A typical day - in ANY Consulting Firm is NEVER the same.
I spent 10 years in two Big4 Consulting firms and grew from a new Management Consultant to Senior Manager (1 step below Partner), so I’ve pretty much seen the whole spectrum of work that is done in Big4 Consulting firms.

The Captain Obvious caveat I’d like to make before you dive into this list is that the work you do will depend on the level you’re at. So if you’re a Consultant, you’ll be more the ‘do-er’ while as a Manager/ Senior Manager, you’ll be ‘say-er’, i.e. you are providing more guidance than doing the actual analysis.

Note my emphasis on the word ‘more’ - there’s nothing set in stone and your work, in addition to varying by role, will likely vary by the type of project you’re at and how the team is organized.

So here goes:

The night before a typical day:

  • Check meetings for the next day
  • Make sure you are prepared with whatever deliverables, documents, or points of view you need to contribute to the meetings.

Early morning
  • Wake up before 7am (non-negotiable)
  • Meditate/Journal to maintain sanity (optional)
  • Get a quick workout (optional)

After 7am
  • Check emails only after 7am. Refrain from becoming an email monkey by setting some boundaries with your work phone. Make sure this is not the first thing you do after you wake up.
  • I read about this really good hack called the 1-minute rule. If something can be done within 1 minute, you have to do it now. Simple. Same applies for emails - respond if it’ll take you less than 1 minute - if not, flag it so you can get back to it later.
  • Check your schedule/calendar to see if any meetings have moved around. On a typical day, there will be at least 2 rescheduled meetings if not more. Adjust conflicts with other meetings if required.

Before 8 am:
  • Get ready to go to work.
  • Pick up coffee/breakfast on the 5–10-minute commute to the client site from the nearby hotel. Most likely, you won’t surface from the Client site for the next few hours.

8:30/9 am: Internal team meeting
  • Discuss deliverables due or discussions lined up with the client for the day
  • Assign tasks and deadlines for the day
  • Set times for review with the team

9:30/10 am - Meet with the client sponsor
  • Give a quick update on progress made till date
  • Ask them about issues/ concerns that are top-of-mind for them
  • Set priorities for the day/ week

10/10:30 am onwards: Heads-down
  • Work on deliverable due to Client or Team Lead - could be a slide deck, discussion material for a workshop/lab, data analysis or future state vision.
  • If you’re a Manager or Senior Manager, you are probably reviewing all the team’s outputs from the previous day at this point

12:30pm: Order-in lunch
No getting out of this meeting room - optics is everything!

1:30 pm/2pm: Meet with Partner in the firm
Provide an overview of the project (This doesn’t happen on every typical day but can easily occur once a week. Consultants think in threes. So you should always have 3 things to say to the Partner:

  • what's going well
  • top 3 challenges, and
  • what are you doing about it

2:30pm/3 pm onwards: 1-on-1 meetings
  • Meet with teams working on different areas in your engagement
  • Walkthrough their analysis - let them present their findings.
  • Ask questions to challenge their analysis.
  • Provide feedback for them to add more details, correct presentation
  • Brainstorm with the team on how to put this analysis in front of the client
  • Again, if you’re not the Manager/ Senior Manager on the engagement, think of all the above as action items you need to work on

2 pm/3 pm/4 pm: Fire drill!
A typical day in Consulting is guaranteed to give you at least 1 fire drill. This is when the Source of the panic (could be the project sponsor/client, client’s boss, Consulting Firm’s Partner leading the project or his/her boss).

Fire drills come at the most unexpected times (add 7 am/9 am/11 am/1 pm/ 5 pm/7 pm/9 pm to the above times) and usually on the most unexpected issues.

Now is when you drop EVERYTHING you’re doing in your typical Consulting day and focus 100% on addressing this fire.

  • Identify the source of this pandemonium and reach out via IM, email, text, call (depends on your relationship with this party)
  • Discuss what exactly is required to address this fire
  • Identify who in your team can help with this. If your area of work gets called out, prepare to put in a late shift to address all the concerns in your area.
  • Keep working on fire drill till a reasonable draft is ready

7 pm: Remember you have a family
Take a break to call your spouse/ partner/kids/mom. All Consultants feel they’re saving the human race and have zero time, but a daily 10 minutes (or more) for family/friends can keep you grounded and help see the bigger picture in life.

7:30 pm/8 pm: Dinner anyone?
  • Order dinner if you expect to work late
  • If not - go out for dinner with the team. This is a good opportunity to connect with your colleagues on a personal level.

9:30 pm/10 pm or later (depends how much fun the dinner was!):
  • Get back to the hotel
  • Check your email again to see if any other bombshells have landed or if there’s a new fire drill
  • Address flagged email items - either Do or Delegate to a do-er

10:30pm: What’s next
  • Review any deliverables due in the AM to get a headstart on the next day
  • Check what meetings are due the next day to make sure you are prepared with either - documents for review or points to speak /contribute

11 pm: Sleep tight!
  • Wind down with a book
  • Drink Chamomile tea or smell lavender oil to de-stress
  • None of these things ever worked for me. I could never sleep in hotel rooms!

This was a typical day at the client location - but no day is ever going to be the same. 
Hope this helps! I wrote another post on a typical week at the client that offers more details on a typical Consulting travel project.

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Punya is a former management consultant with 15 years of experience at 2 Big4 firms, serving top Fortune500 clients. She has lived and worked in 6 countries and changed 3 careers working across several industries. Punya is passionate about coaching new and aspiring Consultants to succeed in Management Consulting.