Is Glam Field of Management Consulting Really Falling into Abyss of Being a "Dying Industry?"

“Don’t do consulting it’s dying industry” - Post on Fishbowl Consulting, August 2023, warning a new M.B.A. to veer away from starting career in management consulting.

Could it really be happening: The glam job classification “management consulting” is a declining category of what’s in demand? Remember those days when we worked full-time in the Fortune 100 and consultants from McKinsey roamed the corridors … what power they had. We feared for our jobs. Boy, were we nervous when a McKinsey team member interviewed us.

So here we are. It is agreed that there is a scary slowdown in that professional service. That is, management consulting. So many are on the bench – that is, without projects. 

However, the optimists about its future note that the falloff in demand also has hit large prestigious law firms and pockets of the finance industry. Aren’t all of those cyclical! Stop the panic.

They also point out that some such as Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Weiss are doing jolly fine in the legal sector. There is even taking place the war of the titans taking place among the top players in large law firms.

Over in finance traditional firms such as JPMorgan Chase and alternative investment management ones such as Apollo are also thriving. Could the latter become the new success model for finance? Instead of decline there is disruption, right. 

However, the elephant in the room is the seemingly impossible possibility. That’s if business in general has become more confident about its own ability to solve its problems with internal resources. If so, the advice industry, which charges plenty, can go kaput. Generative AI can accelerate that process. Plug in the variables about your challenges and out can pop immediately incredible insights. Based on those, keep narrowing down the issue and unique solutions could emerge. Daily, new AI apps are being developed.

Another glam job category in major trouble is what’s goes on in Hollywood. The inability to resolve the strikes involving writers and actors is just a symptom of an industry which may not be able to hold up in changing times. Labor as well as the lawyers, agents and managers associated with production, distribution and promotion might not be able, for example, to make a living in AI times.

Then there’s glam media. Already once you’re knocked out of that box you might not be able to get back in. If Disney puts ABC on the block lots of you could be knocked out of that box.

In my exotic niches of intuitive coaching and Tarot reading, technology has also started to eat our lunch, dinner and breakfast.

Takeaway: Glam so easily can turn into yesterday.

Data or the gut for your careers and communications? Both of course. Complimentary consultation with intuitive coach, content-creator, and Tarot reader Jane Genova (text 202-468-8579, janegenova374@gmail.com).