How to hire a program management consultant

How to hire a program management consultant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step program management consultant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a program management consultant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new program management consultant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a program management consultant do?

Post a program management consultant job for free, promote it for a fee

Post free

1. Identify your hiring needs

   Before you post your program management consultant job, you should take the time to determine what type of worker your business needs. While certain jobs definitely require a full-time employee, it's sometimes better to find a program management consultant for hire on a part-time basis or as a contractor.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A program management consultant's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, program management consultants from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   Here's a comparison of program management consultant salaries for various roles:

   Type of Program Management Consultant	Description	Hourly rate
   Program Management Consultant	Management analysts, often called management consultants, propose ways to improve the efficiency of an organization. They advise managers on how to make organizations more profitable through reduced costs and increased revenues.	$35-65
   Consultant/Project Manager	Consultants/project managers act as planners, leaders, and advisors in business enterprises. These professionals facilitate meetings and establish positive relationships with vendors, management, and clients... Show more	$35-65
   Program Analyst	The job of program analysts is to plan, manage, and evaluate a company's computer programs. They usually perform different tasks, including researching and analyzing complex data to identify trends and offer the best recommendations for improvements... Show more	$25-50

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Customer Service
   • Project Management
   • Management Program
   • Healthcare
   • HR
   • Scrum
   • Process Improvement
   • Client Facing
   • Sigma
   • Lean Six Sigma
   • Customer Satisfaction
   • Cloud
   • DOD
   • SharePoint

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage all aspects of budget, logistics, resources, facilitation, execution, reporting, and documentation.
   • Manage logistics for faculty, support staff and participants including travel, housing, site selection, and equipment needs.
   • Manage group SharePoint site as administrator\designer implementing InfoPath forms, macro designs, and maintenance.
   • Manage multiple software development tracts to successfully deploy business analytics functionality to multiple business owners and end-users at Microsoft.
   • Design architecture of business process in order to fully vet requirement needs.
   • Define document architecture and library structure, maintain security, and oversee day to day administration.

   More program management consultant duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in the program management consultant job description is a good way to get more applicants. A program management consultant salary can be affected by several factors, such as the location of the job, the level of experience, education, certifications, and the employer's prestige.

   For example, the average salary for a program management consultant in North Dakota may be lower than in Maryland, and an entry-level engineer typically earns less than a senior-level program management consultant. Additionally, a program management consultant with lots of experience in the field may command a higher salary as a result.

   Average program management consultant salary

   $101,157yearly

   $48.63 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level program management consultant salary

   $74,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 15, 2025

   Average program management consultant salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	District of Columbia	$133,430	$64
   2	Maryland	$130,179	$63
   3	Washington	$128,884	$62
   4	California	$121,699	$59
   5	Texas	$117,156	$56
   6	New Jersey	$113,649	$55
   7	New York	$112,926	$54
   8	Louisiana	$111,083	$53
   9	Colorado	$108,448	$52
   10	Nevada	$108,247	$52
   11	Alabama	$106,549	$51
   12	Alaska	$106,132	$51
   13	Massachusetts	$104,551	$50
   14	Illinois	$100,848	$48
   15	Connecticut	$100,313	$48
   16	Pennsylvania	$99,324	$48
   17	Virginia	$97,787	$47
   18	South Carolina	$94,738	$46
   19	Arizona	$93,621	$45
   20	Georgia	$93,272	$45

   Average program management consultant salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	eBay	$131,351	$63.15	11
   2	Capgemini	$126,848	$60.98	238
   3	Microsoft	$125,532	$60.35	58
   4	Slalom	$124,767	$59.98	514
   5	Kaiser Permanente	$117,474	$56.48	95
   6	Dell	$112,793	$54.23	6
   7	CDW	$112,629	$54.15	11
   8	RSA Security LLC	$111,193	$53.46
   9	DXC Technology	$109,254	$52.53	17
   10	Frontline Education	$106,856	$51.37
   11	JPMorgan Chase & Co.	$106,292	$51.10	920
   12	NTT Data International L.L.C.	$105,103	$50.53	73
   13	Aetna	$104,875	$50.42	1
   14	EMC Insurance	$104,031	$50.01	7
   15	Mastercard	$103,957	$49.98	54
   16	AmeriHealth Caritas	$103,717	$49.86	2
   17	BTAS	$101,349	$48.73
   18	EMC	$100,481	$48.31
   19	Centric Consulting	$99,743	$47.95	2
   20	BioLife Solutions	$99,233	$47.71

