With the emergence of young CEOs like Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook (26), Andrew Mason of Groupon (30) and Pete Cashmore of Mashable (25), Gen X graduates are leaving university powered by the thought that there is no limit to what they can achieve – and rightly so. It is this thinking that powers innovation and encourages unconventional thinking. It is this thinking that most companies wish to attract, harness and exploit for their benefit.

However, the characteristics and values that build success today are not necessarily the same characters and values that built success in past generations.  Some “baby boomers” or “veterans”, many of whom are executives and partners, are struggling to accept Gen X mentality and all of the changes that it is bringing to the workplace. Some veterans feel like graduates today have a sense of “entitlement” and make unnecessary demands without ‘earning their stripes’. Most veterans have earned their right to be where they are – which is often at the top. Veterans have spent years growing and nurturing their companies and have proved their worth (of course there are always exceptions!).  While there are a lot of attempts to change the thinking of veterans to accept and connect with Gen X graduates, very little training or awareness is given to graduates to do the same with veterans. Below are some points that new graduates should bear in mind when dealing with veterans.

1. Honour their position and respect their experience – do not forget why veterans are still in the company. Veterans are not “out of date” or redundant in the work place. There is a lot to be said for experience and for longevity and much can be learnt from their insights. Acknowledge that you have less experience than them and that you are probably less connected – you may have hundreds of friends on Facebook but they probably have more meaningful contacts in their rolodex.
2. Learn the company’s history and timeline– by knowing more about how the company you work for has evolved and the successes that it has taken to get it to where it is, you will probably have a greater appreciation and respect for the people who made it all happen i.e., the veterans.
3. Do not complain about performing menial tasks to a veteran – new graduates are often the lowest rank in a consulting company/assignment and are often called upon to do the more mundane jobs. This has little to do with intelligence, but more to do with having less experience and lower billing rates. If you are handed a load of photocopying, don’t moan about it to a veteran – they have been through the ranks and have probably had their fair share of crummy tasks back when they were a newbie. You won’t get any sympathy from them, just disapproval.
4. Talk to them face-to-face, not just virtually – remember that veterans were effective before the days when e-mails and social media were commonplace. Veterans are more likely to respond to a face-to-face conversation or a telephone call rather than an email. I know many veterans who get annoyed when someone sends them an email when they are sitting only a desk or two away! In their eyes you may come across as impersonal.  Have a chat and they are more likely to remember and bond with you.
5. Back-up anything you ask for with a business case or sound reasoning – remember that veterans sometimes view Gen X graduates as unjustifiably demanding. When asking for something, for example; a work phone, a lap-top upgrade or flexible working hours, remember to back up your request with some rationale and viable reasoning. Don’t just say “I want it” or “everyone else has it”. If you prove to veterans that you have considered the business implications of your demands i.e., expenses, time away from the office etc and still have a need for something, they will be more likely to respect your request and respect you.

Remember, veterans still have a lot of influence and rank in consulting organisations, so it won’t do you any good to get on their bad side!

• Capgemini career site
• Ernst & Young career site
• Hayes – You’ll have to run a search for management consulting, but they do list some very good roles
• IBM career site
• Jobsite
• Logica career site
• Monster consulting jobs
• PA Consulting career site
• PWC career site
• Reed strategy / consulting roles
• Top-Consultant.com career opportunities

We’ve added our favourite consulting job resources here, but we’re sure there are more out there. If you have a favourite that we’ve missed off the list please let us know in the comments and we’ll add your suggestions to the list for everyone to see.

Here is an average Thursday for you, probably in April time, from one of my first major assignments as a junior consultant. No two days are alike and the idea here is just to give you a flavour of what you might be asked to do as part of an assignment.

I would love to hear if this is the same as, or differs from, anyone else’s experiences.

7:00 – Get up, showered dressed and fed, I always need a solid breakfast to start the day.

7:30 – Heave my laptop bag onto my back and head off to work. A ten minute walk to the station, fifteen minute train ride and ten minutes on the tube leave me a brisk five minute stroll up to my client building.

