Consultant Profiles
The roles in Vantage Partners’ consulting practice are geared toward talented individuals who welcome a fast-paced, challenging environment. While the consulting team at Vantage Partners works collaboratively, each position in the consulting career path has a different focus and corresponding requirement for experience.
Below are descriptions of each role:
Principal
Principals are more senior leaders within Vantage Partners and as such take on significant internal and external responsibilities. They are “battle-tested” and having mastered a variety of skills and demonstrated competencies in multiple types of settings consistently.
Primary Principal Activities
- Designs and scopes projects of all types essentially independently;
- Acts as Engagement Leader for large, complex engagements;
- Manages client relationships with own clients and client accounts;
- Designs custom training programs;
- Leads delivery of both standard and customized training sessions across multiple types of audiences and different contexts, often with less senior resources acting as ‘second;’
- Authors articles and white papers;
- Speaks at conferences, association meetings, etc., and makes media appearances/is quoted from time to time;
- Works closely with Marketing on various initiatives;
- Develops and nurtures client accounts;
- As needed, leads business development pursuits;
- Develops new methodologies/approaches to address potential client needs;
- Leads Areas of Focus and/or manages people or functions internally;
- Formally coaches and/or mentors consultants.
Meet a Principal
Senior Consultants
With a deep understanding of business and Vantage’s unique intellectual property, Senior Consultants play a significant role on client engagements of increasingly greater size and complexity; as such, the role requires a greater and more sophisticated skill set than that of a Consultant. They also begin to take on more substantive roles across different Areas of Focus.
Primary Senior Consultant Activities
- Designs project approaches in consultation with Partners and Principals;
- Project-manages large, complex client engagements with minimal input from more senior resource;
- Acts as engagement leader for smaller engagements;
- Helps drive and shape the direction of client deliverables and the direction of the project;
- Facilitates client meetings and small working sessions with clients;
- Leads diagnostic interviews, providing a model for newer Consultants;
- Helps design custom trainings, including drafting agendas and cases/exercises;
- Acts as a second trainer on standard (Negotiation and Difficult Conversations) and custom trainings;
- Supports business development pursuits, particularly in his/her Area of Focus and with former clients;
- Drafts and co-authors articles and white papers;
- Coaches and mentors Consultants and Analysts, often informally or in the context of projects;
- Leads/participates in internal teams, e.g., recruiting, professional development, knowledge management.
Meet a Senior Consultant
Consultants
Consultants generally come to Vantage with several years of business experience and play a significant role in project-managing client engagements and contributing to client deliverables, working closely with Senior Consultants, Principals, and Partners.
Primary Consultant Activities
- Project-manages client engagements and significant internal projects;
- Facilitates regular meetings and participates in working sessions with clients;
Serves as primary drafter for client deliverables and takes responsibility for soliciting and incorporating input from other team members;
- Reviews deliverables with clients and solicits feedback;
- Analyzes complex qualitative and quantitative data as part of diagnostic projects and internal or client-funded research studies;
- Conducts diagnostic interviews;
- Acts as a second trainer for standard Negotiation and Difficult Conversations trainings.
- Supports business development pursuits;
- Contributes to writing whitepapers and articles;
- Participates in internal teams, e.g., Area of Focus, recruiting, professional development, knowledge management.
Meet a Consultant
Analysts
The Analyst role is our entry-level consulting position, focusing primarily on internal activities, in particular, supporting the firm’s marketing and early-stage business development efforts; conducting significant internal projects; and supporting activities in our areas of focus. From time to time, Analysts are also asked to support client engagements.
Primary Analyst Activities
- Conducts background research on potential clients and newly engaged clients;
- Conducts secondary, and sometimes primary, research for various studies and articles;
- Coordinates and helps to draft marketing materials such as case studies describing prior client projects;
- Gathers and develops materials for client presentations, speaking engagements, and conferences;
- Supports research projects by helping with survey design and distribution, participation tracking, data management, data analysis, and report writing;
- Manages small to medium-sized internally-focused projects like research studies, book-writing, and strategy-development efforts.
Meet an Analyst
Professional Development
Because of the relatively flat organizational structure of the firm, members of the consulting team benefit from a significant amount of responsibility early in their careers. We actively leverage any major client engagement or internal project as a development opportunity for individuals to build new or enhanced competencies and receive real-time coaching and feedback. The small size of our case teams and our coaching model offer individuals regular interaction with more senior members of the firm. Additionally, there are a series of programs throughout the year to support the continual development of Vantage employees. Sample topics include a Vantage Tools Review; Vantage Area of Focus Overviews; Consulting 101 and 102; and Finance 101.
Recruiting Process
The recruiting process begins with a first round phone interview with one of our Consultants. We then conduct final round interviews by hosting an "Interview Day" where we invite a group of candidates to our Boston office for a series of one-on-one and group interviews. The day typically includes a presentation and Q&A on the company, a case interview, an informal group discussion, and the opportunity to meet a number of individuals on our consulting team. Our goal is to create a stimulating and open environment where we can evaluate one another as potential colleagues, and hopefully have some fun in the process.
Interested candidates are encouraged to email a resume and cover letter to:
hr_recruiting@vantagepartners.com