Consulting skills are needed in tech

Recruiting, Your career

If you are looking to hire  – Click here to speak to our team

Here are some of the employers who have successfully hired through Movemeon this year

“Why consulting and tech skills are the perfect combination for the future world of work”

Nick Patterson, Co-Founder of Movemeon
– Former McKinsey Consultant.

 

Consultancy – a career to open doors

Most people enter consulting as it opens doors. Or, to put another way, it puts off having to make a decision. This is definitely not a bad thing when you’re a graduate; your knowledge of the potential careers out there is understandably limited.

In the UK, where I studied, the careers department at University highlighted three options: consultancy, banking or law. Consultancy offered an opportunity to better understand what opportunities were out there, whilst not limiting my choices.

 

The adaptability of consultants

Consultancy opens doors for very good reasons.

Firstly, it tends to attract “all-rounders”. The assessment process for consultants is focused on both logical/ structured thinking, and your potential to be strong at building client relationships.

Secondly, consultants are then trained, normally for at least 24 months, in the consulting toolkit. The hard skills are regularly referred to as problem-solving, corporate presentation/ communications, analytics. However, in my opinion, the softer skills are just as important: attention to detail, a continual focus on personal development, ability to build client relationships/ stakeholder management.

The result is that ex-consultants can go into a wide variety of commercial, analytical and senior management roles.

 

The rise in prestige of tech businesses

In 2007, when I graduated, there weren’t many of my peers who went into tech firms and none of my friends even mentioned start-ups.

The MBA ranking of most prestigious companies still had the consultancies and investment banks at the top of the tree. However, that changed in the following 3 years. Google and other large tech businesses rose to become the most prestigious post-MBA career options. And in the wake of their growth, came a new world of VC-backed start-ups.

We noticed this shift when we analysed which careers consultants and ex-consultants on movemeon were most interested in. Historically, banking, retail/ consumer and boutique consultancies had been in greatest demand. This has now been turned on its head.

Start-ups, tech and e-commerce businesses now account for 34% of people’s dream next job. This dwarfs the more traditional industries and even outranks Private Equity (another industry that has seen dramatic growth).

 

 

 

The future of work

It’s not just the prestige of tech companies that are increasing; a whole new world of work has opened up.

With the growth of technology, new jobs have been created. In particular, we’ve seen a huge growth in product management, data science, AI and analytics roles. The challenge in the market is one of supply and demand: there are far more opportunities than there are people with relevant experience.

 

This has resulted in two things:

  • An increase in the salary paid
  • More flexibility in the backgrounds of candidates

Setting yourself apart

Despite the supply-demand imbalance, product management roles, in particular, are extremely competitive.

Product management roles are the second most popular roles on the site – over a third more sought after than traditional “strategy” roles that consultants look for. As such, in order to be successful in applying for these roles, consultants are increasingly looking to further develop their tech skills.

Combining a background in consultancy with a technological understanding can really set you apart. The grounding from consulting in structured thinking, commercial acumen and senior stakeholder management combined with knowledge of tech, will put you in a unique position to help drive tech products and platforms forward.

 

 

A passport for the tech industry

As the tech industry matures, it’s becoming increasingly hard to be a great product manager or head of an analytics team, without being able to write a line of code.

When people are applying for these roles, we’re often seeing people not progressing to interview based on the hiring manager’s being unable to find evidence of a strong interest/ skills in web development and data analytics. This is driven by tech businesses finding it increasingly hard for non-technical manager’s to lead technical discussions as they progress in companies.

Combining a background in consultancy with a technological understanding can really set you apart. The grounding from consulting in structured thinking, commercial acumen and senior stakeholder management combined with knowledge of tech, will put you in a unique position to help drive tech products and platforms forward. This will help you to really differentiate yourself as a future leader in a tech business.

