How To Become An Executive Consultant: What It Is and Career Path

What is an executive consultant and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

4 min read

Quoted expert

Angela Grotto Ph.D.

An executive consultant is an individual who gives advice, support, and guidance to an organization's management team. Their insights help the companies to come up with feasible and viable solutions for corporate issues.

Their key functions include meeting with the decision-makers in a company or organization to assess their needs, analyze data and information, detect the problems, and present suggestions within a specified time frame. They may work as freelancers or members of a consulting firm.

To communicate the organization's complex concerns and problems with higher officials, they should possess expert interacting skills. They must be attentive, punctual, and dedicated since the scope of work entails great time and energy.

The basic requirement to be an executive consultant is a bachelor's degree in management, finance, economics, or any other relevant field. However, employers prefer candidates with a master's degree and a minimum of eight years of professional management experience.

What general advice would you give to an executive consultant?

Angela Grotto Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Management, Manhattan College

When job searching, be active and persistent - Network by setting up Zoom informational calls with professionals (alumni, people with whom your family work) to learn about jobs that you are interested in or to learn about organizations where you would like to work and then follow up with them; have someone you trust who is a professional review your resume and social media profile pages; carve out time every day to apply to jobs; use Handshake and LinkedIn as a resource; keep sending out applications; while job searching, volunteer or start your business project that showcases your skillset and then discuss it during your interviews.
When interviewing, be creative - Use experiences from your academic career to demonstrate your capabilities. There are many skills you learn in class that are transferrable to the professional world. For example, as a student, you likely had to pivot to full remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Rather than seeing this as a disadvantage, discuss how the new learning format has prepared you to work remotely as an employee, how small group projects have primed you to collaborate on a virtual team, and how small classes have equipped you to use technology such as Zoom.
When deciding on a job offer, be open-minded - Your first job may not be the one you had imagined or hoped for upon graduation. Still, it may be a stepping stone to your ideal career or a way to build your network of professional connections. You create meaningful and valuable relationships with others who may one day help you get the job you want.
When you land the job, be flexible - Show your employer or your boss that you're willing to step outside your comfort zone and do tasks that you were not necessarily trained for or are unrelated to your degree. Also, when circumstances at work change, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic, show that you are willing to step up and do a different job, do someone else's job, or work on another project or team. This flexibility will demonstrate your versatility and how you can adapt to new and unpredictable situations. Lastly, embrace the "gig" economy - be willing to start as a temporary or contract worker with a company to get your foot in the door and build more professional connections.

ScoreExecutive ConsultantUS Average

Salary

8.4

Avg. Salary $131,331

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.5

Growth rate 10%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.1

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.23%

Asian 8.15%

Black or African American 3.04%

Hispanic or Latino 8.67%

Unknown 5.32%

White 74.58%

Gender

female 32.84%

male 67.16%

Age - 38

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 38

Stress level

7.5

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.0

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

3.5

Work life balance is poor

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become an executive consultant

Explore executive consultant education requirements

Most common executive consultant degrees

Bachelor's

67.3 %

Master's

19.8 %

Associate

7.1 %

Start to develop specific executive consultant skills

Skills	Percentages
Healthcare	16.89%
Business Development	8.41%
Financial Services	7.68%
Project Management	6.90%
Process Improvement	5.82%

Complete relevant executive consultant training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New executive consultants learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as an executive consultant based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real executive consultant resumes.

Research executive consultant duties and responsibilities

Recruit to manage key client engagements to define global strategic sourcing projects and solutions to utilize technology and advance ERP systems.
Manage e-commerce website and direct email campaigns to wholesale and retail customers, initiate SEO plan: organic and paid search.
Manage design and development of cloud-base billing application for streamlining payroll and invoicing, as well as offering real-time business analytics.
Own the PMO, reporting to the COO/CEO.

Get executive consultant experience

Generally, it takes 8-10 years to become an executive consultant. The most common roles before becoming an executive consultant include vice president, director team lead and consultant.

Prepare your executive consultant resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your executive consultant resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on an executive consultant resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable executive consultant resume templates

Build a professional executive consultant resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your executive consultant resume.