You don't have enough experience

That's how first-year consultants feel. But in consulting, you will never have enough experience. So, learning how to work well will be your best weapon.

Last week, I had a call with a first-year, lateral-hire MBB consultant.

"I don't have enough business experience," he shared his biggest challenge.

He joined consulting straight from academia after spending many years getting his PhD degree. He hoped to change his career and achieve his ambitious goals.

His words sounded so familiar to me.

That's exactly how I felt when I joined consulting at 34 as a lateral hire.

At that time, I already had 13 years of work experience in different companies, such as a bank, an airline, a railway, and a software development company.

But I still felt unqualified for this job.

Here is a list of my insecurities at that time:

• I was too old for this job;

• My soft skills were not sophisticated enough to work with clients and build trusted relationships;

• English was not my native language. It was not good enough for international projects;

• My business school was not a target school, not prestigious enough;

• I am originally from Kazakhstan, a country that many colleagues and clients didn't know about;

At that time, I didn’t know that I experienced acute symptoms of imposter syndrome.

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If you are an MBB consultant and experience acute symptoms of imposter syndrome, book a free 1-1 consultation to discuss how exactly I can help you. There is no commitment and you can ask any burning questions in a risk-free environment.

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Later, I feared people would find out I was not smart enough for this job. I expected to be fired after the next performance review.

As I progressed, impostor syndrome never disappeared. It just continuously transformed into new insecurities, for example:

• I didn't have enough experience in a specific industry;

• I didn't know a specific topic, framework, or approach well enough;

• I was not ready to be a manager, associate partner, or partner.

It reached absurd levels.

Once, I joined a project where I felt I didn't have enough experience in a specific industry and topic. But I was actually the most experienced expert in that industry and topic in the entire firm.

That's when I realized I couldn't completely get rid of imposter syndrome. So, I had to learn to live with it and find a way to tame it.

Now, I see the same problems with the consultants I coach.

Insecurities come in different shapes and forms.

Extremely smart and successful people doubt their own intelligence and worth. That's what consulting does to them.

Of course, experience is helpful in consulting, but it is not essential, especially at the consultant level.

As consultants, we work in new industries, functions, and topics.

It's only normal that we might not have enough relevant experience.

That's why having a robust consulting toolkit becomes our lifeline. It's how we compensate for our lack of specific experience.

That is why I developed a coaching program for MBB consultants to help them acquire a robust consulting toolkit and achieve high performance.

If you are an MBB consultant sick of being stressed, anxious, and lost, I would like to speak with you.

Book a Free 1-1 Consultation to discuss whether I can help you through my coaching program. There is no commitment, and you can ask any burning questions in a risk-free environment.

Read this post to learn more about the Hero’s Journey coaching program.

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