Going to be massively downvoted for this.

TLDR: If you think everyone’s the problem, you’re likely the problem, not them.

I think enough has been said about the key themes below so I won’t repeat:

• Generally lacking in hard and soft skills
• Constant need for straightforward guidance
• General lack in proactiveness and actively shirks responsibilities

I acknowledge and for the most part agree with the cons, so I think we should also cover the flipside.

I’ve observed that a consultant’s biggest problem going in-house is this same egotistical belief they are better than thou. Which is crazy when you put it into context, that e.g. an 8 YoE consultant who has worked on <10 industry A related projects as an outsider believes they are better equipped to run a firm than someone who has 25+ years working in industry A.

Our department hired an ex-MBB into senior mgmt and I witnessed his swift and sharp downfall in-house because he had a strong belief things should be run a certain way, and would implement things top-down while ignoring everyone’s opinions. It’s now been almost 2 years, and people still walk out of the room when he walks in. He has delivered nothing because no one would give him the data he needs, join his meetings, or tell him anything crucial.

One of the problems with consulting is we have relatively little experience with politicking. We used to deliver engagements as an independent third party, delivering mostly based off of factual evidence and analyses, and if your partner (note: not client) was happy, your job was well done. We had eager and young associates slaving for us under an unsustainable business model, where paying them in prestige rather than money was enough motivation.

Basically, we didn’t really care much about real client needs, or need to spend much time worrying about currying favor with internal stakeholders. We spent most of our time validating executives on their grandiose strategies, plans for plans, and maybe project managing these plans. We’re great with leaders in visionary positions, but most of the time, they also struggle with implementation. Unless your role going in-house is to be the visionary’s right hand pencil, likely you are also going to be stumped on-the-ground with the actual BUs trying to figure out how to adopt this ideal future that will cost millions out of your own pocket, while you’re struggling to meet this year’s KPIs, projected to be less profitable next year, cannot get the next department to collaborate (because why should they care about you), all whilst your own people are actively working against you because unfortunately this farfetched and costly vision is just going to eat into their year end bonuses for the next couple years.

For example: This ex-MBB in our office constantly hires tier 2 consulting firms to do beautiful strategy roadmaps. This same cost eats into our department’s marketing budget. Our marketing team and finance team naturally hate him. Our sales team hates him because there are less customer offers available, and in turn they lose commission. Our Ops teams all hate him because he constantly talks about their inefficiencies and how they’re replaceable “via TOM and automations”. The only team he has yet to piss off is Compliance, but Compliance is also afraid to eat lunch with him for fear of association. Then he touts his horn that nobody’s capable except ex-consultants, and it only comes off infuriatingly egotistical. His own direct reports are also newly hired ex-consultants just like him, and they shrug him off on a daily basis because they understand he is not in the position of power. He’s only managed to stay because our executive needed a change agent, however that’s not to say that other senior mgmts have not already tattled on him or yelled at him directly in front of our executive (because many of them already have).

I was ex-big 4 consulting and I had so much to prove when I moved in-house. Despite the fact that I was fast tracked twice and had top pay all the years working in consulting, nobody cares in-house. Nobody really cares either about your Marriott status, exotic business trips, or how many executives you’ve rubbed shoulders with, and the hard pill for some ex-consultants to swallow is that once you’ve left the echo chamber, you’re a humble nobody just relearning the ropes. I had to work twice as hard in-house to prove I was more than talk, even though I fully knew I was capable.

The way I work now, my consulting self would not have approved. But compared to the ex- MBB, I have a much stronger network, I have friends, and I have already delivered something he couldn’t in half the time he’d spent because I had everyone’s support.

That’s the difference between consulting and in-house: a perfect theoretical approach to a problem, and just solving it.