Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: March 19, 2026

What do consultants do? Consultants work with companies, governments, and nonprofits to solve specific business problems, from cutting costs and entering new markets to restructuring entire organizations. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are over 1 million management analysts in the U.S. alone, and employment is projected to grow 9% over the next decade.

 

As a former Bain Manager and interviewer, I spent years doing this work firsthand. In this guide, I will break down exactly what consultants do every day, the different types of consulting, how much consultants earn, and how you can break into the field.

 

But first, a quick heads up:

 

McKinsey, BCG, Bain, and other top firms accept less than 1% of applicants every year. If you want to triple your chances of landing interviews and 8x your chances of passing them, watch my free 40-minute training.

 

What Does a Consultant Do?

 

A consultant is someone hired to solve a specific business problem that a company cannot solve on its own. Consultants can work independently or for consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain. The global management consulting market is worth over $300 billion, according to Statista.

 

Consulting firms deploy teams of 3 to 6 people to work on each project. A typical team includes a partner who provides strategic direction, a manager who runs the day-to-day work, and several analysts or consultants who do the research, analysis, and slide-building.

 

Projects usually last 2 to 6 months, though some can stretch over a year. In my experience at Bain, the average project ran about 3 to 4 months from kickoff to final presentation.

 

What Are the Different Types of Consulting?

 

Consulting is not one job. It is a broad field with many specializations. The type of consulting you do determines your clients, your daily work, and your career path. Here are the major types.

 

What Is Strategy or Management Consulting?

 

Strategy or management consultants advise clients on their highest-level decisions, such as which markets to enter, how to outcompete rivals, and whether to acquire another company. This is the most prestigious area of consulting. The top strategy consulting firms are McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, collectively known as MBB or Big Three Consulting.

 

What Is Operations Consulting?

 

Operations consultants help clients improve performance in areas like supply chain management, manufacturing, procurement, and sales effectiveness. Many strategy firms, including McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, also take on operations work.

 

What Is Technology or IT Consulting?

 

Technology consultants help companies select, implement, and integrate software and IT systems. Accenture is the largest IT consulting firm, though Deloitte, IBM Consulting, and Capgemini are also major players. IT consulting makes up over 25% of the total consulting market by revenue.

 

What Is Financial Consulting?

 

Financial consultants focus on corporate finance, tax, restructuring, risk management, and dispute support. Firms that specialize in this area include FTI Consulting, Alvarez & Marsal, and Charles River Associates.

 

What Is Human Resources Consulting?

 

Human resources consultants help organizations manage talent, improve learning and development, and design compensation structures. HR consulting firms include Mercer and Aon.

 

What Are Industry and Functional Specialists?

 

Some consulting firms focus entirely on one industry or function. For example, ZS, Clearview Health Partners, and Putnam Associates specialize in life sciences consulting. Cornerstone Research and Bates White focus on economic consulting.

 

Type	Focus	Example Firms	Typical Projects
Strategy / Management	High-level business strategy	McKinsey, BCG, Bain	Market entry, M&A, growth strategy
Operations	Operational efficiency	McKinsey, Deloitte, A.T. Kearney	Supply chain, procurement, cost reduction
Technology / IT	IT systems and digital tools	Accenture, Deloitte, IBM	System implementation, cloud migration
Financial	Corporate finance and risk	FTI, Alvarez & Marsal, CRA	Restructuring, dispute support, M&A due diligence
Human Resources	People and organizational design	Mercer, Aon, Korn Ferry	Talent management, compensation, org changes
Industry / Functional	Deep specialization in one area	ZS, IDEO, Cornerstone Research	Life sciences strategy, design, economic litigation

 

What Is the Difference Between Advisory and Implementation Consulting?

 

Advisory consulting focuses on analyzing a problem and recommending a solution. Implementation consulting focuses on executing that solution. These are two distinct types of work, and many firms do both.

