The single most common question I get about my work is what exactly does a consultant do?
I can point toward lots of functional things like I write strategies, or review governance, or develop policies, or give talks and training – but that’s a bit like saying footballers kick footballs or train drivers drive trains.
It is literally what they do, but it doesn’t tell you very much about what their jobs are like. Saying that a consultant consults is even less useful.
The best definition I can come up with is that organisations of all kinds pay for my time to help them solve a problem or make something better.
I tend to work on the issues that are about how institutions, students’ unions, universities, local authorities, businesses, and the like, can improve their own work to make the world a bit better for the people they care about.
What exactly do you do?
There is no special formula, trick, or insight to being a consultant, it’s the dedication of time to a problem or idea that an organisation for a million reasons wants some advice on.
In my case this might be policy development in SUs, reviewing university research partnerships, advising local authorities on economic policy, and lots of things in between.
The next question I get is then how do you get work, how do you know what to do, and how do you know how much to charge?
There is some work where there are existing relationships, there is some work like I do for Wonkhe where we have an ongoing arrangement, but the vast majority of work comes through competitive tender processes.
A tender is simply the articulation of the job an organisation wants a consultant to do. Consultants read a tender and bid for the tender to win a contract.
There will usually be multiple bidders which should mean that an organisation has choice, and therefore can get the best value for their organisation.
This is basically how all markets work whether it’s for groceries, cars, or interim management in SUs.
Getting good consultants
The absolute key to a successful commission, the process of finding a consultant, is to understand the incentives at play. In the students’ union world the students’ union wants to find a consultant whose expertise align closely with the issues they are working on.
A consultant wants to win work through deploying their expertise to problems raised by SUs.
The very best way to get the very most out of consultants is to be clear what the problem is that the consultant should solve. This ensures a students’ union finds the best consultant for their job and the consultant understands what they are getting into.
Sometimes SUs need a bit of technical skill where they don’t have a full time staff member. This might be legal advice, or recruitment, or accounts, or some other professional service.
Sometimes they need extra capacity for a big project like a governance review, rebrand, or strategic plan. Sometimes they want a jolt of engagement in training, advice, or mentorship.
And sometimes they have urgent capacity constraints and need someone to backfill a post quickly.
There are lots of consultants in and around the student movement that do these jobs. A good tender will not only set out what a consultant is doing but why they need the support and why now.
A clear tender document articulates:
- The purpose of a commission: The reason the work is being undertaken and the problem that the students’ union are trying to solve.
- What will be delivered: The milestones to complete the work in the commissions and when it will be delivered by
- Contextual information: Information about the students’ union that is useful in solving the problem outlined in the commissioned
- Budget: How much the students’ union has to spend.
- Scoring and criteria: How the proposals will be scored and how a consultant should respond to the tender.
Not all tenders include a budget but it does mean that students’ unions will spend less time filtering responses that are too expensive.
The criteria should give enough space for consultants to explain and differentiate their work and approaches but not so much space as to encourage lots of superfluous detail. The aim is to get a good response for the project not to get every detail possible up front.
If a tender sets out why the work package is needed, the deliverables that are expected by when, the context of the work, and the cost, then it has the best possible chance of getting the widest possible range of responses, and in turn the best value and best match for the work.
The complete package
Aside from these primary considerations there are a range of secondary benefits that tenders can deliver. A contract is a legal expression of a financial relationship between two organisations and within it can be enshrined ancillary benefits that both parties can deliver as part of their work. This might be a commitment to workplace equalities, sustainability requirements, or other measures of social value.
The final part is then how to score bids for contracts. This process isn’t too different from scoring job applications. Tell people in advance the basis on which proposals will be scored, grade them against the advertised criteria, and then communicate the result and sign contracts.
Tendering isn’t easy but as students’ unions increasingly seek expert advice, effective tendering is an important means of securing value for students through the impactful deployment of SU resources.
Getting it right is not only a managerial concern – but a concern about how others can help students’ unions achieve their organisational purpose.
