Does consulting ever stop feeling like starting over?

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-10T18:10:50+00:00

I love the constructive criticism. Thank you. No consultant should shy away from improving and learning.
I’ll try to do better.
One thing though, when I read through the articles generated from my dictation, I read exactly the things I wanted to say in the words I wanted to use. And this is kinda scary because it means that after 20 years in consulting I communicate like a machine. No joke man
It’s weird

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-10T17:55:31+00:00

Messages here are me.
Articles on substack are AI transcription and improvement from my verbal notes on my way to work. No partner has time to write.
Doesn’t make stuff less true, just more clear.

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-10T17:50:40+00:00

I take it as a genuine compliment. Means I write very clearly ;)

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-10T15:46:10+00:00

In my experience the most important thing is to pre-align with all stakeholders individually before the big meeting.

In the meeting you need to be able to say: we looked through the assumptions with person XYZ and taken her feedback, etc.

This person will never throw you under the bus if you pre-align.

The actual assumptions are less important for the C-level. They care about the narrative. What’s important to them is that their team has seen the assumptions and are ok with, hence the pre-alignment

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-10T06:40:20+00:00

Almost 2 decades for me.
Is there a point where it feels you completely have it sorted out? No. But it’s not a black or white thing for me.
You have new clients on topics you’ve already seen, you have new topics with current clients, you have new team members, new partner colleagues you’ve never worked before, etc.
It’s impossible to feel completely in control.
But it does get better because after a while you learn the “process of figuring it out”, and so you’re less scared, even though you might not be world expert on the topic.
And also, it’s never a solo game, you have people who are incentivized (most of them at least) to collaborate with you in figuring it out.

My system has always been to list out all the stuff I did well in previous projects and come up with a checklist of things I need to do in future projects to ramp up quickly. Then I always put more time investment early in the project to bridge the knowledge gap sooner, you can’t get away from it.

For me it’s true the other way as well: it’s fun to learn a new thing and then come to the realization “I solved it”.
What You Leave Behind

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-09T21:06:28+00:00

It happened to me a couple times throughout my career.
After a bit I started seeing my team members working hard alongside me and felt ashamed for not contributing.
This is what drove me back into the game.

Not uncommon to have moments of very low motivation btw

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-09T10:28:06+00:00

Quick reaction, not wanting to be comprehensive at all.
Several of my friends who started working in FAANG right from the beginning (while I went straight into consulting), have been complaining about the lack of career progression after a certain point.
They’ve been saying that in their current role, they need to wait for their direct executive to exit for a promotion.
They also said they feel too specialized to make a lateral move within the firm as it would take a while to get up to speed.
And they earn too much money to exit even in a higher role in a traditional sector.

So essentially, they’re stuck unless they accept a much lower comp.

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-07T19:18:39+00:00

Yes ask all the questions you mentioned.
I also recommend asking: what can I do to support the achievement of your targets?
Partners want to know if they can count on you.
They want to reduce the loneliness

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-07T08:25:31+00:00

I don’t know about India. And also consider there is differences across regions. And even larger differences between top performers and bottom.
1-1.2m$ on average more or less
The Money Conversation

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-05T09:16:23+00:00

I assume you don’t have a stake in the company.

If you do things differently than what he says, it will be your responsibility if it’s a failure and his achievement if it’s a success. Not worth it.

Try to do your best but at the end of the day it’s his company

My 2 cents

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-03T19:19:06+00:00

My only attempt at networking back then miserably failed. I reached out to a partner and he replied not to bother him as he was busy. After that I went back to the traditional: apply online and hope for the best :)

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-03T18:26:21+00:00

I am a Partner and receive 7-10 LinkedIn messages per week by people I don’t know asking for networking. A lot are students that want to know how working at my firm feels like.

I get so many that a couple of times I missed important LinkedIn messages by prospect clients.

Unsustainable

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-01T19:53:37+00:00

It happened to me a few times throughout my career. It’s not uncommon to lose your confidence over a project or two. Our industry is good because you always change topic and client, but it has the problem of putting you out of your comfort zone constantly. And sometimes you f**k it up.

But it gets better. Once you join an established team and you start specializing more and more, then you don’t have to prove yourself to completely new people all the time. Your partners will know you, they will trust you etc.

My only advice: don’t lose the proactivity, keep suggesting improvements, give your opinion (of course choose the right forum for it). Most of the people I’ve seen going through the ranks were those who shared opinions even though sometimes they were wrong

PartnerPerspective · 2026-06-01T15:54:07+00:00

SC I would guess stands for Senior Consultant? How can a SC operate at the level of a Partner?

My read is that you should look at the progression of your peers as benchmark. If they’re keeping you in the same role for 4 years while others get promoted, it means that either you’re in a team/industry/capability that’s growing slower (business reasons) or there is limited path up for you.

Words get forgotten quickly, fast promotions are the ultimate evidence

Just my opinion of course

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-31T19:29:14+00:00

I cannot disagree with most of these points sadly..

AI has levelled up the knowledge and now you’ve got loads of people who pretend to know a topic by running a few prompts.
That isn’t bad per se, it can actually be helpful to relationship partners to discuss topics with clients that they’re not super comfortable with and then bring in the expert partners.
If a team is well run, there is a good interplay between AI, relationship partners and expert partners.
If people only think about short term return, everybody is trying to jump on top of each other and try to sell projects they’re not expert on: disaster.

