What is the most important skill for a consultant/sr consultant, Excel or Powerpoint? just need one answer please, no depends upon stuff.

There is a clear answer here, with no 'depends upon' at all:For a consultant - ExcelFor a sr consultant - PowerpointHope that helps

@Sr ConsultantThey say that the questions that a person asks are more indicative of their intelligence than all the answers they might give.That puts you somewhere between Homer Simpson and Worzel Gummidge.Are you sure you're a sr cons?

for a senior manager - Salesforce.comfor a senior partner - Coutts e-banking

@ wowserYou shouldn't assume, i never said i am a senior consultant. You shouldn't either conclude unless you see in black and white. Sr. consultant is the name used by me for this forum.Based on your assumption and wrong conclusion i do not have to tell you where you belong. Are you sure you are not wasting your employers time by spending time on such forums, that is if you have a job at all.

Neither. Word is the most important skill.

That's like asking whether it's more important for a dentist to be good at pulling out teeth or putting in fillings.I'm so tired of the poor quality of discussion on this forum. Don't know why I come back really. That could be a good question for a future thread...

I was recently asked this question in an interview for Sr consultant role with a leading consultancy( though i am not a sr consultant. I have no consulting background). Now the responses on this forum have been really disappointing barring a few. No wonder people rightly think that MCs are down right arrogant, shallow, full of themselves and stupid.

You may be right about the arrogance and stupidity, but you should certainly lump yourself into at least one of the two if you think that:a) This is a question with an actual real answerb) The interviewer expected you to do anything other than provide a sensible rationale as to why it may be one, or the other, or equally bothIt's like asking someone whether planes should have more or less business class seats - you can quite legitimately say 'more', or 'less', but the real answer is how you justify your response with a logical rationale.So, how did you answer?Did you get the job?

Wow! Quite astonishing really. I do apologise for making the incredibly rash assumption that your use of the nickname "Sr Consultant" in some way implied that you might be, or percieve yourself to be, a sr consultant. Quite a schoolboy error on my part. That out of the way, it's not arrogance that has led so many existing management consultants to come back with a mixture of groans and withering responses - it's disappointment. Now that we understand the context of your question I think it makes alot more sense. It is of course a trick question used to weed out people who aspire to be a management consultant, yet have no real understanding of what we do on a daily basis (it's all powerpoint and excel - right?). Its not a question that would be asked of anyone who has already shown a clear understanding of what consultancy entails.The correct response is something along the lines of:"both are useful tools that are worth mastering - excel for analytics and number-crunching, powerpoint for visual support when presenting complex issues, plans, etc; that said they are simply tools. Being a wizz on excel is only useful if you understand the mathematical dynamics of the issue at hand, and while a bad powerpoint presentation can undermine good content, a multi-colour, 3D deck does little to hide poor content. Lets face it - both are packages that can be self taught to basic competence and both can be taught to professional level in a week or so in a classroom".If you gave a response along those lines, then you should be fine.If you tried to actually make some sort of silly rational arguement in favour of one or the other, then you're well and truly *%££ed.Of course if your conviction that MC's are "down right arrogant, shallow, full of themselves and stupid" came across in the interview, then its all a bit academic.PS - Can you guess why I use the nickname Wowser?

Great response wowser. I wonder what happend to SnrConsultant?

Wowser - if you think the thread is dumb then don't answer it - simple. Go and comment on a thread where you can add some value rather than keeping a poor thread going by slating someone. Sigh.