Consultants are problem solvers and valuable advocates during periods of change. The right consultant can add enormous value to your organisation. Once you’ve identified that you could benefit from hiring a consultant, the next step is to choose one.

An interesting article by Jake Fox of Whitecap Consulting to help you choose the right consultant for your needs.

Set out your criteria for choosing a consultant

Before you advertise a post, you should have a clear idea what qualities you are looking for in a consultant. Once you have established your priorities, develop a weighting system of the attributes that can be used to write the assignment advertisement and person specification, and rank potential candidates during the selection process.

Use your networks and get recommendations

Contacts and networks are a great place to start when looking for a good consultant. Seek recommendations from peers and business networks. Online business networks, such as active LinkedIn groups, can also provide recommendations from your peers.

Is a consultant’s sector experience important?

Some might say looking for a consultant with sector experience is an absolute must. While sector experience can be useful, it’s not the sector experience that necessarily matters. For example, if you work in the financial technology sector and seek only a specialist FinTech consultant, you might miss out on a better consultant with the breadth of experience that comes from working across many different sectors.

Consider the cost

The cost of hiring a consultant is an important consideration, of course. But the real decision to be made is around return on investment. The consultant selection process should include an open and frank discussion about how fees are charged and what the costs will be. It is then up to you to negotiate a price that is fair for both parties.

Does the location of a consultant matter?

To really ‘get under the skin’ of your business and understand it, a consultant will usually need to spend time onsite with you, speaking to employees and building a complete picture of any issues and opportunities. The level to which a consultant needs to be embedded in your business will determine how important it is that they are based close to your location.

Make sure a consultant has excellent communication skills

A good consultant will need to communicate effectively with people at all levels of the organisation to really get to know your business culture. Your chosen consultant should be able to develop effective lines of communication with all stakeholders. The most important quality is the ability to listen, understand and ask the right questions.

Check the consultant’s creative problem solving skills

If you require a new solution to an old problem, a consultant with a proven track record of providing innovative solutions is likely to have the creative problem solving skills necessary to fulfil your brief. But if you simply need a specified job doing quickly in a particular way, an innovator might not offer the solution you expected. It’s about understanding what you want from a consultant and briefing them effectively.

Marvin Bower, the patriarch of McKinsey & Company, once said:

“A successful consultant has outstanding analytical skills and the ability to synthesise his thoughts readily in reaching conclusions. He is a quick and effective learner; imaginative and creative.”