Hi there, Maybe no one will reply to this thread but it has been on my mind for a while.I have worked in Consulting for a couple of years and it seems to me it attracts 3 sorts of people:1) People that are not good enough (5%)2) Lazy loud mouth sales men (10%)3) Most importantly - Individual with Inferiority complex (85%). i.e. the sort of I don't believe I am good enough, so I will work 65 hrs a weeks etcAm I talking bolox because I do not think that I am!This is a serious point!

So for starter's, which one are you, Alex?

I have said a million times that I'm not a consultant, I'm a practice manager.I do this because I get to work with smart, energetic and sometimes quite inspiring people. Are they flawed? Yes, sometimes they are.But you paint the industry as though all consultants are marginal individuals and are no better than lepers.And thats not true.

Alex - What I infer from your post is, you are a frustrated consultant. Change jobs or get out of consulting. Consulting is a place where you can get a wide exposure to various scenarios. In addition, you are always looking to improve and tend to stay competitive. If you are <20 years experienced, its good to work hard and get lots of exposure to the outside world. On the contrary, you do have an option of moving to a Bank and work there 8 hrs a day and do the same over and over again for &apos;n&apos; number of years. But if something bad happens, and you get redundant, you would find it difficult to get into a good job because you dont have a very good working experience and exposure compared to a good consultant. There are bad consultants, who just dont do anything and just idle away time, but Exceptions are not rules.....If you want Career Progression - work hard and get to the level of a Partner and then you can choose to relax in a job.

Alex,Hmmm, not quite full on bolloxs (as you put it so directly) but I’d say you’re overly simplistic. Category 1 and 2 probably apply to every single organisation in the world (even those without salesmen have a fair percentage of loud mouths in an equivalent position). Category 3 implies that the tendency to work long hours is entirely attributable to inferiority complexes. Working long hours can be for a number of reasons:1) The need for a consulting team to “look like they’ve hit the ground running” when they take on a new assignment – even when it’s not necessary.2) The need to get up to speed quickly – when it really is necessary.3) The need to finish before a deadline – either because it was an arbitrary impossible one, or because many people just work that way.4) The need to look personally important or overworked or committed – which may be as a result of inferiority concerns or can frankly be a very calculated decision made just before bonus/promotion time.I would however agree consulting is one of a number of professions which attract people have trouble defining their value to the world in terms other than the importance of their employment activity. Personally I attribute this more to middle class narrow mindedness and lack of imagination rather than inferiority.

his final comment is also misleading. making partner in a major consultancy just means you are good at the process of making partner in a major consultancy, it doesn&apos;t necessarily mean you are expert in your field in a way which a corporate can leverage... if you get a couple of years as partner on the CV then go industry side, there are options available but you may actually take a drop in relative seniority/prestige and indeed comp - because your value as a strategist/deliverer is less than as a revenue generator. if you stay on and become a senior partner, the pool of exit options becomes shinier but much smaller and you certainly cannot sit back and relax - your targets get ever bigger and your peers ever more challenging...

Billum, are you a partner in a consulting firm?

have been a partner in two large firms, and on the other side of the fence in FS, now an independent consultant and considerably more relaxed :)