Best Practices in Career Development

Formal training begins in the one-week orientation session, post-hiring, which comprises local office training and integration. Then follows three to four one-week global training session, in which eight to ten recruits from around the globe are grouped with seasoned consultants similarly drawn from all around the world.

The firm emphasizes formalized coaching and training, a process that is never-ending. It seeks to match individual needs and career objectives with specific client projects. Several programs abet this objective, among them a global mobility program that provides international experiences. "Understanding how to compete in the global economy is an important career step," Hagey explains.

One of Bain's top programs offers externships that offer staff the freedom to spend six months working in another organization, such as a non-profit enterprise. "They acquire different experiences that they can then apply to their work at Bain," says Hagey. "It helps them become better consultants and executive advisers, which flows into their personal development and our ability to deliver great results for clients. It's also a very powerful way to attract people to the firm."

Staff is formally evaluated twice a year for skills they have mastered and those they still need to develop. "We look to partners and managers to be coaches and mentors, much like the master carpenter teaching the apprentice," Hagey says. The one-on-one training is augmented by specific content available at Bain Virtual University, which includes video role-playing and interactive features.

Bain also offers employees flexible leave of absence options. "Many firms are challenged by retaining people in what is a very intense job," Hagey explains. "We have a program where we let staff off for up to two months or give them a part-time schedule to do work in their communities. We want their careers here to be long-term and well-spent."

• Booz Allen Hamilton

There are orientation programs and then there is Booz Allen Hamilton's program—a full year's effort that kicks off with a mandatory week of training at the firm's headquarters near Washington, D.C. There, recruits are given a walk-through simulation of the consultant lifecycle, insofar as the different jobs and teams they may encounter during their careers and how their respective skills need to match up. During the remainder of the year, the firm has what it calls "touchpoints," monthly pulse checks to ensure the new hires are on track.

Each person, when they come on board, is designated a career manager—a peer level consultant working in the new employee's initial line of business—and a mentor drawn from senior consultant ranks. "The peer manager is responsible for the success of the individual, making sure he or she understands their role, their positioning in the business, their performance objectives for the year, and the development actions required to meet them and hone their competencies," says David Sylvester, director of leadership and talent management.

As new hires develop traction, the firm gives them opportunities to expand their career horizons via resource posts. "If someone wants to make a change or do something different, they can review what's available and then discuss the opportunity with their career manager and mentor," says Aimee George Leary, director of learning and development. "Our philosophy is to support people in their career decisions. We hire staff for life. We are not a body shop."

Collaboration and teamwork also are evident in the firm's job performance assessments, which are peer-led. "If two people work together at the same level they will write up each other's assessment," says Sylvester. "Before doing this, they would sit down with the other person's career manager to define the parameters for measuring performance. They'd then collect feedback from internal and external clients. When the review is completed, a committee overlooking the person's career vets it and draws up development actions. This might involve targeted coaching and mentoring or a specific training course."

Booz Allen offers three interactive, Web-based training programs dubbed Take Five. The first assists staff to contemplate their careers introspectively to get a clearer picture of what they might want, career-wise, in the future. The second provides ways to expand professional networking within the firm. And, the third, which is designed more for mid-level and tenured staff, helps them establish firmer actions to reach defined career targets.

So important is career development at Booz Allen that it is one of the key criteria determining partner-level and manager-level performance. "We measure all senior leaders in terms of how they developed their staff," says George Leary. "We take mentoring and coaching here very seriously."

• Deloitte Consulting

Like other firms, Deloitte Consulting is cognizant of the strains of the profession on people's work and lives, and has structured its career management program with this in mind. As Bill Pelster, managing principal of talent development for the parent firm Deloitte LLP, puts it, "We're interested here in the career-life fit."

