Business Consulting Internship - Pairing Education and Experience

If you are preparing for a career in business consulting, the best possible start is with education and experience. Participating in a consulting internship and a consulting certification course simultaneously is ideal. When resumes are reviewed by most human resources departments or qualifications are studied by prospective clients, the first things most people look for are education and experience. Internships are mutually beneficial. They help students get the experience they need in the field, and they provide quality labor to the employer at little or no cost. Finding an internship with a successful consulting firm is an excellent way to learn the business.

This benefit is multiplied exponentially when the intern is taking a training course at the same time as the business consulting internship. Business consulting certification courses are marked by their applicability. Students can take the skills and methods they are learning from the program and see them put into practice right away. The core fundamentals of business, or management, consulting curriculum are the best practices of the field. These include the methods, models, processes, and formulas that have been proven by many people over a long period of time to be most effective and efficient. The courses also deal with the operational knowledge of business consulting.

One of the major benefits of a business consulting internship is seeing how a successful firm structures systems and day-to-day operations. A training course will also cover these areas. The double exposure helps students to learn them more fully. In addition, firms may be successful even though they are not using the most efficient processes. Training in how to structure the consulting assignments and consulting delivery models will give the students an opportunity to see several methods and decide which will work for them. Many consultants are self-employed, choosing not to work for established firms. Training courses can also show how this can be structured differently from a firm with many consultants.

A great business consulting internship and a great business consulting course will have at least one thing in common: ethical business practices. Though management consultants are focused on streamlining the business and increasing the profit line, they are professionals who should never recommend unethical methods or illegal actions. Toward this end, all good courses will include ethics considerations and guidelines in the curriculum. Pairing a solid business internship with an excellent certification training course results in an impressive resume and a certification credential.

Why Education and Training in the Business World Just Does Not Get It

It happened again. Today I received information on two separate learning events promising me significant cognitive growth. Upon closer, inspection these two announcements reinforced the reason why business education just doesn't get it. Please let me explain.

You probably know without thinking what 10 x 10 equals. However, if I asked you what 25 x 24 equals your response would not be nearly as quick. The simple reason is that you practice 10 x10 numerous times through the strategy of rote memorization. Today we call rote memorization spaced repetition.

However, you may have only answered 25 x 24 once to two times during your entire lifetime. You did not have numerous opportunities to commit the answer of this multiplication problem to memory.

Yet, there are companies that cater to the professional training and development industry as well as the K-12 education industry that promise to change behaviors. The only problem is that this change is very short lived.

Remember back during your school days and cramming for a final examination. You poured over the books the night before hoping to retain all that critical information. By the time of the test, you remembered only 50% especially if this was your first exposure to the material. You had a 50% chance of getting a true or false question right. Actually, the cramming was far better for multiple choice and fill in the blank responses.

Research tells us that 16 days after a one time exposure to a learning event you remember only 2%. Unless you, the learner have multiple exposures to the information and multiple opportunities to practice what you have learned, you will simply not retain it. Yet, businesses and organizations continue to purchase and deliver learning curriculum that cannot, let me repeat, cannot deliver sustainable performance improvement.

To truly change the behaviors of individuals require far more than read it, learn, test it and forget it. We must restructure learning from a perspective of performance that being the application of knowledge instead of the current perspective of learning that being the acquisition of knowledge.

The American Society of Training and Development (ASTD) through its ongoing research continues to reveal that most training does not deliver a positive return on investment. Yet, companies continue to send their people to one to three day business education seminars in hopes to change behaviors.

Let me ask you a question. How long did it take you to become the person that you are? Usually, years is the answer. So how can you change years of behavior over the course of 1 to 3 days? Simply speaking, you cannot!

Possibly, this is why corporate coaching and executive coaching has taken off because many of the coaches utilize a developmental process where the learning is staggered over weeks and months not hour and days.

Several years ago, my coach and now friend, David Herdlinger introduced the concept of the K.A.S.H. Box. I then expanded it into the K.A.S.H. Box for Sustainable Change. The core message is that when resources are directed solely to the knowledge and skills while ignoring the attitudes and habits there is no sustainable change that being return on investment. Monies are drained away from the K.A.S.H. Box. As my husband has said: It is not a question of do I know it, but rather do I want to do it.

Until the beliefs are changed that learning something will change behaviors, we will still experience less than positive performance improvement from employees. This belief that learning will change behaviors is the greatest obstacle to economic growth barring none.

So save your dollars and invest those dollars in extended learning engagements that will deliver a positive return on your training and education dollars. Finally, remember, that the brain will absorb only what the butt will endure.