Is consulting still as sought after

General career
#1

Not sure if I’m going to get any actual answers about this since most people would probably not agree with me but I get the sense that consulting (especially management and strategy) industry is on the decline. MMB is often now not portrayed in a positive light in the media and as a simple example, Pete Buttigieg got so much shit just for working at McKinsey for a few years and being involved in a few controversial projects/clients. He had to justify and explain himself out of the bad publicity, which kinda makes me think that people are increasingly mistrustful towards consultants, to say the least.

My question is, has the shifting cultural narrative around consulting affected the industry in any major way? Will it still be such a prestigious and sought after career path after 10 or 20 years?

#2

I agree with your observations but I don’t really think it’s going to affect people wanting to go into consulting. It still gets paid a decent amount without requiring highly technical skills or academic background and a lot of people still buy into the prestige around it. The same thing is true for finance where bankers and Wall Street can have a bad rep without experiencing any decrease in interest from students who want to pursue those careers.

#3

I actually disagree with this, at least finance is generating $ and value whereas people are slowly seeing that consultants don’t create that much value at all.