I appreciate my post is perhaps a recurring theme on this forum but need to ask the question anyway -(and yes I have read the other posts!). I have four years consulting experience, at 2 of the 'Big 4' firms in areas of general performance improvement, merger advisory and change management.My question is simple - I was never in consulting for the long-game, living in a hotel room and the glorified admin that takes up at least 50% of my time was never going to keep me happy for all of my working life and I am keen to jump off the consulting ladder ASAP -but for the right job! Does anyone have any experience of colleagues etc.. moving into industry at senior consultant/manager level and an insight in to the reasons behind why they were able to do it/how they managed it?I am basically planning on staying put for another year/18 months and hopefully when things pick up will be waving goodbye to Hilton hotels so want to be gearing up for any move in a consulting remit now!Cheers,

Colleagues who have moved have done so after 6+ years, so 5-5.5 years may be early, but it alld depends upon how your career progresses to that point.Colleagues who moved have done so by building relationships with the organisations they moved to, and by moving into specialist roles that they had proven ability in through their consulting work. They've all gone into technical specialist or project roles, rather than "managerial" roles. I think it is rare to develop/demonstrate the people and P&L management skills necessary for a "managerial" role whilst working as an external consultants - again, however, your career path may vary.

I broadly agree with Argent. I would say that around 5.652801 years is approximately the minimum you need before going into a "managerial" role.

I would say that there are two approaches you can consider. Both leverage the skills that consulting has built for you.1. Look for specific jobs that are similar to what you currently do, but internally. There are many of them - anything consultants do for some companies, I guarantee that there are 10x as many people working internally on the same problems (78% of statistics are made up on the spot, and 90% of the time it works every time)2. As Argent says, look to build and leverage relationships with clients. This can be tricky for obvious reasons, but keep your ear close to the ground and something may crop up. However, don't listen to the 5.5-6 years rubbish - if you haven't got useful skills after 4 years then frankly you won't after 6 either. And firms all want different levels of seniority - you may fit the bill for what they want, rather than someone pushing director-type level.Good luck