8:20 – Having passed through the security barriers with a swipe of my card and a quick wave to the guards, I travel up to the third floor in their magnificent glass lifts and wander across to my desk, with a few hello’s on the way. I make a quick cup of tea and catch up with my colleagues while my company laptop and client desktop machines are booting up.

8:30 – A quick check of my emails reveals I need to contact my line manager and that the client has a query about the component I am building. There is also an email about a previous project which I realise will take some time to deal with. I make notes on my to-do list to call my manager and previous PM (Project Manager) later on and to look into the client query.

My to-do list is already fairly large and I have a brief run through it to plan what I am going to do today and who I need to work with to accomplish my tasks.

8:50 – Start working on my software, focusing initially on the client concern incase I need to meet with them, which as it turns out I do. I send an email to the client suggesting possible meeting times and outlining what I think needs to be done to address his query.

As always, being a programmer, I get into ‘the zone’ and the only things that bring me out of my code-laden reverie are questions to or from others or the phone.

10:45 – Before I know it half the morning has gone and I have a few new pages of code to commit to our source repository. The client has emailed a suitable time in the afternoon and I ping back an acceptance. I know emailing each other when you are both in the same building seems strange, but I have found that email represents a much less intrusive way of passing information, especially when the client is very busy with their day-to-day work and would rather not be interrupted.

I take the chance to grab another cup of tea, send the emails and make the phone calls I need to. Unfortunately after a brief, seemingly one-way, call, I find myself agreeing to write a post-project report at the weekend and make a note of what information I need to take home tomorrow (Friday).

13:30 – I suddenly realise that uncomfortable feeling is my stomach rumbling and decide I need some fresh air and head out towards the shops for a freshly made coronation chicken sandwich on sun dried tomato focaccia bread. It’s always well worth the wait at the busy cafe.

14:10 – Back at my desk and, with a fresh cup of steaming coffee, it’s straight back into the code.

15:50 – With the client meeting scheduled for 4pm, I take a few minutes to prepare the materials and information I need to have the discussion and head over to the meeting room booked by the client’s secretary.

16:25 – After a good discussion of the options, the client agrees to look a bit closer into what they want from this particular feature and we agree a follow up meeting in a couple of weeks.

I head back to my desk for a brief catch-up to update the PM and then carry on with my work.

17:00 – The entire project team head into the large conference room to report on and discuss the day’s events. These daily meetings only happen when we are very close to deadlines and everyone needs to be clear what the state of play is.

18:15 – I have finished almost everything I wanted to get done today and decide there is no point starting something new at this time (most of the rest of the team are packing up too). I pack up my camp and walk to the tube with a few colleagues, agreeing to have a couple of drinks tomorrow night after work.

18:30 – I stop by the gym and manage an hour before I’m ready to call it a day. This new fitness drive I have put myself on is going ok, but I find it very hard to motivate myself at this time of day.

20:35 – After an uneventful trip home and a quick stop by the supermarket for some food, I dump my stuff in the hallway and head into the kitchen to whip up something impossibly average for dinner.

21:30 – Time to make a few calls and flick through some TV channels. Having missed the start of almost everything good, I resign myself to checking a few things out on the internet and heading to bed.

22:30 - It’s been a busy but productive day and I drift into unconsciousness wondering how my girlfriend will react to the idea of me working at the weekend…

In fact we are working on so much stuff behind the scenes that we are relaxing our publishing policy, so you’ll only have to worry about updating yourself bi-weekly over the coming months. I know this is all a little cryptic right now but all will become clear in due course.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank our readers for their feedback on our site and content and hope you have seen your suggestions take effect! We really do value your comments so if you have anything you would like to say, please don’t hesitate to contact us.

Also, as you know, we are always looking for new authors to provide a more complete overview of the consulting industry. If you have experience you wish to share or a greater depth of information on any of our existing articles, please join us in our mission of passing on those valuable nuggets of consulting goodness to those wanting to learn.

