Why is consulting so popular

Yet as the number of consultants working for us is increasing, we rarely have that problem. Our flexibility enables us to offer jobs across borders. A Swedish consultant, for example, can take on a project in Italy if his or her skills are needed there. We also have consultants who are hiring for both shorter and longer working periods on projects in the Middle East.

I listen with interest and see how this is a completely new way of strategizing an acquisition process. By flexible staffing, I see moreover how Comatch can offer consultancy houses the opportunity to explore new markets and sectors in a rather risk-free manner. The flexibility of freelancing can clearly benefit the consultant as well as the hiring organization.

Technology has clearly played an important role in the surging gig markets. Instead of knocking on doors, the Internet has made it possible to research companies and work from living room couches around the world. Taking it one step further and using a specialized matching service for solutions that essentially help both consultants and clients, well that makes great sense.

Success must depend much upon the success of the match between clients and consultants! Now the special algorithm cannot be disclosed, but I listen with interest, as he explains how they choose their consultants based just as much on social skills as professional ones. Here are Five ways to Reduce Procrastination and be Productive. When I express concern that extroverts will do better than introverts in the selection process; especially in the interview situations, he assures me that they consider all factors and that for some jobs being an extrovert is not an advantage.

Again I send the introverts a soothing wishful thought of good luck. Surely there are many examples as to how freelancers are reinventing work through new collective enterprises with great success, and assumably we will see many more of these in the future. Simply just do it! Initially, you need to go there to meet people and connect with people in your industry; people who are doing similar things as you.

I believe that each and every one of us is the creator of our own successes. Our conversation ends here, as Toby is on his way further north to meet a client. I thank him for his time and the enjoyable conversation.

I wonder if a further drawback of the exploding gig workforce could be that consultants will burn out trying to provide more value at a lower cost than the next in order to ensure the next gig, and the next one, and the next one? I imagine the competition can become tough. I look forward to following their activities in the years to come. If you have comments or questions about freelance consulting, being an individual consultant, hiring consultants, or others, then do not hesitate to leave them in the comments field below.

Toby and I are happy to reply to your thoughts. October Harvard Business Review, November 17, In order to delve into what makes the consultancy profession so attractive and understand more about the profile of students who want to work in the consulting industry, Consultancy. Universum annually conducts polls among ten thousands of students, and interesting insights come to light from their database.

The dataset showed that the strategy and management consulting industry is the most popular sector for students at the start of their career. Interestingly, consultancy is relatively much more popular among top students than other sectors. On average, students who aim to enter the consulting industry have higher grades than their fellow students. In addition to grades, consultancy agencies also consider relevant work experience, extracurricular activities, summer internships or, for example, business courses followed.

Despite preconceptions that consulting work might be better paid than other forms of graduate work, however, compensation is unlikely to be the source of this popularity. Interest from high achievers affects the perception that students have about how competitive consultancy is.

According to Rosemarije Haasnoot, Project Manager of research at Universum, the enormous interest by top students in the consultancy industry can be explained by several factors. Correspondingly, this has led to students nominating the strategy and management consulting industry as the top sector year-in-year-out for the past four years.

Another important reason for popularity is, according to Haasnoot, that the major management and strategy consulting firms are known for their strong training and development programmes. The industry is not only popular among graduates.

MBA students also prefer the challenge within management consulting. Another factor that reflects the attractiveness among joiners is that a raft of management consultancy firms are regularly listed among the top most attractive employers. In the recent Guardian rankings for graduate jobs, consulting firms, PwC, Deloitte, KPMG, IBM and EY topped the professional services sub-category, followed by the three large American strategy consultancies, among others, as 25 advisory firms made the list.

Consulting firms have also upped their attractiveness in the eyes of UK graduates by focusing on addressing issues of pay parity. Earlier in the year, PwC became the latest of the Big Four to release its gender pay gap data. Companies doing this are in part hoping that by being seen to combat outdated pay practices, they can better attract top female talent from the next annual influx of graduates.

At the same time, it is well known among students that it is by no means easy to gain entry into the consultancy industry. There is only place for a limited number of students there are around 1, graduate level vacancies in the UK among the top consultancies , the job criterion is often high and the recruitment process — especially from the strategic advisory offices — is one of the most challenging ones.

This makes them highly serviceable. On the other hand there are companies like Apple are moving towards non serviceable laptops and mobile devices. A non-functional or broken ThinkPad can be fixed in the middle of African jungle. You just need to order the right parts and wait for them.

Best keyboards among all laptops. ThinkPads typically have one of the best keyboards compared to any other laptop. Firstly, the keyboards have a higher travel distance. This makes typing much easier compared to the shallow keyboards found on many laptops. Also, shallower keyboards tend to fail more often compared with the thicker ThinkPad keyboards. Secondly, the ThinkPad keyboards have a little bit of Ark and they also feature some kind of tactile rough surface.

Therefore typing experience on ThinkPad is unparalleled. Some of the laptops that can beat ThinkPads in keyboards are gaming laptops with mechanical keys. However, they are bulky and not very suitable for business environment with glaring LEDs and loud fans. The Trackpoint. The ThinkPad Trackpoint is one of the navigational devices included in the keyboard. It acts both as a mouse as well as a pointing device. However, the most common use for a trackpad is for scrolling documents and spreadsheets.

It makes the job much easier compared to any other inbuilt scrolling mechanism. Trackpoint also acts as a secondary. Or a backup mouse when your touchpad fails. You can use it to point your mouse in any direction and even use it to click on an icon. What makes ThinkPads so popular for business users? Video courtesy: Lenovo When we talk about the practicality of ThinkPads, one of the differentiators is also the sheer expandability.