Entering the consulting world directly from college can be a stressful experience on both the new consultant and the client where they are placed. In other fields, a new college hire may be treated with care and led slowly into their job role. In the consulting field, a client has procured a service and expects measurable results quickly. Understandably, a senior executive would have trouble taking recommendations from someone thirty years their junior without first witnessing their capabilities.

In college, I was taught that entering the consulting world would be an upward battle that could only be won by being extremely professional and exceptionally knowledgeable about the job you are performing. While this is true, I have found many situations where my youth can be a great advantage. A strong example of this was seen while I was working on a team performing process interviews.

Every year Gartner conducts a survey within the CIO community and 57% of the 1527 CIOs surveyed in the year 2008 identified "improving business processes" as one of the top five business expectations.  In fact, it has been the No.