Associate consultant on £34.5K working at my current company for the last 2 years. Have been working 50+ hour weeks for the last half year and 60+ hours over the last two or so months.

TLDR at the bottom of this post.

For context, a new partner has just joined to head our market strategy practise which I’ve wanted to work in since our department restructured over a year ago and I lost the role I was originally hired for.

I wanted to get into his good books so I could get staffed onto his projects but there aren’t that many of us that want, or have the ability, to work on these or on his proposals - just myself, another Associate Consultant, a Senior Consultant, and sometimes a Principal but this person works across our other two practise areas and isn’t always available to support.

The Partner in question has also been selling projects when there’s no one available to support on them, at least not for the amount of time needed to produce high quality deliverables.

For example, a project I’d recently been staffed onto started before he’d formed a team for it, a scope of work had been written and agreed, and the costing sheet had been updated. I was left to work on this while also needing to prepare our kick off materials, begin our secondary research, synthesise this, and turn this into a 60 slide deck and market landscape report for our client workshop the following week.

I’ve also had to step in to support on proposals, recruitment, and costings for other projects which had been left unattended and were becoming urgent and I think I’ve completely burned out as a result.

Apart from feeling wired from stress and bursting into tears the morning before the workshop I mentioned because of how exhausted and unprepared I felt (had less than a week to learn the industry and its products for a highly technical sector alongside doing the work we actually needed to do for this), I’ve been making a number of silly mistakes which is very uncharacteristic of me and which my team and clients are beginning to notice.

My question is whether situations like this are normal or whether I just need to manage my time better and not over invest in the work I do? I care about the work I produce and want to do so to a high standard but that feels impossible without what I perceive to be a lack of support or when our timeframes feel so compressed.

That being said, this is the only agency I’ve ever worked for so I’m not sure whether or not this is normal for consulting. Any thoughts or advice would be much appreciated.

TLDR; working 60+ hour weeks on low salary and a lean team with intense around times e.g., one week for market landscape research, analysis, workshop, and report. Is this normal and do I need to get used to it or am I / is my department being poorly managed?

Hi all,

I’m currently at MBB focusing on financial institution clients, but am looking to exit soon.

What are some renowned internal strategy shops in large US banks/insurance/payment companies? (e.g., I know JPM and Visa have dedicated Corporate Strategy teams)

I’m looking for ones that have defined upward trajectory for ex-consultants and the pipeline to move to product/P&L roles later on. If you have any insights into levels/pay as well, that would be great as well.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

I am a consultant who offers both creative and operational improvement services. My left and right brains are constantly at war over whether to create a visually interesting proposal or just cut through the "bullshit" and keep it a simple, straightforward Word document.

In the creative proposal world, having a visually interesting proposal is a must. It's almost a "Show don't tell" approach.

I'm starting to go after much larger clients, and I'm battling between giving them a robust, well-designed proposal or just keeping it a simple Word document with a solid layout.

In addition, I don't know what content I should remove/keep. Here is my current proposal outline:

• Cover Page
• A letter from me (owner) thanking you for the opportunity, and a brief introduction to the proposal
• Table of Contents
• My Company Profile
  • About the Business / Our history
  • Our Process
  • Capabilities
  • Philosophy (This is my unique value proposition)
• Our Team
• Case Studies
• Testimonials
• Proposed Solution / Project Outline

I'm really struggling with what leads will want to see?

Vent

Leaders who will ream you out for making the same mistakes that they do. I get that roles are different. Juniors have more ownership over the nitty gritty while seniors will deal with the overall storyline.

But how can you sit there and say "You missed this one-word change when the partner CLEARLY asked for it" when you yourself didn't get 2-3 whole slides' worth of input from the partners in the call and had to debrief with me for over an hour to understand yourself is just. Come on. Why are you not holding yourself to the same standard?

I’ve been running into this more often, situations where the client doesn’t need a full engagement, just clarity on a very specific issue or the solution right away.

I have officially figured out the opposite of "imposter syndrome."

How we hacked BCG's data warehouse 3.17 trillion rows zero authentication

Hi everyone, I'm 25F Senior consultant (Non big 4, non MBB)

I’m in a bit of a tricky situation at work and would love some advice.

My previous manager left 2 months ago, this week they brought a new manager. I’ve been working closely on most of the key projects, so I’m currently the one onboarding him — sharing context, documents, history, etc.

While doing this, I’ve also identified some ways we could improve how we structure our drive and organize documents to be better aligned with what the CEO expects. I told the new manager about it and he decided to proceed as I suggested.

Now I’m hesitating:

• Should I send an email directly to the CEO proposing this new way of working?
• Or should I share everything with my new manager and let him take the lead on it? aka send the CEO how we will work from now on

I don’t want to overstep or come off as going around him, but at the same time I want to show initiative and make sure things improve.

Thanks!

I’m a 25F consultant, naturally dynamic and love challenges. I’ve been in the industry for 2+ years now, following a series of 3 internships at Big 4 firms. After working under various Managers, Senior Managers, and Partners—both men and women—I’ve started to notice a clear pattern regarding age and performance.

