About Consultive Magazine
Hello and Welcome to Consultive Magazine. We get leading industry experts to write about their experiences in the World of consultancy. They share their insights, lessons learnt and hints and tips so you, our reader, can benefit from their knowledge and get ahead in your own consulting career.
Whether you are looking to get into the consulting industry, or you already recently have and are looking for tips about where to start, or even if you have been a consultant for some time but would like to read about how to advance your career we have something for you.
Our weekly articles are written by some of the best consultants in the world and cover all aspects of the profession. You’ll find our latest articles on the homepage, and a complete back catalogue in our archives. Articles are arranged in three broad consulting related categories; On assignment, Off assignment and Your career. We also publish news and information about the site under the Consuiltive News category.
Have a browse around and feel free to comment on any of the articles, the more input we get from you the better we can make this site.
Writing for Consultive Magazine
If you’ve had a look around, read some articles and thought; “I’ve got something share on that topic” why not write for us? We’re always on the look out for new authors, and love to hear from people with new ideas. If you’re interested in contributing to the site read our Write for us guide and get in touch.
Meet the team
Consultive Magazine was set up by two ex-consultants who were constantly being badgered by friends, family and even strangers to explain the ins and outs of being a consultant. They decided that they’d had enough of being bombarded with questions and that they should develop a resource that would help people understand the industry. Consultive Magazine was born.
Those two ex-consultants are Mike Romain and James McQuarrie
Mike Romain
Mike has been messing with computers for a long time. His early years were spent taking them apart, often to the surprise and dismay of their owners. At that point, the negotiations taking place would rival any of those in the board room. Studying them during his degree helped to hone these skills a little and by the time his career choices came around, it was an obvious choice to go into consulting, specialising in IT.
He spent a year of his degree doing a Diploma of Professional Studies at PA Consulting, where he met James. This was a valuable springboard into the consulting world.
Following university, Mike took a year out to travel round the world. As a result he can say ‘yes, no, please and thank you’ in nine different languages. It also opened his eyes to a lot of other cultures, behaviours and situations which have been invaluable when dealing with issues back home.
Mike then went back to PA as a graduate, gaining first hand consulting experience working mainly with public sector organisations in general management and IT. Working with some great people, both clients and colleagues, he was able to learn a lot about how things should and should not be done.
Mike now runs his own consultancy and web development company, LightArc, as well as lecturing on behalf of Manchester College. You can find out more at lightarc.com.
James McQuarrie
James unknowingly started his consulting career while at University by becoming a freelance web consultant, helping small and medium sized businesses to design and build their web presence.
As part of his degree he later spent a year working as an intern at PA Consulting in their Training & Development department, supposedly to develop their internal website. Ultimately though, James ended up delivering IT training to consultants and PA staff around the World.
Having spent so much time with consultants he realised that he’d been doing consulting for some time, enjoyed doing it and decided to apply for a graduate position at the company. He was accepted, and having completed his degree re-joined PA in their Systems Integration practice. James then spent the best part of two years working as an User Experience consultant for PA’s clients before joining one of PA’s venture companies in 2007. For the best part of the next three years James worked for the venture firm as their Front End Architect (responsible for User Experience) and continued to use his consulting skills to work with both internal and external clients.
In late 2009 James gave in to the urge to go back to his roots and is now once again working as a freelance web consultant offering design, development and User Experience advice to his clients. To read more about James visit his web site at JMCQUARRIE.co.uk
Our authors
Consultive Magazine wouldn’t be possible without the amazing people who write for us. Our authors are all either current or ex-consultants or people who have something to do with the industry (like recruiters). We can’t thank them enough for taking the time and putting in the effort of writing for us. It’s their willingness to share their knowledge, experience and expertise that benefit us all, so again, thank you authors.
A final thought
We hope you’ve enjoyed reading a little more about Consultive Magazine and would like to take this opportunity to say thank you. Thank you for visiting, for reading and for showing an interest. Without you the site would be meaningless. We’d love it if you were to come back and get involved in our community, either by simply reading the articles and taking their message in. Or by commenting on the articles you like or dislike. Or even by joining our authoring alumni and sharing your experiences of consulting by writing for us.
If you’d like to get in touch please do so using our Contact us page or subscribe to our RSS feed or even drop us a note at our Twitter account @consultiveMag.
