Can You Be Successful in Consulting With Only Decent Soft Skills?
I definitely see myself as a quantitative, math-focused student. My soft skills are decent, but definitely not at the same level as my hard skills and probably not too competitive with some other people who have extremely good soft skills. As someone who is considering a career in consulting (with math-heavy finance being the main goal), how important are soft skills in the consulting industry? Can you be successful with average presentational skills, or do you need to be an uber-confident and charismatic public speaker to have a chance at success?
Currently at a MBB firm. The short answer is yes you can succeed. By no means do you need to be this super outgoing, charismatic, amazing speaker that is going to blow clients right their feet. However, it is a client-facing industry at the end of the day (assuming we are talking about strategy consulting), and therefore you will need to regularly create relationships, communicate/present ideas, and converse with working professionals. Furthermore, if you can develop STRONG relationships (both internally and externally, people also seem to forget internal relationships matter a lot too within consulting) and EFFECTIVELY communicate your ideas, you bet your ass that will positively affect your performance reviews.
To bring things to fruition, there is not a single partner in my office that does not have strong soft skills. Don't get this mixed up and assume I mean they are all extroverts. You can be an introvert and still have strong soft skills. Lucky for you, soft skills are not innate, genetically inherited skills - they can easily be improved overtime!
Sounds great! Any quick suggestions on how to improve soft skills?
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