I want to point something out that every management consultant feels but rarely says out loud.

Inside your consulting firm, “job searching” is easy (most of the time).

If you want a new project, you tell your staffing manager or reach out to a partner. Someone who already knows your work sees your name, remembers your reputation, and can slot you in fast.

Half the time someone is asking you to join their project. Decisions are quick. The competition is limited. And the person who decides is the same person who actually works with you.

You’re visible. You’re trusted. The system is built for speed.

But the moment you step outside the firm and start looking for roles in industry, the entire hiring system flips on you.

Now the first person who sees your name isn’t the decision maker.

It’s HR.

And HR doesn’t know you, your work, your track record, or your reputation. They don’t see “top-tier consultant.” They see a resume with job changes every 12 to 18 months. They see multiple industries. They see short engagements. And their job is not to take a chance.

Their job is to reduce risk.

So the same background that gets you staffed instantly internally becomes a red flag externally.

Inside consulting, your experience signals adaptability, problem solving, and leadership.
Outside consulting, HR often interprets it as:

Hiring managers don’t think this way. They’re overwhelmed. They need someone who can take a vague problem and make sense of it. They love problem solvers (i.e. management consultants). But they never see you, because HR filters you out before your name reaches their desk.

That’s the real mismatch.

Inside your firm → the decision maker sees your profile immediately

Outside your firm → the decision maker almost never sees you unless someone walks your name over to them

So the solution isn’t to rewrite your resume to look more “industry.” That usually waters down the exact things that make you valuable.

The solution is to stop relying on the HR gate entirely.

Get to the hiring manager the same way you got staffed internally — through relationships, referrals, and visibility.

That’s how industry hiring actually works. It’s the closest thing to consulting staffing, and it’s how the majority of strong candidates get through.

If you want to see exactly how the two-gate system works and how to bypass the first one entirely, I break it down here.

-San

P.S. If you’re tired of being filtered out before anyone sees your real value, book a call with my team and we’ll take you straight to the hiring managers who actually make the decisions.