Career path in consultancy: challenges for the near future

• Autor(a) principal: Guanilho, Diogo Correia Santos
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19677
• topic: Career management; Consultancy organizations; Seniority; Performance; Gestão de carreiras; Empresas de consultoria; Antiguidade; Desempenho

Careers have been evolving over the years, as a result of changes in the labor market and individuals’ perspectives. Until 21st century, careers were relatively stable, and individuals usually had only one job experience throughout their life. Nowadays, looking for different working experiences and development opportunities within diverse companies is quite common, and individuals are more concerned about their career movements. In this context, organizations were pushed to adapt their employee value proposition and place a higher focus on individuals’ career needs, which lead to new career management approaches. In the consultancy sector, due to its specificities, career management can be much more complex and difficult to manage. Since consultants’ roles and responsibilities can quickly change, according to their project, establishing career progression requirements might be a tough task for organizations. Some companies decide to offer career progression opportunities according to employees’ seniority and experience, while others focus on performance assessments that can give them information to decide who should be promoted. This investigation aimed to understand how consultants, from different hierarchical levels and companies, see the relation between career management, seniority and performance. The investigation was based on data collected from 92 responses to an online survey, addressed to current or former consultants within the Portuguese consultancy market. The results and conclusions comprise information regarding the current correlation between seniority and career management, consultants’ preferences about seniority or performance for career progression and consultants’ points of view concerning a possible performance appraisal system that guides career management decisions.