What To Look For In A Consultant?

In the data analytics domain, engaging a consultant is often necessary when you are setting up a new analytics project or scaling up an existing one. There are no shortage of consultants across all subsets of the analytics domain - data engineers, business intelligence specialists, data scientists, data analytics, financial analysts, financial modelers, etc.

As a recruiter, whether you are an individual or hire on behalf of a company, you would want to check for these qualities in the candidates you are considering.

T-Shaped Expertise

What is T-shaped expertise?

It is having one core area of expertise and deep technical knowledge but a wide spread of application experience.

Source: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/power-t-shaped-skills-combining-expertise-versatility-haqiqifar/

You want a consultant who has a very clear and easily identified core area of technical expertise - you should be able to see a multi-year mix of learning, certification, recognition, publication, teaching and resource creation in a core domain area. For instance, I am a BI specialist who has written books, authored courses taken by over 70,000 people globally, has all the major certifications in my technology stack, speak on different technical platforms and have a badge of recognition from Microsoft as a Microsoft MVP.

What separates a great technical talent from an enthusiast is their body of work beyond just learning and throwing around industry jargon. In the consulting world, a great consultant would have identified gaps that he would have felt compelled to fix by creating quality resources. An enthusiast would mostly be focused on padding his resume.

The obvious core area of technical expertise is the I part of the T-shape. The’s the — part also that must be there. A great consultant would have had to deploy his technical expertise for different types of clients, industries and need scenarios. Your project should not be his first or second occasion to use his professed expertise.

Non-Combative and Not Overly Opinionated

You do not want a rigid consultant who instantly thinks he knows better than everyone else on the project team. You do not want someone who is highly experienced, very talented and very opinionated. No one is infallible and this type of people are have a higher chance of making mistakes that go undetected or become very costly to fix. Most companies you see using a suboptimal technical solution are victims of experts (either in-house or consultants) who believed their opinions must not be contradicted.

For young and inexperienced consultants, there is a big temptation to always act infallible, to project mastery of everything they are expected to be experts on. That is why you want to hire an expert who has industry recognition, a public high-quality body of work and a global/great reputation. For instance, I have a good amount of publicly visible work and a global recognition; I am therefore under less pressure to talk more than I listen or to give strong opinions just so that I am perceived as authoritative. In fact, I see myself as a technical guide helping the client and project team to uncover the best solutions.

Not Overly Ambititious

Unlike full-time internal employees, consultants are not supposed to play actively in office politics or begin to have agendas that are different from the optimal execution of the project they were engaged on. The best consultants are not worried about getting another client or another project, so there is truly nothing substantial to gain from trying to make themselves indispensable to a client beyond the project's close. On the flip side, an ambitious consultant can be a very dangerous consultant. He will get involved in needless politicking and go to great lengths to deny the client the value they paid for. If you have a consultant who is worried about where to get his next client or project, and is getting involved in your office politics, then you have a problem. The ideal consultant will always be uninterested in your office politics and will not give any visible sign of worry over project extension.

Ideally, I should be mentioning checking for an impressive resume, but in these days of professional resume writers, everyone can have an impressive resume. You should be looking for these points I have listed if you want to increase your chances of engaging a great and value-delivering consultant.