4. Writing a program management consultant job description

   A program management consultant job description should include a summary of the role, required skills, and a list of responsibilities. It's also good to include a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager. Below, you can find an example of a program management consultant job description:

   Program management consultant job description example

   Client Services provides industry-leading operational support to Visa's clients around the world. With our deep knowledge and expertise, we are a key internal partner to Product and Technology, bringing the voice of the customer into the design, development and successful deployment of Visa products and services, and enabling our client facing teams to deliver and scale new products, services and initiatives into the market.
   
   Are you a Program Manager who thrives on delivering business and organizational impact through cross-functional initiatives? Are you as passionate about process management, communications, and iterative and continuous improvement as you are about time, budget and scope? If you answered yes, let's talk!
   
   This Program Manager will play a key role in creating and managing Client Outreach process that would impact hundreds of our clients for specific programs, scheduling, tracking and reporting on program progress - delivering measurable change and pro-actively identifying issues/risks for the programs.
   The What & The How.
   
   Take a data-driven approach to solving problems and delivering business and organizational outcomes through cross-functional, high visibility initiatives.
   
   Have a clear plan on how you will deliver the initiative, and be ready to proactively and transparently pivot when things happen that change your plan.
   
   Have a very adaptable plan in automation and create templates for artifacts that will help baseline a clear process for client outreach activities
   
   Use your agile and lean mindset to drive continuous process improvement and efficiencies in how we work within the PMO to drive change.
   
   Bring stakeholders and team members at multiple organizational levels along on the initiative journey via user-friendly and timely communications leveraging multiple communication channels.
   
   Strengthen our PMO foundation through best practices and by mentoring team members.
   
   Apply your passion for program management, continuous improvement, communications and change management to help us work at scale and keep us constantly evolving to meet business needs.
   
   Be reasonable and flexible as you create timelines and manage project team members, knowing it is as much about how you drive the change as driving the change itself. Create a program experience that people want to be a part of.
   
   Motivate your team with context, connection, and by using data to drive results.
   
   The HOW.
   
   Use strong communication skills to provide clear, concise, digestible, and proactive communication to stakeholders to ensure awareness and swiftly solve problems
   
   Collaborate, influence and be a change agent within the team and with cross-functional partners (at multiple levels) to achieve desired outcomes, without churn
   
   Apply leadership skills to evolving situations, aligning teams, providing appropriate context, pivoting direction, working expeditiously through ambiguity and prioritizing work to minimize churn
   
   Ready to get “Hands on” experience - working with readiness managers to create the documents and templates needed for the successful delivery of the initiatives
   
   Evaluating and assessing the programs strengths and improvement opportunities
   
   This is a hybrid position. Hybrid employees can alternate time between both remote and office. Employees in hybrid roles are expected to work from the office two days a week, Tuesdays and Wednesdays with a general guidepost of being in the office 50% of the time based on business needs.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are various strategies that you can use to find the right program management consultant for your business:

   • Consider promoting from within or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to find candidates who meet your education requirements.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to reach potential job candidates.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your program management consultant job on Zippia to find and recruit program management consultant candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   During your first interview to recruit program management consultants, engage with candidates to learn about their interest in the role and experience in the field. During the following interview, you'll be able to go into more detail about the company, the position, and the responsibilities.

   It's also good to ask about candidates' unique skills and talents. You can move on to the technical interview if a candidate is good enough for the next step.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new program management consultant

   Once you've found the program management consultant candidate you'd like to hire, it's time to write an offer letter. This should include an explicit job offer that includes the salary and the details of any other perks. Qualified candidates might be looking at multiple positions, so your offer must be competitive if you like the candidate. Also, be prepared for a negotiation stage, as candidates may way want to tweak the details of your initial offer. Once you've settled on these details, you can draft a contract to formalize your agreement.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new program management consultant. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

   Sign up to download full list

   Sign up

How much does it cost to hire a program management consultant?