Does working in (strategy) consulting make you a useful person to society?
From the outside looking in, I seem to really like consulting. The work interests me, I think I have the raw skills to do well, I like how you build a relationship with a client, and the money seems to be enough.
But I also really want to be useful to society and I feel its a duty to do so. At this point Im not entirely sure how I will do this. Ideally I use the skills from my 9-5 to perhaps help guide smaller companies which are useful to society, be a trustee or even find an issue myself and use the skills to lead my own project. I guess my question is, to former or current consultants, you ofc have soft skills that you can learn from any job, but do you think the 'technical' skills you get from working in this field, you can apply to society or have seen others do it? Or do you think a career in professional services would just be waste of time? I dont see what else I can do
And if so, are there any firms I should specifically target? I dont really care about prestige but rather practicality I guess.
and apologies my definition of society may be quite general = i mean helping the community by solving issues which hurts and/or hinders from being better.
Doing work that's useful to society makes you useful to society. That's tautological, I know, but it's still true. It's not about the career choice alone.
You can be a pilot that helps people get where they're going, or one that flies "deportation" flights that consist of extrajudicial rendition to third countries. You can be a doctor who heals people or one that operates a pill mill.
You can be a consultant that's a useless waste of oxygen. You can be a consultant who makes the world a better place. It depends on the choices you make and the work you do.
thanks for your response
I'm not talking about serving society through your work directly—because I don't think that's the case in most corporate environments. Sure, you could do pro bono work (though I'm not even sure how common that is in consulting), but at the end of the day, partners operate based on a P&L, and that's what ultimately drives things.
What I'm really asking about is the portfolio of skills you build through this kind of work—and how you can apply those skills outside the corporate world. And yes, while you could say that mopping floors or volunteering at a local food bank is community service, I'm aiming to do something more effective & tailored than that esp with these skills which not everyone has.
and apologies my definition of society may be quite general = i mean helping the community by solving issues which hurts and/or hinders from being better.
I think you're very wrong.
At large firms, there's a fair bit of it.
But why would you assume that pro bono work serves society, and paid work does not?
So what?
The vast majority of human problems at scale that have been solved, have been solved by corporate entities with a profit motive.
A company that "operates based on a P&L" invested in the basic research required to develop the mRNA vaccine technology, and was ready when COVID emerged. They were able to move at a speed literally unprecedented in the history of human medical technology to develop a vaccine that helped billions of people globally. Is that effort somehow tainted by the fact that they made money?
I think you need to think harder about why you think money is bad or evil. Just because a company operates based on a P&L doesn't mean it can't do good, and just because an entity doesn't exist to make money doesn't mean it can't do evil.
You mention the skills you gain specifically being helpful, not the actual consulting job. If I've understood your question correctly, I do think consulting helps you build a lot of valuable skills that you'd find helpful.
In terms of where you should target, I think any strategy firm will teach you this. I think MBB is obviously the gold standard but T2s, B4 or boutiques could also be valuable. MBB will give you a lot of future credibility, which is helpful.
Thanks for your response.
Apologies looking back, I dont even think I was clear enough.
I've been blessed to live in a rich country, go to a good university, have some sort of skill and a brain, so I think its my duty to solve some of the issues that the community and society are facing, and make an impact. This impact could be from the top in building infrastructure, solving macro societal issues to all the way down to helping solve an issue in my local ocmmunity.
Now I assume that my day to day work in a consulting firm, I wont be able to make impact, as I assume the focus is on PnL and the client's PnL (let that be due diligence to enable a successful acquisition by a PE fund or assisting a CEO of some corporate how to move into a new geography, assist in pricing etc etc). So if I cant make impact through my work, next best thing is to become very skilled in a domain, and leverage that in a way which enables me to make impact. Now if I was a lawyer or an accountant, it seems more straight forward in knowing that yes I can make impact, but as a strategy consultant, Im not entirely sure which is why I guess Im making this post. Yes I will have good soft skills, but is that enough to make an impact? Im not sure. Also more than skills, would I be able to build influence (your credibility point makes sense), a network?
I guess the best question is if you had my aspirations in your position right now, with what you have done, do you think you could make it work? Or would you say it would have been ideal to do another career?
I think we're in a similar situation. I'm a few years ahead of you and will be joining MBB. Here's how I think about it:
Let me know if this still doesn't answer your question. I like the way you're thinking about this.
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