This interest has compelled Deloitte to be flexible in accommodating employees' wishes to slow down and take time off without jeopardizing their career advancement. "We acknowledge and understand that individuals at various times want to accelerate their careers, and at other times, for a variety of reasons, may want to get off the fast track," Pelster explains. "This is why our conversations with employees is about long-term career goals—not what needs to happen next week or next month." He adds that this flexibility has assisted retention efforts.

Orientation of recruits begins with a program called Welcome to Deloitte. A primer on the firm, it includes expectations of performance, introduces the networks that will become crucial as projects are undertaken, and provides simulations of what it will be like working on a project. "When someone is on their first project, we want them to hit the ground running," says Rick Harrison, national managing director of talent at Deloitte Consulting.

"Competencies form the bedrock of a career, and layered on top of this is the expectations framework," Pelster says. "New hires are given tremendous flexibility to become individual learners, taking formal classes, in addition to on-the-job learning. They control the speed at which they go through the organization. We throw them in the deep end of the swimming pool on the first engagement and help them to swim after that point."

As employees' expertise and skills accumulate, they can solicit advice on a career path fromboth the firm's Career Advisory Council and Alumni Council, composed of senior level executives and retirees, respectively. One-on-one coaching also is available through Deloitte's Imagine Program, which interactively poses a series of virtual questions to individuals concerning their career goals.

"We challenge them to think about what they want to do and how they might get there, and introduce the obstacles that may be in the way and how to overcome them," Harrison explains. "For example, if they are headed down a particular path, we might ask, 'What if something else of interest came your way?' or 'What if something at home requiring your attention reared?' We understand that people have other priorities in their lives."

• KPMG

KPMG is on the same quest. "The price of entry here has to do with a certain educational background and technical skills in risk and controls, corporate performance improvement and technology, but even more vital is finding that special kind of individual with high ethical values, great integrity, a desire to be a member of a team as well as make an individual contribution, and just great relationship-building skills," says Bruce Pfau, vice chair of human resources.

Added to these are the customary analytical skills, particularly towards transactions and restructuring engagements, strong written and verbal communication skills, and the ability to be a fast learner because, as Pfau points out, "every engagement has unique elements. Someone who can grasp facts and situations quickly, synthesize them fast, and then communicate a direction is on the right career path here."

Obviously, not everyone fits this exacting profile. Those who do are given the usual orientation—introduction to the firm, its history and values. They receive the basics on the different practice areas and performance expectations.

Each recruit is designated a PML, or People Management Leader, whose job is to get the new hires assigned to the appropriate engagements, provide feedback on the recruit's performance during and after the engagement, and handle coaching and counseling around their work-life balance.

The firm's career development philosophy is to give employees a variety of experiences and opportunities across various assignments. Consequently, it resists moving toward areas of specialization too soon, although it still tries to accommodate the wishes of staff regarding particular engagement interests. "There is a commercial element that also must be considered since consulting engagements can shift quarter to quarter, requiring us to put people where they are needed, rather than where they might want to be at that time," Pfau acknowledges.

Rising up the ladder is merit-oriented, experience-oriented and competency-based, he adds. Partners and managers running an engagement provide feedback and performance evaluations of those on their teams, with relevant training prescribed. The PML reviews these recommendations, and offers his or her own coaching, one-on-one, and also through a suite of online, self-service tools called Career Architecture. "They might circle an area of interest and get back the recommended training to beef up certain skills," Pfau says. "Developmental rotations like an overseas assignment or some sort of community activity or corporate social responsibility project might be suggested."

KPMG offers employees a series of Career Architecture programs, from the internship level to those on the verge of becoming partner. "We even provide guidance straight on through to the alumni who leave the firm," Pfau notes. "This is a great place to build a career."

• Stroud Consulting

Last year, Stroud Consulting vetted more than 800 applicants for positions at its Marblehead, Mass.-based headquarters, a group that included many of the best students from MIT, Columbia and Cornell. When the dust settled, 20 positions were offered. All were accepted.

