In 2011, I was referred to Deloitte Consulting by a friend of mine. The first question I asked my interviewer was: Could you give me a job description for the role?
From the look on his face, I thought he would reject me.
He did not.
However, he clarified that consultants do not need a job description; it is limiting, misleading, and does not do justice to the reality in the life of a consultant.
During my management consulting years, I came to realize how sincere my interviewer was.
1- What a job description is
A traditional job description is a document that stipulates the purpose of a job, its required qualifications, and its accountabilities. A sophisticated job description may also entail key performance indicators, competencies, reporting lines, and more.
2- Why it is not common to have a job description for a management consultant
By design, a management consultant works on (most likely) independent projects. These projects are oftentimes for different clients, with different scopes of work, in different geographic locations, with different consulting teams, for different industries, and the list goes on. Moreover, depending on the project, a management consultant might have to carry out research, conduct workshops, support the development and implementation of solutions, support the client with trainings, etc. On top of all this, there is always an element of contributing to business development, be it as simple as supporting in the preparation of business proposals, or as complex as landing new projects. How can a single job description encompass the variety and complexity of the role of a management consultant?
3- What the alternative is
The objective of the alternative is threefold
a- To reflect the complexity of the role of a management consultant
b- To allow recruiters for a more targeted selection process
c- To enable consulting enthusiasts to have a better picture of the role
The alternative is not a more complex job description. It is a narrative comprising the three fundamentals of management consulting around project delivery and management, business development, and practice development. Furthermore, it showcases how the five key competencies in management consulting need to be exhibited. The competencies are problem solving (or how to crack a case leveraging a set of frameworks), analytical skills (or how to make sense out of data and inform decision making), teamwork (or how to leverage each other’s strength for the benefit of the client), communication skills (or how to engage in a conversation or write with clarity, mistake-free, and with high-impact), and mental agility (or how to navigate the intricacies of complexity and ambiguity).
In a nutshell, the mandate of a management consultant’s job is defined for every project he or she is delivering. It may be detailed in various documents such as the Project Identification Document, Project Charter, Project Governance, and others. Yet, the profession of management consulting could be summarized in two critical notions. Firstly, the individual’s ability to define a problem, identify ways to solve it, and build consensus along the way. This strength requires high levels of mastery as problems get more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. Secondly, quoting the Learning and Development expert, Nassif Kazan – a management consultant solves complex business cases when “he or she learns how to learn.”
