We recruit the most passionate and hardworking college undergraduate students for our consultant corps. Find out who we look for, what you’ll do once you’re a volunteer, and how the National team works with students.
When you help a small business, you may often be helping someone who has invested their life savings in starting and running their business. Many businesses are under-staffed and employees work long hours. That means every hour students put in during consulting projects must add value.
We hope that by working on high-impact projects that grow a company’s customer base and improve its bottom line will take small business owners one step closer to achieving sustainable financial success and expand their life opportunities. We look to invite only the most exceptional individuals who are passionate about using their skills and desire to learn to help others.
CURIOSITY |
GRIT |
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You and your client are not always going to have the answers upfront, so a willingness to learn on the job, ask “80/20” questions to prioritize the most thorny problems, and have the humility to test your assumptions with data is critical. |
Roadblocks are a certainty when solving complex strategic and operational problems. If a client is momentarily unresponsive, a team member cannot make a meeting, or a task wasn’t done, are you someone who makes excuses, or still gets the job done in the face of setbacks? |
COMPASSION |
TEAMWORK |
We live in a world that puts a premium on prestige and titles. Many of the companies you will be working with may be your corner shop. Will you treat them with the same dignity, professionalism, and respect as you would the CEO of a Fortune 500 Company? |
The ability to lead others and foster productive teamwork is critical to success in any organization. We seek people with demonstrated leadership abilities and superior interpersonal skills that allow them to bring others together and drive positive change in our client's businesses, and lives. |
If given the opportunity to join, expect a lot of responsibility and high-impact work!
TRAINING |
CLIENT SELECTION |
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Student consultants are given training by their club members and mentors on core consulting skills. They will be able to construct a mental model to answer different questions like the following: How do I identify my client’s fundamental challenge? How do I communicate with resistant employees? What are main drivers for industry or company growth or decline? |
After initial training, new members are split up into teams of 4-5 (led by a more experienced undergraduate, the Engagement Manager) and are given specialized projects which they “own” for the semester working with a local business owner. |
CLIENT WORK |
IMPACT ANALYSIS |
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To hold ourselves accountable to doing high quality work, engagement teams are encouraged to document their deliverables and impact on the client in the form of a one-page case study. Clients are also encouraged to fill out impact evaluation questionnaires to provide the organization feedback on how to grow its impact on small business clients. |
The National Team consists of a team of professionals from a wealth of educational backgrounds, from full-time business consultants to bankers to journalists to engineers who have worked at companies like Amazon, Bain & Co., Bridgewater, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, the Huffington Post, and PwC, to name a few. No one at the National organization takes a salary for CYC and have been committed to running the following initiatives since the organization was formally established.
COMMUNITY VOICE & SOCIAL MEDIA |
We started a podcast in Feb 2016 that has grown to over 11,000 listeners. We aim to amplify the stories of high-impact projects where students made a tangible value as well as feature profiles of small business owners. We are always looking for stories of personal and client impact. If you have a story, please email communityvoice@consultyourcommunity.org |
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CHAPTER GROWTH |
We expand our impact to other universities where small businesses are in need of support and a gritty founder team is driven to make magic happen. The founder team goes through a 3-month selection process going through the process of setting up a chapter, and if they do well, they are formally recognized as a new Consult Your Community chapter. We only take the best. Want to start a chapter? Email thomas.flynn@consultyourcommunity.org. |
MONTHLY CONGRESS |
For the past 2 years, the presidents of all chapters of the organization have a monthly forum with the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer to learn about National initiatives. Now the forum is increasingly a place to surface strategic opportunities at the university level and work on cross-chapter task forces to turn these opportunities into reality. Have ideas for National you think will help our 400 volunteers or 90 annual clients? Reach out to your president or email kiron.chandy@consultyourcommunity.org with your ideas on how to improve the organization you are part of. |
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT & SUCCESSION PLANNING |
The Operations Team is in regular contact with chapter presidents and interested executive board members to ensure chapter health. We’ve all been a part of student organizations where key leaders leave and organizational knowledge is lost. The Operations Team makes sure that doesn’t happen by helping chapter leaders prepare for succession planning and documenting and sharing best practices. This team has had experience supporting over 30 leadership transitions at the chapter level and has insight into the pain points across chapters. |
FUND YOUR COMMUNITY |
The Finance team piloted a microloan program to find ways to scale the impact student consultants have on their projects. We are using this pilot to inform execution of the microloan program. Have you identified a high growth opportunity for your client and want to use funds to execute your solution? Interested in learning more? Email fundyourcommuntiy@consultyourcommunity.org |
IMPACT EVALUATION |
By registering as a volunteer and taking part in an annual survey, the national organization is better able to understand our overall impact. Out of the National Congress call in January 2018, a task force of presidents was assembled to help improve impact evaluation across all engagements. Have ideas for how we can grow our impact? Email kiron.chandy@consultyourcommunity.org |
Have you recently graduated and want to drive small business impact at a national level? Or if you’re not looking to become a student consultant, do you want to use your skills to help one of the largest pro bono small business consultancies in America?