 

For example, a strategy firm might advise a retailer to launch a home delivery service. If the retailer does not have the team to build it, the firm may also provide implementation consultants to run the project. McKinsey, BCG, and Bain traditionally focused on advisory work, but all three have expanded their implementation capabilities in recent years.

 

Firms like Accenture and Deloitte do both advisory and implementation at scale. According to industry estimates, implementation and technology-related consulting now accounts for more than half of total consulting revenues globally.

 

Who Hires Consultants and Why?

 

Who Are the Typical Clients of Consulting Firms?

 

Almost any organization can hire consultants. Large corporations, private equity firms, governments, and nonprofits all use consulting services regularly. Over 80% of Fortune 500 companies have worked with at least one of the Big Three firms.

 

Why Do Companies Hire Consultants?

 

Companies hire consultants for four main reasons.

 

1. Deep expertise. Consulting partners specialize in specific industries or functions. A partner who has worked with 20 pharmaceutical companies over 15 years brings knowledge that is nearly impossible to replicate internally. Having coached hundreds of candidates at Bain, I saw firsthand how partners’ industry expertise shaped every project.

 

2. Temporary resources. Top consulting firms recruit the smartest graduates from the best schools. When a company has an urgent problem but lacks the right people, hiring consultants fills that gap immediately without a lengthy recruiting process.

 

3. Unbiased outside perspective. Internal teams can get stuck in groupthink. Consultants bring a fresh point of view that is not influenced by company politics or tradition. Sometimes a company already knows the answer but needs an outside party to confirm it.

 

4. Risk reduction. There is a famous saying in consulting: "Nobody ever got fired for hiring McKinsey." Hiring a respected consulting firm gives executives cover for major decisions. If something goes wrong, they can point to the rigorous analysis that went into the recommendation.

 

What Do Consultants Do Every Day?

 

The daily work of a consultant varies by role and seniority, but most consulting work falls into eight core tasks. In my time at Bain, I cycled through all of these on virtually every project.

 

• Gathering information. Consultants collect data through expert interviews, customer surveys, focus groups, and secondary research like industry reports. On one Bain project, our team conducted over 40 stakeholder interviews in the first two weeks alone.

• Analyzing data. Once data is collected, consultants use Excel, Tableau, Alteryx, and other tools to find patterns and insights. According to a McKinsey survey, roughly 60% of consulting work now involves some form of advanced analytics or data science.

• Building slides. PowerPoint is the universal language of consulting. Consultants build slide decks to communicate findings and recommendations. It is not unusual for a team to produce over 100 slides during a single project.

• Presenting to clients. Consultants present their work to clients multiple times during a project, not just at the end. These check-ins keep the client aligned and allow for course corrections along the way.

• Iterating on work. Consulting work goes through multiple rounds of feedback. An analyst’s work is reviewed by the manager, then by the partner, and then by the client. Each round sharpens the analysis and recommendations.

• Managing the project. Managers handle the team, the client relationship, and the partner. They make sure the right work gets done on time and that all stakeholders stay informed.

• Selling new work. Partners and senior managers spend a significant portion of their time building relationships and pitching new projects. A Bain partner once told me that roughly 30% of a partner’s time goes toward business development.

• Building the firm’s knowledge base. After projects wrap up, consultants document their findings so future teams can learn from past work. This internal knowledge sharing is a major competitive advantage for top firms.

 

What Does a Typical Consulting Week Look Like?

 

Before COVID, consultants typically flew to the client site Monday morning and returned home Thursday evening, then worked from their home office on Fridays. Today, most firms operate on a hybrid model. Consultants spend 1 to 3 days at the client site each week and work remotely the rest of the time.

 

A typical week might look like this: Monday and Tuesday on-site for client meetings and collaborative work sessions. Wednesday working from home or the office on analysis and slides. Thursday presenting interim findings to the client. Friday doing internal reviews and administrative work.

 

What Is the Consulting Career Path?

 

Consulting firms have a well-defined promotion structure. At most firms, you move up every 2 to 3 years if you perform well. The career path at a typical strategy consulting firm follows this progression.