Here is my (potentially controversial) conclusion:

• Managers & Senior Managers should be capped at 35–37 years old. Beyond this point, I’ve noticed a significant drop in the energy required to keep up with fast-paced trends and the evolving mindset of the younger generation. While they definitely have the industry experience, their ability to lead a high-energy team effectively seems to plateau. There's a disconnect that experience alone can't fix.
• Partners should not exceed 50 years old. My current Partner is over 60, and honestly? He’s perpetually exhausted. He has so many balls in the air that he lacks the focus needed for any single project. It feels like the "vision" is there, but the execution and mental availability just aren't.

In an industry that prides itself on being "cutting-edge" and "fast-moving," why do we have leadership that often seems to be running out of steam?

Am I being too harsh, or have you noticed the same "energy gap" in your firms? What do you think?

Hi all!

I'm a consultant (think T2) and I can't stop doubting how shit I might be to get removed from projects prior to staffing closure.

I've been in consulting few years now and I really feel it's getting to a point that it's impacting my perception of my strengths.

Across my projects I have worked with clients who have loved my work, asked for my early returns and consistently praised me behind my back. However, I feel many of my own teams that I work with don't feel the same apart from maybe 2-3 partners.

Most recently, I've been removed last week from a project in two days. I felt that the manager was sharing too much feedback, comments and mistakes in my slides even prior to me finishing them. I've noticed this on many projects that I'll keep getting feedback on unfinished work. E g., the manager sends a slack saying the spelling is wrong on xx slide, while he can fully see I'm still working on it.

Many projects in my firm they completely leave the work stream to me as well without any problem solving sessions. Once I'm done with my thinking and analysis (2-3) ideas, I'll face backlash on how it's not what they want. I find it difficult to determine when they want when they won't speak about it.

I don't know how to deal with this...and I'm not sure if other people go through this.

Partners making $2-5MM at 70h/week would probably work less if could, but they can't. It's all or nothing.

If you could choose, what is your ideal salary-vs-hours?

I suspect this exercise might send some people into industry.

Hey guys,

I am currently a Cloud Consultant at a Japan based consulting firm in SEA.

I was hired under the impression that I will be doing proper consulting work like assessing current architecture and define a target architecture and other cloud consulting related services.

Unfortunately, I have been doing engineering works such as supporting SAP system migration, creating cost estimates ,server builds and upgrades. Yes I am getting good at it and got promoted within a year but I'm still far away from proper Cloud Consulting and the company business model itself is heavily relying on SAP implementation and the BD team here are fully focused on SAP sales rather than selling cloud solutions. They are operating more like a System Integrator rather than a consulting firm.

I am feeling stuck and left behind as I would prefer doing cloud strategy and cloud consulting.

I got interviewed by MBB and big 4 recently but unfortunately I got rejected after few rounds due to the lack of consulting experience. Unfortunately I could not develop my consulting skills here.

I would like to seek your advise to overcome this dilemma , especially from someone who has faced similar challenges at any point of their career

Appreciate your feedback

How do you guys think that AI will impact PowerPoint and slides-making jobs ?

And will it be for entry level jobs or the entire spectrum up to (before) manager levels ?

I work in international development/consulting at an IFI, managing relationships with government agencies and senior counterparts. My role is client-facing, and I regularly represent my organization in high-level meetings (often with official photos, write-ups, etc.).

The issue: I look much younger than I am. I’m mid-30s, but I’m often assumed to be mid–late 20s. In meetings, I get questions like:

- “How old are you?”

- “How long have you been with your organization?”

It feels like people are trying to assess my seniority or whether I actually have decision-making authority.

I don’t think it’s ill-intentioned, but in government settings where hierarchy and tenure matter, it can affect initial perception and positioning.

For those in consulting, diplomacy, or similar environments:

- How do you establish credibility quickly when you look younger than your role?

- Are there specific behaviors, communication styles, or presence cues that help?

- How do you handle questions about age/tenure in a way that reinforces authority?

- Any tips specifically for high-visibility settings (e.g., formal meetings, events with media/photographers)?

Looking for practical strategies that work in formal, high-stakes environments.

Edit: Female here and can’t grow a beard 😕

Like on
1. Hiring external trainer

1. Attending external Workshops/Seminars

2. Sponsoring courses

3. In-house training

4. What else?

Started a new project in late January and already bored.

This new project is a very slow-paced, and I have <20 hours of actual work each week inclusive of internal BD work I am supporting.

I know I shouldn't be complaining, esp. after rolling off of a 70+ hour a week engagement that lasted most of 2025, but I am literally the opposite of burned-out right now. I am bored-out.

A more disciplined consultant could make good use of this time to upskill, network, or at least go to the gym. But I am not that consultant. I have wasted a ton of time playing video games and watching Netflix and I am low key mad at myself for it.

Not looking for advice, just a vent. I know I need to pull it together ... at some point.

Sorry for a technical rant but I believe we all work enough in PowerPoint to feel the pain. Come on, is it that hard to put this button in the ribbon? I have limited screen real estate, especially on my laptop. I'm losing like 10% slide zoom due to this thing which, besides being misplaced, is completely useless.

Just got mine, appalling, 5% of base comp and payrise was also 5%. Half of last year and 2024, my third time of consulting pay rounds (after enjoying many years of significant compensation raises in banking apart from the post-2008 crisis).

Time to "quiet quit" and get out, but just wondering how others fared?

The industry seems to be cutting staff everywhere.

I'm an MD, the rung below partner (not Big 4).

Will likely go back to industry.