There's no denying that the consulting lifestyle can be extremely challenging. Regardless of the company they work for, management consultants work long hours and have to travel a lot to be able to work with clients in person. There is also a lot of pressure that consultants have to face. Like other high-powered professions, such as law or investment banking, a career in consulting can cause stress, anxiety, and fatigue.
When would this exhaustion normally occur? Well, it happens when you delay the process of taking care of your health and wait for your body to shut down before starting to act. It happens when you put on a brave face and are slow to ask for help or talk to a therapist. Consulting is not a 9-5 job. You may feel that you are “always working”, since you are expected to be on the road for a long time, and it can be tiring.
If you imagine stability and structure, consider starting a career elsewhere. Therefore, you can create your work to a great extent, Wouter said. To work in consulting, you'll need to create your own work structures and be responsible for your impact. Consulting ranked sixth in our recent ranking of the most stressful jobs in the financial services industry, right in the middle of the group.
However, almost all of the positions that were considered most stressful had an income-generating component. Risk management was the only outlier. Adding business development responsibilities dramatically increases the maximum compensation limit, but it can also increase a person's blood pressure, especially when it comes to a new position. At first, traveling can be very motivating, but as soon as consultants realize that much of their time is spent on planes and trains, they miss the convenience of staying at home, another consultant reports.
Many consultants would also agree with the fact that work-life balance is poor when working as a consultant. A former consultant remembers how her former employer sexually incited a young consultant.