 

Title	Years	Key Responsibilities	Total Comp Range
Analyst / Associate Consultant	0–2	Data analysis, research, slide building	$83K–$120K (undergrad entry)
Consultant / Senior Consultant	2–4	Lead workstreams, manage junior analysts, client communication	$150K–$250K (MBA entry)
Manager / Project Leader	4–7	Run day-to-day projects, manage team and client relationship	$250K–$400K
Principal / Associate Partner	7–10	Oversee multiple projects, sell new work, mentor managers	$400K–$700K
Partner / Director	10+	Own client relationships, set firm strategy, lead major accounts	$700K–$3M+

 

Titles vary slightly between firms. McKinsey uses Business Analyst, Associate, Engagement Manager, Associate Partner, and Senior Partner. Bain uses Associate Consultant, Consultant, Manager, Principal, and Partner. BCG uses Associate, Consultant, Project Leader, Principal, and Managing Director.

 

How Much Do Consultants Make?

 

Consulting is one of the highest-paying career paths for recent graduates. According to Bain’s careers page, the base salary for a first-year Associate Consultant (undergraduate entry) is $112,000. With signing bonuses and performance bonuses, total first-year compensation often exceeds $130,000.

 

MBA-level hires enter at the Consultant level with total compensation between $190,000 and $250,000 at MBB firms. Based on Glassdoor data, Managers earn $250,000 to $400,000, and Partners earn well over $1 million at top firms.

 

Compensation at non-MBB firms like Deloitte, Oliver Wyman, and LEK tends to be 10% to 30% lower, but still significantly above the national median. For a deeper breakdown, see our guide on consulting salaries.

 

What Skills Do You Need to Be a Consultant?

 

Consulting firms look for a specific set of skills during the hiring process. Based on my experience interviewing candidates at Bain, the most important skills are:

 

• Problem solving. The ability to break a complex, ambiguous problem into smaller, manageable parts. This is the #1 skill consulting firms test for.

 

• Analytical thinking. Comfort with numbers, data, and Excel. You need to draw insights from data, not just summarize it.

 

• Communication. The ability to explain complex ideas clearly, both in writing (slides) and verbally (presentations). Over 70% of consulting work involves persuading someone.

 

• Teamwork. Consulting is a team sport. You will work in small, intense teams and need to collaborate effectively under pressure.

 

• Intellectual curiosity. Projects span different industries and topics. The best consultants are genuinely curious about how businesses work.

 

• Work ethic. Consulting is demanding. Long hours and tight deadlines are standard, especially on fast-paced due diligence projects.

 

How Do You Become a Consultant?

 

What Education Do You Need?

 

Most consultants at top firms hold a bachelor’s degree from a competitive university. An MBA from a top-15 business school is the other common entry point. Your degree can be in any subject. In my Bain class, people came from economics, engineering, history, and even music backgrounds.

 

What matters more than your major is your academic performance, leadership experience, and ability to demonstrate problem-solving skills. A GPA of 3.5 or above is a general benchmark for MBB firms, though it is not a hard cutoff.

 

What Is the Consulting Recruiting Process?

 

The consulting recruiting process typically has three stages: resume screening, first-round interviews, and final-round interviews. The interview process includes both case interviews and fit (behavioral) interviews.

 

Case interviews test your problem-solving skills through a business scenario you solve live with the interviewer. Fit interviews assess your personality, leadership, and motivation. Most firms run two to three rounds of interviews over 4 to 6 weeks. If you want to learn case interviews quickly, my case interview course walks you through proven strategies in as little as 7 days.

 

What Is the Lifestyle of a Consultant?

 

How Much Do Consultants Travel?

 

Travel has decreased significantly since the pandemic. Before 2020, most consultants traveled Monday through Thursday every week. Today, hybrid models are the norm. Most consultants travel 1 to 3 days per week, depending on the client and firm.

 

When traveling, consultants stay in hotels and have their meals covered by the firm. One perk is that frequent travel quickly earns airline and hotel loyalty status, leading to free upgrades, complimentary flights, and free hotel nights.