Stroud has made something of a name for itself as a nimble consultancy that can push the envelope in client engagements. "Our tag line is 'Unleashing Potential,'" says Nathaniel Green, Managing Partner of the global consulting practice. With 65 employees, two offices (the other is in the United Kingdom serving Europe) and just two MBAs on staff, Green says what separates Stroud from others is the types of individuals it hires and how it trains them.

Almost no one at the firm has worked in another consulting organization. "Most don't even know the familiar terms consultants use," Green confides. "We're very much home grown and home developed. Our people are highly educated but not experienced, veteran consultants. And that's good for us because we approach things differently."

Typically, a client will seek consultation from someone in its industry, but that only leads to traditional ways of thinking through problems and traditional results, he explains. Stroud, on the other hand, believes that tossing smart people with highly developed analytical skills at a new project generates out-of-the-box solutions. "Key to this is developing talent," Green says.

In this, it again departs from the norm. Once recruits learn the basics, they're immediately put on a project. "Anyone with us by the third week is onsite delivering real, meaningful work," Green says. "They're not carrying someone's bag or writing 'slide two' in a PowerPoint deck. We always try to give them a bit more than they can handle.

They may start with a small piece of the project, but over time they are given more and greater responsibility. Eventually they reach a point of being able to manage others. Building confidence is the most important thing. We train our people to think and be bold, and to be able to challenge and change the status quo."
As elsewhere in the industry, recruits are coached and evaluated. The difference with Stroud, Green says, is that the firm insists on personal feedback, believing self-analysis is as important as peer evaluation. "Feedback is woven into our culture," he adds. "I gave a presentation this morning to some people joining the firm. Afterwards, the first thing I asked was how they felt I could improve the presentation. That says it all."

• ZS Associates

Twenty-seven year-old ZS Associates focuses primarily on sales and marketing consulting and has a large and growing list of health care company engagements. Founded by two professors from Kellogg Graduate School of Management, the firm retains its academic roots, promoting an internal
culture of career development through training, directed learning and entrepreneurship.

ZS Associates seeks recruits with deep analytical skills, says Jeff Griese, principal and Chief Human Resources Officer. "We do a lot of analytical work in helping clients solve problems, as opposed to other firms that use a business processes approach," he says. The firm also values individuals with a breadth of business capabilities and client presence. In addition, it doesn't seek staff with sales and marketing expertise, says Kelly Tousi, principal.

ZS hosts orientation sessions at its headquarters in Evanston, Ill., and another facility in India. High-level personnel join in to describe the technical skills required for a successful career. Each recruit is assigned a professional development manager, as well as a sponsor closer to their peer level, to ensure access to the firm's training resources and network. "They're given the tools and methodologies to get them quickly up to speed to become productive on their
first engagement," Griese says.

Indeed, once the three-week orientation concludes, new employees are put on their first client project. "We make them jump into the pool pretty quickly," Tousi says. "But, we give them only one project at this juncture, and make sure it is staffed by people with a lot of experience to provide additional coaching and
mentoring, where needed."

The goal of the career development strategy is to build competency gradually, as opposed to a jack-of-all-trades approach. "Sales and marketing can be broken down into twenty discrete things," Griese says. "An expert to us is someone who has mastered each of these by doing them many, many times. We're building depth of mastery."

Assisting this objective is ZS University. The course work, taught primarily by seasoned consultants within the firm, is geared to individual employee needs, based on their respective profiles. "We have developed what we call a competency model, a published document that gives clarity in terms of the skills and capabilities we expect employees to deliver," Griese says.

"There are eleven competency dimensions like expertise, client service, and analytical capability. Mastering one takes the individual to the next level in their career. It really is a living roadmap," he says. The document, which is revised every six months, contains a self-analysis by the employee, and perspective from project leaders and the professional development manager. "Our focus is taking a person to the next level to eventually become tomorrow's leaders," Tousi says. "We're growing fast, from 450 employees ten years ago to more than 1,400 today, so we have to grow our leaders just as fast."  Other "Best Practices in Career Development" – Point B