Teamwork in The Apprentice

For the last few weeks, the candidates on Wednesday night’s show ‘The Apprentice’ have demonstrated many of the behaviours which come out under pressure, as well as what reaction those undertakings get from other team members. Although ‘The Apprentice’ may not exactly mirror your day to day office life, there are still many lessons to be learnt from the behaviour and thought processes of the candidates.

The ability to work in a team is one of the most important attributes of a successful consultant. Like the candidates from ‘The Apprentice’, for any given project you may be asked to slip into a client team to solve a problem.

Your aim will be to ‘achieve as a team, but shine as an individual’ which leaves you in the difficult situation where you’ll need to decide what is required as far as individual recognition versus team achievement. Here are my recommendations as to where to focus your effort.

Keep your goal in mind

It is very easy to get dragged into deep discussions about side issues or focus on the method of achieving the goal, rather than the goal itself. Take the episode where the aim was to buy 10 items for the least amount of money. One team focused on getting all ten items and forgot to get them for the cheapest price possible, which was the whole point of the exercise.

And in the real world? Let’s say your client wishes to make things more efficient using technology of some kind. It can be very easy to create a new system which does lots of new and exciting things, but which doesn’t actually make things any more efficient. Having tons of new functionality may not actually make things more efficient, in fact it could be more complex to use.

When considering your approach to solving a problem, always take a step back now and then to ensure you are on the right track. Even if you have to admit you’re wrong, you’re far better reaching the right end result in a longer time than reaching the wrong result slightly faster.

Be Assertive

As you will see by watching any episode of any series, assertiveness is a key element to getting your ideas and point of view across.

However, it is how you do this which is important.

While shouting over everyone else is bound to get you heard, it tends to be a little less objective and can often turn other team members against you.

Many times throughout the series, the overbearing attitude towards a specific idea has ended up with that person being blamed for not listening and forcing something through which the rest of the team claim to have had no choice in.

As a consultant, your approach needs to be reassuring and measured, with the intensity of your argument matching the importance of the decision or item being discussed. You will also need to be aware of your own knowledge of a subject, be careful of being highly vocal in areas you are not familiar with.

Manage team responsibilities

Another lesson to be learned from watching these hopefuls go through their paces is managing the responsibilities of team members. As I mentioned before, each team member is looking to shine but if the team as a whole doesn’t win they are susceptible to being taken ‘back into the boardroom’ and potentially at risk of being fired.

It is clear from several of the episodes that if some of the team do not buy into the strategy and ideas being pursued then they undermine the whole team’s attempt to come out on top.

Therefore, the only sure-fire way of staying in the process throughout most of the series is to be on the winning team. This is something that consultants should be aiming for daily with their clients. Remember that being a member of a winning team is more important than being a good member of a bad team.

For you, the consultant, this means managing how the team is working together and how they view the project. Simply saying ‘it wasn’t my fault, the team didn’t do it’ won’t be good enough when the project is reviewed and found wanting, especially when they get the invoice. Part of your role as the consultant is to get the best out of people, make sure the team all accept responsibility for each part of the project and the project as a whole.

This can be done by keeping roles, responsibilities and goals as clear as possible, making sure everyone understands what is expected of them and where the project is going. Even if you are not leading the project, clarifying this information is a valuable role within the team and one which management will thank you for if you get it right.

Sometimes, however, knowing their role is not enough. As with Jamie on the interactive video task, team members may not agree with their role and responsibility and in that case they’ll need to be reminded of the overall goal. Or bargained with. Or both.

Summary

So there you go, my top three elements of good teamwork are:

1. Keeping your goal in mind,
2. Being assertive and
3. Managing team morale.

In my opinion, these are the most important points from the series, however there are obviously plenty more useful points to be gained from watching others in these kind of conditions, and we will hopefully cover more of them in the new year.

1 – For those of you not familiar with ‘The Apprentice’, the basic premise is thus: 16 hopeful candidates are picked (from thousands of applications) to battle it out over twelve weeks, completing a business related task each week. In every episode they are split into two teams to carry out said tasks, and on the losing team someone gets ‘fired’ and leaves the competition. You can find more at www.bbc.co.uk/apprentice. ↑

We have a splendid article on teamwork that is being finished off as you read this and will be available on Monday.

