Challenges in the Life of a Professional Services / Management Consulting Worker, & Veremark helps with Career Passport

The working life of a professional services / management consultant professional involves gathering information and knowledge (through research, studies, interviews), running questionnaires, making PowerPoint report presentations, and pitching solutions to and for their customers. Their work also includes a great deal of travel, and extended working hours are a norm.

Professional services / management consulting workers (PS / MC) fundamentally bring specialist skills and knowledge-based impact to a business. From legal counsellors, advertising experts, financial consultants, software developers, and engineers, every consultancy has access to talented, experienced people and gifted personnel whom they share with their demanding clients. 

Huge demands are placed upon PS / MC professionals in order for them to make step-change improvements in key aspects of the client’s business. This could involve the whole GTM strategy of a business unit, to cutting-edge marketing, HR & sales strategies, and reinvention /  innovation of key software, digital technologies, and operational processes.

A day in the life of a professional services/management consultant professional

Mornings

Mornings are usually a hectic time for a professional services worker. Working at a client site, for the most part, implies they'll be working locally. This could mean simply commuting to the workplace or, at times, booking a flight to the client’s office in another city and country. Travel keeps them busy, and a consultant usually uses this time to check emails to respond to important client issues, and other important knowledge-gathering documents that  they might have to address, edit and develop before they reach the client site. 

They also plan their day for forthcoming meetings, setting expectations, and checking which tasks they need to complete according to their timetables.

Afternoons

Afternoons are all about client meetings. During these meetings, they work with clients regarding their business priorities, expectations and targets, and work closely with client teams and leaders to gather feedback for making their future reports and insights delivery.

Evenings

The evenings are when the consultant gets down to the more intensive work. This might include setting the benchmark and conversing with their task group about their key deliverables. It's not new for experts to work intensively for their demanding clients, yet night-time ends up being the most productive period in a consultant’s day.

Nights

Nights are when they usually make their last push to get some urgent things done. They might have to create something for an early morning meeting or simply stay ahead. This is an excellent opportunity to make up for lost time, check any missed emails for a new contract, and fit in their last piece of work.

Demanding jobs require evolved hiring solutions

The workplace is in constant flux, which means that the PS / MC worker needs to be on her / his toes constantly, introducing the very latest in cutting-edge sector, function, technology, and process techniques. 

In addition, there is growing polarisation of employment opportunities between highly specialised, and broader customer-facing jobs.  Many emerging economies, including migration of its citizens to urban centres, and its impacts on jobs, are becoming a key opportunity for both businesses and workers. From Bombay to Salford, the PS / MC landscape is evolving across the globe with professionals employed locally and remotely, based on the immediate need of the client, and in which city the specialism resides. 

PS / MC has become seriously demanding and no longer remains a job involving billable hours, fixed pay, and more noteworthy cost transparency. As work environments become more challenging, strengthened by rapidly changing digital advancements, clients expect better work and quicker services, which require flexibility in working hours and patterns around the world. 

As innovations and strategies emerge in the consulting business every day, consultants feel an unrelenting pressure to stay ahead and meet the expectations of their clients. 

What's more, keeping up with new skills requires a lot of time investment. Long-term connections are becoming more uncommon in the professional services sector, and most consultants rely on short-term contract arrangements.

Amidst all this, when you are trying to get new projects, it's impossible to keep track of all the multi-tasking you have to do or skills you have to learn while on the job. Hence, a career passport comes in handy. The profession's demand is such that some major consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, are hiring candidates with very high levels of academic achievement, with further and ongoing honed skills training on their chosen specialist subject.

To smoothen the process of verifying career credentials for both PS / MC businesses and workers, Veremark offers the Career Passport services to reduce the strain on the HR / Talent department and eliminate the necessity and cost of repeating the academic, training, and many other necessary background checks every time, which will be time-consuming and add additional costs to hiring and onboarding. With the help of this digital career passport from Veremark, businesses can speed up the process of screening employment records, and HR departments can make quick and informed choices, while candidates get to keep the Career Passport document when they move between this job and on to other opportunities in the future.