Year 1 in consulting - tips, tricks, advice, and unspoken rules.
Starting at a T2 consulting firm in a couple months (Strategy Group). I'm one year out of UG and although I have prior corporate experience this will be my first role in the industry.
I've been brushing up on the usual.. reading books, excel, pptx, industry news and the specifics of my group and their past projects.
Would love to hear from those who have 1+ years in the industry. How would you tackle your first year differently, given the opportunity to repeat it? What are you glad you did? As mentioned in the title, any tips, tricks, advice, methods, unspoken rules, funny experiences, learning opportunities, do's, and don'ts are more than welcome.
Hoping this will be seen by others in the incoming class as well - There have been lot's of complaints on this forum about the quality of Analysts/Associates as of late. We all want to kill it, so help us change that.
Also, what's your laptop of choice?
[Bigger edit: since this is getting some attention, I have put some effort into sorting the advice below into categories - did not change anything other than the order]
Laptop of choice is the company provided one for us.
As for tips, here are a few that may be especially relevant if you're younger / newer to working in general:
Here are my rules:
(1) Work is a marathon, not a sprint - don't take on more than you can handle while billing 100% to a client project. Any and every firm will ask you take part in exactly four pillars: core operations (billable work), firm building (non-billable work), community initiatives (non-billable work) and administrative dilligence (tracking/recording hours worked/compliance training, etc.). Many first years go for anything and everything (including myself) which leads to a disasterous outcome of having too much work and not enough time. I advise getting onboarded onto your first client project and then taking part in the non-billable side of things so you can properly assess your time commitments/hours available.
(2) The Bench is a Revolving Door, NOT a Bench: Often projects will have end dates listed out well in advanced. The protocol differs by the firm, but anywhere from one week to one month prior to the porject roll-off date, you should begin internally networking for other projects or having the discussion with your line manager/mentor about the cadence to onboard onto another project. The only time you should be on the bench is for vacation or non-billable work that is prioritized just as heavily as billable work.
(3) 100% Project Billability DOES NOT mean 100% hours: Often, in any project role, you'll have ~5-6 hours of work with dead time throughout the day. This dead time, especially in cyclical troughs where the work isn't too labour intensive should be used to manage company tasks (the admin work), or organizational tasks within the client project. The simplest thing I did for myself was create a few outlook rules that helped remove email waste and helped me capture email threads I actually had to pay attention to.
(4) It's Not What You Know It's What THEY Know: Network internally to understand individual colleagues' areas of expertise. Often, firms will have internal subject matter experts in software/technology (like the Excel Wizard/ or Slide God, etc.). When you're using a new technology/software, getting a 15-30 minute chat with someone who's used it for a similar client or understands the nuanced navigation can save hours of frustration. In my previous firm, I used PPT in place of Visio because I was an idiot and didn't know what Visio was.
(5) Your First Impression Matters: When you're onboarding onto a client or speaking to colleagues, always humble yourself and give modest expectations to them. If they hand you a task, size it up mentally, ask them when they'd like it by, and always, always always, assume it will take longer than your first estimate. There's no worse feeling than a client catching your mistake on a work product. When your boss/colleague does it, you can shrug it off and remember it for next time, but if a client does it, then it damages your reputation with them and your colleagues.