We then have our final article of the year planned for Christmas eve followed by a yearly round up for Consultive Magazine due at year end the following week.

We do hope you stay with us over the Christmas period as there’s still some great stuff to come.

Until Monday then…

So how does this insightful information help you as a new consultant? Read on to find out.

Why should you bother?

When you first join a consulting firm you will be told to network. Network, network, network. And you should. Your career will depend on knowing the right people at the right time. If you come across a client who needs an expert in some obscure, relatively unknown business or development process and you know someone who is that expert your client will love you, as will your contact for getting them work. If you know the clever boffins who have just found a way of saving one in every three pounds when manufacturing widget X and you know the product manager at “We make widget X Ltd” again you’ll be loved.

Start at the beginning and look inward

But networking for the sake of networking is not going to be productive. When you first start out in your consulting career you need to plan how you will network and what your goals are. Goal one should be to get to know the folks around you in your own firm. If you’ve landed a job at a smallish company, then this could be as simple as getting to know everyone in the firm; make a list and tick each person off as you meet them over coffee, while working on a proposal or on a training course, etc.

If you’ve moved into one of the big players, then things could be a little more tricky. Start by working out which sector / area of expertise you would like to work in and get to know who the movers and shakers in your firm are in those areas, again make a list and keep track of who you’ve met. They will be the people who will be selling you to clients, so make sure they know who you are and what you can offer.

Track, trace, measure and analyse

As formulaic and cold as it may sound, building a list that tracks who you have met, when, how often and what you talked about is a wise move. As you meet more and more people remembering everything about everyone of them is going to be impossible. But tracking your interactions and being able to remind yourself of them before your next encounter can have a huge impact on your relationship with your contacts.

Widening the net

Once you have established an immediate network within your own firm you can start widening your net and looking further afield. Start to think about who outside of your own areas of interest / expertise you should be contacting and establishing a relationship with. These people could be within your own company (in other practices or working in other sectors) or they could be people outside of your firm, or people at your client’s firm who you’ve not directly worked with. Concentrate on identifying people who you think you would be able to help either by complementing their skills or by bringing a different approach or experience to a topic that they work with.

Playing the long game and a word of warning

If you follow these tips and plan and structure your networking you should quickly become a networking pro and will soon be able to draw on a vast collection of knowledge and expertise from across your network at the drop of a hat.

However, a word of caution, do try to remember that you are looking to develop relationships with the people in your network, not just a massive contact list. There is no point in having the biggest collection of contacts in your iPhone, Blackberry, little black book or rollerdeck if you have no relationship with those people. It’s the interactions with your contacts that makes your network valuable, not the size of it.

Don’t think that you’re the bees knees just because you know twice as many people as the next consultant. It’s not the size of your network, but the quality that counts.

However, even if you tick all of the checkboxes in terms of understanding and competencies, this does not necessarily “guarantee” you a golden ticket to next step of the recruitment process or getting a job offer.

When managers interview candidates for a job, they often make subconscious judgments about the candidate and try to form conclusions about their suitability through what the candidate says and how they say it. I have often spoken with consulting managers who have rejected strong candidates based on a “hunch” or “suspicion” that they would not fit within the organisation. It is almost like there is a separate list of questions that they are considering in addition to the ones drawn up by HR.

Below are three key “unsaid” questions that your interviewer may be subconsciously asking themselves during your interview and some advice on how to address them.

Could I put this person in front of a client?

Consulting is predominantly a client-facing profession and one of the key things your interviewer will be looking for is that you are “safe” enough to put in front of clients. This will come across through your confidence, interpersonal skills and above all your professional demeanour. To demonstrate these characteristics, treat your interviewer with the same respect you would treat a very important client.

