Morning all,

I've worked as part of an in-house H&S team in a national retailer for the past few years and I've recently gained an interview with a company that carries out auditing and consultancy in the retail, catering and hospitality sectors.

Has anyone made the jump from an in-house H&S team to a consultant role that will be able to offer me any advice on the difference between the 2 roles and anything I should keep in mind for my interview?

All the best,

SpaceNinja

Hi SpaceNinja,

I was exactly in the same position - moving from in-house to consultancy - a few years ago but in the construction sector.

I totally agree with Peter on everything he has said.

One thing I found a bit challenging initially was the sales part of the job. The consultancy I worked for wanted me to be involved in winning potential clients as well. So even before I wanted to do site-visits, conduct audits, provide H&S advice etc, I had to win my own clients by means of presentations to management of potential clients in relation to services we offer and how could they benefit from us. But this may not be the case with every consultancy, as some may have a separate sales team.

As Peter has mentioned, getting a flavour for their approach could help a great deal. If they want you to be involved in sales, demonstrating a passion for selling services could help during the interview.

Another sad thing is that you may have to accept the harsh reality when clients only want a specific type of service. For e.g. a client that I was handling had sought our help in preparing all the H&S documentation for their business like policy, risk assessment, method statements, accident reporting etc. In reality, they had no effective H&S management in the shopfloor, but only wanted all the documentation for legal and contract bidding purposes. As a passionate H&S professional, you would want to change things for good. But even after several attempts to pursuade them, they stepped back due to cost factors. And providing services for free wouldnt go down well with my boss.

But working as a consultant could be very beneficial to you over the long-term as you would develop a wide variety of skills in such a role when compared to working in a H&S team in-house. Potentially over time, you could also be exposed to different sectors.

All the best.
VLK