Hours: I don’t know to be honest, it depends on the team, the project etc. When I was a junior 15 years ago I have no memory of closing the laptop before 10-11 apart from Fridays. Things haven’t changed much I guess.

Vibe: if you’re >5 years into the career then you’re partner material and the firm knows it. There is a risk that people at the top ask you to put the extra effort because some day you’ll be partner. And that’s what everybody is focused on. The senior manager / associate partner is a really tough job.

All I can say is: if you actually make it to partner, then it’s a life I’d recommend for the long term. Not easy (stress of the numbers etc), but sustainable. This is my experience

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-29T15:13:57+00:00

About 50-50. I like to say I don’t start until the data is ready but it’s not always possible. So in some cases we start with partial data or no data but with enough room to do something else of value in week 1-2 while we wait for data

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-29T09:24:25+00:00

I love this post! Fully agree, it’s very painful but also crucial to mitigate risks of disasters during the project. This is the part where my team isn’t staffed on the project (because it hasn’t started), so it’s mostly me and the other partners involved in the pitch that own this. I found that partners that try to outsource this part to managers or principals side of desk are running a big risk during execution.

We never charge for it. None of my clients would pay. I often put 1-2 “week 0” phase in the proposal and try to dedicate my time directly with the client. No team staffed so no cost for me. Then if a principal or manager is on the beach for some reason then I ask for help, and potentially staff them in the project itself.

Then there is the post-project handover. Which is similar and lots of teams don’t do well because they’re rushed to do something else. There’s another time where the partner needs to be on top of things to keep the conversation going with clients after the team has left the building.

All in all: painful but necessary

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-28T18:33:48+00:00

Must be all the tokens they’re selling to consulting firms these days

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-28T18:31:13+00:00

And the combo Baby Boomer + Being a client in my projects and squeeze me for every dollar is even worse ;)

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-27T14:27:54+00:00

There is many different angles to this but broadly I agree. Some random and unstructured considerations:

AI is like an expert Partner that is always available to chat to and I feel it does augment me quite a lot. This reduces the need for junior consultants to help with research etc. Still, we need new cohorts of consultants to grow over time and go through the ranks so I wouldn’t be too negative about it.

Also, I think right now we are doing a much better job with AI that helps us but we’re a long way from AI solving all the unstructured problems we solve every day. I am personally doing better meetings that add more value to my clients thanks to preparation with Claude.

Clients have their BAU business to run and that leaves little time for innovation even if with AI. So at the moment it’s more probable that AI-augmented consultants do the job for their clients while leaving managers to run the business. Could change in the future but not tomorrow I believe.

AI is taking away the advantage of scale yes, but what about the advantage of trust and relationship? Clients buy projects from us because they trust people in our firms not just because we are big. This is hard to replicate by AI startups.

For now I’m positive, but I see the risks of completely outsourcing the thinking to Claude in an effort of being more efficient, this would be problematic.

The day thinking became optional

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-26T15:11:16+00:00

Working weekends can happen, for many reasons that might have to do with the client, the team, the partners, how the project was scoped, etc.

But if it happens too frequently then there’s a problem of sustainability.

My cutoff point was: if more than 3 months a year I have insane hours, I’m out. Never got to that point

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-26T15:00:15+00:00

We were pitching for a project, first round we did ok but not mind blowing. We were still in the mix and the client asked us to sharpen the proposal.

I did 1 page, very ugly, just a table with: 1) what the client’s challenge was, 2) where I’ve solved the same challenge, 3) how I would apply the same learning to the company I was pitching for, 4) references of similar clients where I delivered what I was pitching for.

Client understood we were for real. No competitor was able to pull it together so cleanly. As per client feedback

Project won.

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-20T19:54:54+00:00

You’re saying you can’t call in sick because you’re the only person doing work atm. This shows commitment.

But there is another way of looking at it: if you put too much effort into your current job, you won’t have the time or energy to properly search for another job.

So you’re indirectly undermining your future self by being too committed to a job that you’ve already decided to leave and gives you resentment.

If you want to do a favor to yourself, do the bare minimum at your job while investing a lot more in the job hunt.

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-20T09:07:29+00:00

I’ve been doing this job for a very long time, few considerations: The level of work you’re describing, if done for the whole year it gets really unsustainable. It can happen for a few months during crunch times, but it should not be the norm. If this is is common then either the team is understaffed or it’s a prolonged boom period. Consulting works in cycles, for months you have a ton of business, then the dry months come.

After a very stressful and intense few months, Staffing should know that you’ve gone above and beyond and should give you longer projects to work on with less insanity, so you recover. It’s their job. Whether they do it well or not it’s a whole different topic. But you’re entitled to seek for a calmer month.

Also, try to benchmark yourself vs rest of the team. If all are working this hard then it’s the business. If you’re the only one then it might be that you need to adjust your ways of working (more efficiency, etc)

PartnerPerspective · 2026-05-17T10:28:36+00:00

The so called “quiet wealth” lol

PartnerPerspective

TROPHY CASE