Remember that consulting is in the “professional” services industry and the standard of professionalism you display in a consulting interview will need to be particularly high. By acting professionally you are showing the interviewer that you will be able to suitably represent both yourself and the company to clients. Being formal and well groomed in your appearance is more important than being fashionable. You can test the fashion boundaries once you have your employee badge but in an interview it is always better to play it safe. Also, if there is ever a place to be politically correct, it is in a consulting interview! You will know very little about your interviewer. You don’t know what they find to be funny, offensive or appropriate so be careful about what you say.

Lastly, don’t speak too negatively of previous bosses, clients or employers. This definitely is not professional and is something that people often slip up on during interviews. By avoiding negativity, it will demonstrate to the interviewer that you can be both tactful and positive with clients (and colleagues) and won’t bad-mouth them if things go wrong.

Does this person really want to be here?

The last thing you want your interviewer to think is that the job you are interviewing for is a “back up choice” or “last option”. No one wants to be second best and this includes consulting firms. You have to communicate what you truly like best about the opportunity over others. It doesn’t have to be everything, just pick out a unique differential about the role or the company and talk specifically about why it appeals to you. It will show your interviewer that you have thought about the role and have imagined yourself in it.

As well as being enthusiastic about the role and the company, you have to clearly communicate why you have applied for the opportunity and what your career intentions are. You need to make a comprehensive story around your CV and relate it to your motivations in applying for the job. This is even more important if you have frequently switched employers or industries. Don’t just think about why you want to be in consulting, think also about why you want this position in particular, as many candidates often fail to adequately do this.

Is this person genuine?

Ethics is a big deal in consulting and is something firms take very seriously. It is not just lip-service. No company wants to be the next Arthur Anderson or Enron and no company wants employees who put them at risk. Don’t lie in an interview, it just isn’t worth it. It is so obvious to interviewers when people are telling tales or making wild embellishments about their experiences. This is a huge sticking point for an interviewer and even if the fib is a small one, it could be the reason why you receive a one page letter instead of a welcome packet. Not only does lying tell your interviewer that you lack confidence in your actual experiences and abilities, but it also raises serious questions about your integrity and character. If they start to question you, they will start to question everything you say. Be sincere and enthusiastic when talking about your experiences, this will go a lot further than being dishonest.

What none of these courses and very few firms teach their employees is the art of Upward Management, or in other words; the art of “Managing your manager”.

Whether someone is your line manager, responsible for helping you progress through your career, or your project manager responsible for organising and delivering your current assignment, it is your responsibility to manage them as much as it is theirs to manage you.

Upwardly managing your line manager

When it comes to your line manager you need to help them help you. They probably won’t recommend you for a promotion, pay rise or bonus if they don’t know what you’ve been up to, how you are progressing or where you’d like your career to go. Yes it’s their job to help you get ahead, but it’s also your job to put them in a position to do so.

You need to make sure you communicate with them regularly, let them know when a project you work on has gone well and demonstrate how you personally have added value both to your client and to your firm. You also need to make sure your line manager understands your personal career goals.

Don’t rely solely on your formally arranged management meeting or annual / six monthly reviews. Take the initiative and arrange a fortnightly telephone call or send a regular email. Remember, assignments can be a long way from your home office so you might not be able to just catch them in the corridor.  

Upwardly managing your project / team manager

When it comes to your project or team manager the same rules apply; it’s their job to help you to perform your role in the team, but it’s your responsibility to make it easier for them.

Again communication is key in the art of upward management; make sure they know what you’re working on, make sure they understand your capacity, make sure they know if and when you are going to miss a deliverable in advance and help suggest ways of limiting the damage. Basically, make sure you talk and communicate to your project manager as if they are your client. If you can make their job easier by upwardly managing them you will reap the rewards down the line when the project is a success. Upwardly managing will also help at review time, helping to put a tick in the box for ‘proactive communication’.

Many graduate and new consultants fail to understand the importance of upward management and it can take a few years for them to recognise the technique and then put it into practice. If you can apply the idea to your own managers sooner rather than later, it will help you get ahead of the competition, work on more interesting projects and help move you up the career ladder just that little bit quicker.