There’s a reason why so many people want to move into business consultancy. It is a lucrative career move that allows you to offer your expertise to other businesses, potentially on a freelance business. It has many perks, including the chance to work on different businesses and finding different solutions, meaning you’ll never be in a position where you’ll get bored of doing the same thing every day. Yet for anyone currently working in a completely different role, it can feel almost impossible to break into. However, there are ways to switch your career and forge a new path into consultancy, as long as you follow a few simple steps.
Use your relevant experience
Whilst you might not think of yourself as having the relevant experience to move into consultancy, you could be surprised. If you have worked in a particular industry for a few years, the chances are you have gained knowledge and insight about how that industry works – insight that you could pass on to others. Moving into consultancy in an entirely different field is much harder than consulting for businesses within an industry you already know. Take a look at your CV as it stands, and identify what your areas of strength already are.
Gain new skills and education
Many consultants will be required to have financial insight and a grasp of business economics in order to best advise their clients, as well as soft skills such as communication and empathy. If you don’t currently have these hard areas of expertise, it may be worth retraining and seeking out further education. For example, if you completed an accredited online MBA program in economics, this would give you an added advantage alongside your pre-existing skills. Switching careers, especially to consultancy, is all about using your previous experience and building upon it to create something new.
Show your personality
As consultancy is so lucrative, many people forget that business owners want to deal with people, not just ‘advice machines’. Cultivating a unique, trustworthy personality that people want to engage with is a key skill when it comes to forging a career in consultancy. Don’t be afraid to show your personality, and put your own unique flair into your presentations. It will make you stand out amongst the crowd, and help you launch yourself into a new career path with aplomb.
Don’t be afraid to step back to move forward
If you’re near the start of your career, a great way to move into consultancy is to explore job opportunities with existing consultancy forms, particularly their business analyst recruiting processes. Depending on your career track so far, this might feel like a step backward – but sometimes, you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet. Working your way up from the bottom is a perfectly acceptable way to make a career move, and in the long run, it could offer you even an even wider scope of opportunities with the experience you will have accrued. Don’t be afraid to take one step back in order to move two steps forward into your new career.
