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StrategyEntry 5

ManagementConsultant

A company pays your firm to answer a question it cannot answer on its own. You do the work behind that answer.

The same work is also posted as
Strategy ConsultantBusiness AnalystAssociate ConsultantConsulting AnalystAdvisory AssociateBusiness Consultant

What the title covers

Work performed for a client company rather than for your own employer. A question is agreed at the start of a project, the project runs for a few weeks to a few months, and a small team gathers data, interviews people inside the client, and builds an argument. The analysis is usually done in Excel and the output is usually a set of slides presented to client executives. In most cases you inform the decision and then leave. Someone at the client carries it out.

A second use of this title

Same title, different job

At technology services, staffing and implementation firms, Consultant often describes someone billed out to a client for months at a time to configure a system, run a process, or fill a gap in the client's own staff. That work is delivery rather than advice, and it is measured by hours billed rather than by recommendations made.

A posting that names specific software, refers to a client site placement, or mentions a utilization target is describing that second job. A posting built around case studies, hypotheses, and executive presentations is describing the first.

Where it is found

Firms that sell advice by the project, plus a smaller number of large companies that run the same function internally.

Strategy firmsShort projects for senior executives. Small teams, heavy recruiting on a fixed campus timeline.
Large accounting and advisory firmsA wider mix of advisory, regulatory and implementation work across many industries.
Boutique and specialist firmsOne industry or one function, such as healthcare pricing, supply chain, or private equity diligence.
Internal strategy groupsThe same work done inside one company for its own leadership. Often titled Internal Consultant or Strategy Analyst.

Typical entry requirements

Education
Bachelor's degree in any major. Economics, business and engineering are common, but these firms hire broadly
Expected
Excel and PowerPoint at speed, including building a simple model and a clean slide
Frequently required
Passing a case interview, which is a business problem solved out loud with the interviewer
Often listed
Willingness to travel and to work on site with the client during the week
Experience
Zero to two years. Most entry level hiring runs through campus recruiting on a fall timeline, roughly a year before the start date
Example of a taskStrategy

What a typical day may look like

The request below is typical of how this kind of work is assigned. The steps that follow describe what completing it involves.

Your engagement manager4:52 PM
The client thinks discounting is why margin is down. Partner meeting is Thursday. Can you take the pricing piece and come back with a view?

Three days to complete.

01

Write the question in one sentence and confirm with the engagement manager that it is the question the client actually asked.

02

State what you expect to find before starting, so you can tell later whether the evidence changed your view or confirmed it.

03

List what would have to be true for that answer to hold, and what evidence would settle each part.

04

Use what the client already has, such as the price list, the discount records, and notes on deals won and lost, before asking them to produce anything new.

05

Speak with two or three people who set prices day to day, because the written policy and the actual practice are usually different.

06

Compare how deeply each customer group was discounted against how often those deals closed, to see whether the lower prices produced the volume they were meant to.

07

Separate what the evidence supports from what it only suggests, and say which is which before the partner asks.

What is delivered

Three to five slides. One sentence at the top of each stating the finding, one chart beneath it as support, and a closing page listing what the team still needs from the client to confirm it.

FitManagement Consultant

Is this job for you

Characteristics of the work itself, listed so you can compare them against how you prefer to spend your time.

Yes, if you like

  • Learning a new industry every few months
  • Being judged on how clearly you explain an answer
  • Working a problem to a fixed deadline
  • Presenting to people far more senior than you
  • Direct feedback on your work, often and in detail
  • Travel, and a week structured around a client's location

No, if you don't like

  • Owning a result rather than the analysis behind it
  • A predictable week you can plan around
  • Being the most experienced person in the room
  • Seeing a decision through to whether it worked
  • Building deep expertise in one company or one product
  • One employer, one office, and the same colleagues each week
CompensationUnited States

What this work pays

Two numbers, because they answer two different questions. The first is what you would be paid in your first job. The second is what people in this field earn after they have been doing it for years.

Starting out
$68,873Average starting salary, business graduates, Class of 2026

This is base pay, before any bonus. Consulting firms usually pay above this average. How far above depends almost entirely on which firm hires you.

After several years
$101,190Middle of the range across everyone in this field

This includes people with twenty years of experience, which is why it is much higher. The lowest paid ten percent earn under $59,720.

The firm matters more here than in most fields

Large advisory firms and regional consultancies commonly start graduates somewhere in the seventies to low nineties. The best paying strategy firms start graduates near a hundred and ten thousand, for the same title in the same year. That gap exists because the title covers two different kinds of work, and because the highest paying firms recruit from a narrow list of schools on a fixed annual timeline.

SOURCES / NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COLLEGES AND EMPLOYERS, WINTER 2026 SALARY SURVEY. U.S. BUREAU OF LABOR STATISTICS, OCCUPATIONAL EMPLOYMENT AND WAGE STATISTICS. GOVERNMENT DATA GROUPS THIS TITLE UNDER MANAGEMENT ANALYSTS, WHICH ALSO INCLUDES INDEPENDENT AND IN HOUSE ANALYSTS.

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