project assignments. However, once you gain more experience, you will be able to influence which clients and projects you are assigned. This isn’t always possible, though, for two reasons. First, management consulting firms assign a business case based on a management consultant’s expertise, skills and abilities. Second, you also have to compromise with others, as they have personal priorities, too.

Waiting Time

There’s plenty of waiting time when you’re traveling, and you can make use of that in a productive way. For instance, while waiting for your flight, you can check your emails, continue writing your report or review your presentation to be able to sleep early that night. If you love reading, you can always bring a book with you for your hobby. If taking pictures is your way of fun, take out your camera and get some interesting snaps. If you miss your wife or kids, get in touch with them through a call or message. Remember that there will always be a way to turn lemons into lemonade.

If you don’t mind traveling every now and then, you might do well in this field. Start learning how to break into the management consulting industry by downloading our free guide. You will learn valuable tips and guidelines from it.