 

How Many Hours Do Consultants Work?

 

Consultants typically work between 50 and 70 hours per week. Some projects are lighter, particularly government work, while due diligence and private equity projects can push hours closer to 70 or 80.

 

Weekends are generally protected at most firms, though it is not unusual to do some work on Sunday evenings before the week starts. Compared to investment banking, consulting offers a better lifestyle balance, which is one reason many people choose consulting over banking.

 

What Is the Social Life Like in Consulting?

 

Consulting teams often eat dinner together when traveling. Firms also organize team events like dinners at nice restaurants, sporting events, or offsite retreats. Some firms allow consultants to stay in the travel city over the weekend for personal exploration, with part of the expenses covered.

 

The social aspect is a real benefit. At Bain, the culture was very team-oriented, and some of my closest friendships came from long weeks on the road with my case teams.

 

Where Do Consultants Go After Consulting?

 

One of consulting’s biggest advantages is the exit opportunities it opens up. According to LinkedIn data, over 60% of consultants leave within 3 to 5 years to pursue other roles. The most common exit paths are:

 

• Corporate strategy. Many ex-consultants join Fortune 500 companies in internal strategy roles, often at the VP or Director level.

 

• Private equity and venture capital. PE firms value the analytical rigor and problem-solving skills that consulting develops. Ex-MBB consultants are heavily recruited by PE firms.

 

• Tech companies. Google, Amazon, and Meta actively hire ex-consultants for product management, operations, and business strategy roles.

 

• Startups. Some consultants use their skills and networks to launch their own companies or join early-stage startups in leadership positions.

 

• MBA programs. Consulting is one of the most common pre-MBA backgrounds. Over 30% of students at top MBA programs are former consultants, according to admissions data.

 

For a deeper look at life after consulting, see our article on consulting exit opportunities.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

Is Consulting a Good Career?

 

Yes. Consulting offers high pay, rapid skill development, and excellent exit opportunities. The average MBB consultant earns more in their first year than most professionals earn after 5 to 10 years of experience. The biggest downside is the demanding work schedule, which is not for everyone.

 

Do Consultants Work Long Hours?

 

Most consultants work 50 to 70 hours per week. Some projects are lighter, while others are very intense. Weekends are generally protected, which is a meaningful difference from investment banking, where weekend work is common.

 

What Degree Do You Need to Be a Consultant?

 

You can enter consulting with a bachelor’s degree in any field. An MBA is helpful for entering at a higher level. What matters most is academic performance, leadership experience, and strong problem-solving skills, not the specific major.

 

What Is the Difference Between a Consultant and an Analyst?

 

"Analyst" is typically the entry-level title at some consulting firms (like McKinsey’s Business Analyst). "Consultant" is either the next level up or the entry-level title at other firms (like Bain’s Consultant role for MBA hires). Both do similar day-to-day work, but consultants generally have more experience and lead their own workstreams.

 

How Much Do Entry-Level Consultants Make?

 

Entry-level consultants at MBB firms earn $83,000 to $120,000 in base salary for undergraduate hires, plus bonuses. MBA-level hires earn $190,000 to $250,000 in total compensation. Non-MBB firms pay somewhat less, but salaries are still well above average.

 

Everything You Need to Land a Consulting Offer

Need help passing your interviews?

• Case Interview Course: Become a top 10% case interview candidate in 7 days while saving yourself 100+ hours
  
  
• Fit Interview Course: Master 98% of consulting fit interview questions in a few hours
  
  
• Interview Coaching: Accelerate your prep with 1-on-1 coaching with Taylor Warfield, former Bain interviewer and best-selling author

 

Need help landing interviews?

• Resume Review & Editing: Craft the perfect resume with unlimited revisions and 24-hour turnaround

 

Need help with everything?

• Consulting Offer Program: Go from zero to offer-ready with a complete system

 

Not sure where to start?

• Free 40-Minute Training: Triple your chances of landing consulting interviews and 8x your chances of passing them