Work environment for consultants
Given how much consultants travel, what does the work environment look like? Are you just given a conference room where you and your team work from your laptops at the client site?
I've also seen some MBB offices on Linkedin and looks like there aren't any real workstations but just a bunch of co-operating spaces where you can bring your laptop.
It must be super difficult to do heavy excel / ppt work, taking notes etc. when working from just one small screen.
at the client site, yes exactly as you describe. you are rarely given a real workstation with monitors and desk space.
at MBB offices - no, the stuff we show on LinkedIn is only the most glamorous and sexy parts, and workstations dont really fit that criteria. but trust that there are many desks that you can use to work at with a monitor and keyboards and whatever (maybe not multiple monitors though)
i would flag that a minor issue in some popular offices is that work stations can be hard to come by and you'll need to on top of your shit booking and claiming a work station
Thanks a lot for the insights!
Do people generally manage to stay productive when just working from their laptops in a conference room? I imagine it must be very difficult to complete more heavy tasks, so do people generally save those tasks for office / WFH days where they have a proper set-up and stick to more brain-storming / discussion / light tasks at client sites?
I know some people who have a travel monitor, to make sure they always have 2 screens. We also have extra bluetooth mouse / keyboard, so not that problematic.
I mean honestly, and people have told me I'm crazy for this, but I never felt like I needed a monitor to be good at my job? now i will admit, the excel models we build in consulting aren't usually as complex as the ones in banking (if that's what you're benchmarking against).
i definitely developed neck problems hunched over looking at my laptop screen all the time lol but that's not necessarily a hit on my productivity, i just treated myself to massages every month to deal with that
I'm currently in IB and feel that double monitors is a huge benefit. Super useful for e.g. pulling information from one screen into Excel / PPT on the other screen, having a meeting on one screen and taking notes on the other, comparing two versions of a document etc.
Doing those things with just one 15-inch monitor would be super inefficient and probably take me at least twice as long. However, maybe the work in consulting is very different so you don't need large / double monitors.
When you have 10-15 PPT open, 10+ Excel open (inc. your market model, a bunch of source files, a previous project's model, a separate excel for financial data, etc.), have 40+ tabs in your browser (with anything from internal info to analyst reports, Euromonitor, or a few interviews with useful data points), and 10+ PDF files, (inc. annual reports, annual presentations, market reports, etc.) plus a couple of Word docs (e.g., interview guide, doc with hypothesis / investment thesis), Teams, and Outlook, and just a basic window open to search files on your own computer (plus probably another one for your Downloads folder), a second monitor is kiiiiiiiiiinda helpful
hey man, i was but a lowly consultant. the kindergarten coloring books i worked on didn't really reach that level of complexity
If I had to guess, I’d say you are BCG and are referring to the NYC office
You get used to working on a single screen. I split screen a lot (e.g., taking notes in a meeting) and use copy/paste or screenshots to reference key info when building a model or pages.
Some people travel with a second monitor but very few. And those don’t fit on plane tray tables :)
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