 

 

Ironhack and Movemeon’s Partnership

We know the tech know-how is not easy to come by and can require time and dedication. This is one of the reasons we are delighted to partner with Ironhack to help members of the movemeon community to acquire hard tech skills.

Ironhack is a Tech School with campuses in Europe and Latin America, running short and in intensive courses to acquire the most widely used tech skills, and help candidates transition into the tech industry.

Ironhack and Movemeon have partnered to offer scholarships to Movemeon members for boot camps in web development or data analytics. You can read more about the content of each Bootcamp on their website.

We believe that by helping former consultants to acquire tech skills we are enabling our community to kick-start a career change, as well as improve their potential to become future leaders in tech companies.

 

If you are looking to hire and would like more information – Click here to speak to our team

Freelance interview – from McKinsey to the non-profit sector

Your career

One of the key aims of MMO Freelance is to help our freelance members connect with each other. Through freelance events, guest blogs and personal introductions, we’re hoping to create a freelance network that is better connected and hopefully able to lend a helping hand to each other through project leads, introductions, or just a Friday beer.

Here’s a guest blog from one of our freelance members – Helen, a former McKinsey Consultant.

Are you looking for a freelance opportunity as well? Click here to browse all our live jobs

How long have you been a freelance consultant? & what is your industry focus?

I’ve been a freelancer for just over 18 months. I focus on the non-profit sector, which includes government, public sector, big charities (mostly international NGOs because that’s my professional background) and some philanthropic organisations.

Why did you decide to become a freelance consultant?

It was a long process, actually. I was working at Comic Relief, my previous role, on a temporary basis – I had agreed to go and help them set up Red Nose Day in America. It was always on a part-time basis, and I was approaching the end of that contract, and starting to think about what I wanted to do next. I was quite clear that I wanted to do more of a portfolio of things: continue with the strategy work because I loved it, but also increase the amount of creativity and the number of workshops I was doing.

So I decided to go freelance for two reasons:

•more flexibility, being able to work in a different way ;
•The variety of things I wanted to achieve was difficult in a ‘traditional’ role. I couldn’t find a job that did all the things I wanted to do, so I designed my own job instead.

What most surprised you about the change from perm to freelance?

Some things were as expected. The things that surprised me the most were how much I liked the flexibility. There was really no downside. I’d been a bit worried that there would be a negative aspect that I hadn’t anticipated. The freedom that comes with only representing yourself is really refreshing – I hadn’t really anticipated that, much as it is obvious looking back.

What one thing would you really want to know, If you were to just be considering the move to freelance consulting now?

I’d want to be really clear why I was making the transition because you have to manage your time really actively. When I went freelance, I wanted to be really flexible and have variety in my work. I didn’t want to be working full-time, and I wanted to work across a number of different projects at once. I could have taken the first project that came along, a 6-month project with one client. That would technically also have been freelance, but it would not have fulfilled any of the goals I had. So being really clear why you want to move into freelance work, and then building your career around that, is really important.

One main pro & one main con of freelance consulting?

Pro: Flexibility. I’m very fortunate to be able to work from almost anywhere and on almost anything.
Con: Zero visibility of what’s coming down the pipe. Again, you have to be really comfortable with uncertainty. For me, that’s partly by design, as I chose to do a model where I was working across multiple clients at the same time rather than working on one big project. If I’d done the one big project model, it would have been easier to create a project pipeline because you can say “well, I have 3 months until the end of my project so I will start to look for work.” Whereas as it is, that would be really hard because I’m always doing something for someone and that work goes up and down in its intensity. So it’s difficult to build in future-proofing and know a long time in advance when I will be able to take on more work.

Would you consider going back to perm?

I don’t think I’d go back to permanent consulting, but I would go back to other permanent work, were the job right. It’s about knowing what you want. I’m pretty clear what the job would have to look like and I’m not sure it exists at the moment!

Looking for a freelance opportunity?
Click here to have a look at our live jobs

Not a member yet?
Click here to create a free account