PM Careers in Financial Services (Part 2): The Firm-Based PM Consultant

Todd is Principal Implementation Management Consultant at BI-SAM and author of "No Project Management by Powerpoint".

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Topics: Career Development, Consulting, Financial Services, Strategy

The role of project management consultant has become a mainstay in the financial services industry. This is due, for the most part, to the multitude of projects initiated within the industry and the frequent difficulty of hiring full-time employees to manage them. Often it is much easier to hire these temporary project managers to work for the firm for the length of the project, and then allow them to leave when the project is over.

The temporary status of these resources will often “get around” the stringent head count constraints often found in both large and small financial firms. It is in this case that these firms turn to the PM consultant--an immediate and flexible solution for acquiring the required project management skillset without the commitment of hiring a full-time employee.

In order to better evaluate a career in project management consulting, one should first step back and understand the different types of PM consultant roles. Many types of consulting models exist, but I have found it best to divide project manager consultants into two genres: the firm-based consultant and the independent consultant. We will discuss the latter in an upcoming article, but in this second of a series of three, I will discuss the pros and cons of the firm-based project management consultant.

Firm-based consultants are full-time employees of consulting firms…

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