Advice I Tell ALL Incoming Consultants 🧠 (Imposter Syndrome, work/life balance...)

Neel discusses the best advice he wish he knew before starting his management consulting job.

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Neel:

Rohit:

General disclaimer: All views provided by Neel and Rohit and any guests are their own. Their views do not and should not be taken as those of any other company / organization / institution.

[matthuang]

I’m a current MBB consultant and you described my current situation exactly. The frequent feedback is amazing for development but also makes you feel like you suck at the job whenever you fall short of expectations. Combine that with an insecure overachiever mentality and it’s a recipe for burnout.

[josemorales]

I work at one of the Big 3. Up until minute five you described my situation better than I would myself. Crazy how similar we are from one another

[tusharroy]

Notes
- you’ll be around more intelligent people than ever before
- a lot will be expected of you
- you’ll get a lot of negative feedback on things to improve on and what you’re below average at - can be demoralising and lower your self esteem a lot
- there’ll be many myths - you can’t get high pay, exposure, skills, intelligent people outside of consultant

- you’ll begin to feel average and insecure
- you don’t have a strong sense of self outside of your achievements
- you may then feel lost
- you may then take the consulting skills as being the things you should optimise for to feel better, and work a lot
- you might feel isolated because you spend so much time with colleagues
- you feel stuck because you haven’t had time to look at other jobs and what you’re personally interested in

- there are pros to consulting too, but these are common negatives to be aware of

- realise consulting is the start of your career and will eventually be a footnote, compared to what you actually do for your career. If you zoom out of your life, it’s not a big deal to have issues working in consulting

Advice for any high performing professionals

1. Working in consulting is good pay, good learnings, good network, exposure to industries - but you may not be working on things you care about, and be working a lot. That’s ok, you’re using this time to learn and become more effective at what you really want to do. So you need to research what you’d like to do next
2. Consulting isn’t forever. It can suck at times for long periods, but think about next steps and you’ll see the value
3. Think about what you’re really optimising for in life. Part of this will be career skills, but not every skill you need in consulting needs to be extremely high for you to succeed in future. You can learn things in future or hire people to do certain tasks in future. Being average in consulting is still very impressive.
4. the myths about jobs outside of consulting not having high pay, smart people, and interesting problems is not true.

[garrettwilliams]

While I do think many people that pursue consulting aren't sure of what they want to do, I think there's an important caveat there. Consulting and investment banking roles are often a gateway to many other fields in business that are much more difficult to break into out of undergrad -- fields like private equity, venture capital, corporate strategy, corporate development, and even some start-up roles. So, for some people, they know what they want to do, but they realize they need to spend a few years in consulting or banking first. Another great video!

[rebmetpes]

Dude what have you done? You described my position perfectly. I work in Cybersecurity Consulting for 1, 5 years now. I did my bachelor and was one of the most hard learners and highest achievers. When I got into full time consulting I realised how hard the shift from absorbing to expressing is. Learning and passing tests is easy. Actually understanding the great sheme of things in a company and consulting is hard af. Thinking for yourself and finding out what to learn next is much harder if there is no pathed way already. You gotta make your own individual roadmap of life. For most people I know consulting really is a great opportunity to get a glipmse of multiple industries. You get provided many exit strategies in the future :)

You really gave me hope and pulled me out of my tunnel vision. Cheers

[emilio]

Hey Neel, I am Emilio from Italy. I am working in consulitng and I have been struggling for a lot of time with most of the things you mentioned in the video. Thank you. It is very important to shed a light on these personal issues and I wish there was more people like you. Keep up the good work :)

[MiltonClemens]

Hey Neel,

This might just be the first Youtube comment I have ever made (ever), but I just wanted to say thank you for sharing your story.

I am two months in and I don't think I have ever mentally struggled this much in life. I have never cried as much as I have been in such a short span of time. The move, the expectations, the myths, the feedbacks, the being away from loved ones; I can definitely relate to every second of your video.

You have given me a fresh perspective on what it means to be in MBB and I now know not to define myself the way the firm defines me.

You have not only given me a new lens in which to view my own life, you have definitely saved it from a point of no return.

I hope you know that what you are doing matters so much more than you know, and I will be sleeping so much better than I have been for the past three months tonight.

[dawgs]

I am an incoming consultant at MBB. A lot of these feelings that you mention are relevant to me as I begin my career. Thank you for your meaningful advice!

[ManasBudam]

This is gold! You spoke my mind man! Truly helpful! Wish many people who feel stuck in initial phases of consulting watch this

[jridgeboyz]

This video came at just the right time...my start date is in a few weeks and I've heard so much about the feedback process, imposter syndrome, and all the other things that come with working in a high-stress high-performance environment like consulting. I'll be sure to keep these tips in mind as I begin! Thanks for the advice.

[DrEhrfurchtgebietend]

This is likely good advice for somebody quite junior. I'm an associate partner at mck. You have to think about the business model of a firm. Most of the people we get in junior are terrible and don't really know anything. we work them to death in order to produce bullshit for the strategic goals of some Senior executive in some company to propel their career forward. The bar is actually incredibly low in terms of quality of work. Anything we actually build or produce is just garbage. The PowerPoints however, are amazing and we make up for it with that.

[WalkAway]

Neel, your video really helped me a lot. I'm not in consulting (6 months into full-time IB) but hearing what you said about zooming out of these 2 years really helped me to put my current shitty life into a long term perspective. Also reminded me to think about whats next after these 2 years - currently thinking about VC / startups, so really keen to hear more from you!

[ArsaTheLion]

Fantastic break down, 7 year vet and can certainly relate with a lot of what you said. Thanks for sharing!

[Tunafishyme]

Great advice. I also worked for Bain for about three years and majority of this resonates. I would never trade the experience as I learned a ton and it got me to my next gig and taught me things that helped me succeed where I am. But lots of imposter syndrome, lots of losing myself and tying my self worth to my performance, and at the very bottom - low grade depression. Insurance did cover a shrink though so that’s always nice lol.

[akshataswami]

Been a month in a Consulting company who works with construction claims and insurance companies. Absolutely got bombarded with imposter syndrome, low confidence and insecurity of being laid off since I am an international student here in USA. Thank You this video helps to know I am not the only one who would feel this way when they are just starting!

[AnastasiiaEger]

Wow, that’s such an awesome video, thank you for your insight! I’m a 20 y.o. sophomore who’s trying to figure out what to do with my life after school:) This video basically answered ALL the questions that’s been on my mind while I was researching consulting! I’m definitely an insecure overachiever with a pretty vague idea of what I want to do long term career vise and I see consulting as a way to get exposure to different areas of business & expertise for a couple years. We’ll see how it goes, I guess:)

[amina]

Real and raw ❤ thank you for this video

[FA-dzls]

This is super interesting. I have a 1.5 yr experience at MBB now, and I have the exact same thoughts! Thank you so much for your video

[lynntorbay]

This is excellent advice, that I apply already in my everyday! Specially the three year bits. No situation is forever, but experience is everything ;)

[vishnu_jv]

Hey Neel, I just got an offer at Mckinsey and your videos helped me a ton with preparing (especially the Mckinsey-specific ones with your friend Gottfried). I appreciate it a lot.

Some of the tips here are pretty helpful in getting mentally prepared for the role too 🤠