How do I get into consulting?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified)
in
Career Management

Hey all,

I'm a travelling restaurant manager with experience in 4 of my company's locations. I get to meet new teams and see how they're effective in different ways--to say I love this is an understatement.

With 1-yr of experience, what are prudent preparations I might make in the next few months if I want to end up as a management consultant down the road? Do the majority of reputable firms require an MBA? Or should I tailor my search toward early entry into boutique firms, because I expect to stick with the restaurant industry?

Thanks to M&M for choosing to create this effective community, and to the participants for cultivating the network!

David

Indianapolis

Submitted by Michael Peterson on Friday January 11th, 2013 2:16 pm

Just kidding.  My first question would be is what value are you brining doing what you are doing?  Are you improving those restaurants performance when you visit. 
it seems to me you may be in a perfect position to start being a internal consultant right now.  If you are identifying best practices across the four locations and then developing a plan to implement them across the organization.  To me, this would be an ideal way to develop some expertise and then also get some metrics on how that expertise can be used to add value.  Here is a brief action plan.
1.  Brainstorm/Identify best practices
2.  Select the ones with the return on investment
3.  Develop implementation plan
4.  Implement
5.  Measure the results.
Do this a couple of times and you would have skills (backed up with numbers) that other restaurant companies maybe willing to pay for.   

Submitted by Keith Tatley on Wednesday January 16th, 2013 10:21 pm

If you'd like to join a consultancy then start searching for consultancies you'd like to join (sector, size, location, type of consulting work done) and work out what they look for in a candidate. Plus you could start a long "courtship".
 
Ditto MJPete's response - right now you have the good fortune to see different types of effectivity. Actually successfully changing one system to another more effective system is really difficult in itself. So you need more "doing". Don't be afraid to start small.