If your image of a consultant is a fusty old-timer dispensing pearls of wisdom gleaned from a career on the professional front line, think again. Today’s consultancies abound with youth. While industry experience remains a valued commodity, a new breed of career consultants has emerged in which recent graduates are trained in the art of change management despite having no direct experience of their clients’ businesses.

According to Jamie Devlin, who joined Accenture as a graduate in 2001 and is now a managing consultant at Hedra, lack of direct experience need not be a disadvantage.

“People often say how can you be a consultant when you’ve never done the job,” he says. “That shows a misconception of what consulting is. It’s not about doing the same job as the client. You don’t march in with methodology and then walk out four weeks later. Our job is to work with the client as a team, asking questions, working out strengths and weaknesses. That’s how you gain credibility.”

Devlin says that the consultant often has more experience of particular issues than the client. “Because we work with a number of different clients we can bring in approaches to problems that have worked elsewhere.”

Indeed, according to Ian Brown, the head of UK recruiting at the corporate consultants Oliver Wyman, the opportunity to gain a broad range of experience very quickly is one of the attractions of consultancy. “The advantage of working for a consultancy is the exposure you get from the start,” he says. “The fact that you’ve not got the experience can open more doors than it closes.”

Sophie Best, who heads graduate recruitment at the financial management consultants Watson Wyatt, agrees. “If you joined a bank or financial institution, for instance, you might take several years to become an expert in one or two areas,” she says. “But here you will work across a broad range of subjects with a number of different organisations.”

Many consultancies also offer graduates the opportunity for further study towards professional qualifications.

At the financial consultants KPMG, for instance, there are 22 entry routes for graduates, most combining on-the-job training with study for a professional qualification. Angela Machin, KPMG’s graduate recruitment manager, says that this represents a significant investment. “It costs about £92,000 to train a graduate, so that’s a big indication of our commitment to them.”

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