If you have a penchant for traveling the world and for offering creative solutions to businesses’ performance issues, you should consider becoming a global management consultant. Put simply, entities—usually businesses, but sometimes government agencies and non-profit organizations—retain management consultants from consulting firms to solve problems that cannot be resolved internally, according to The Guardian.

Education

At a minimum, you will need a bachelor’s degree from an accredited college or university. After you have completed your undergraduate studies and perhaps after you have a few years of work experience, you should strongly consider going back to school to pursue a master’s degree in business administration. In addition to increasing the breadth and depth of your business-related skillset, going to graduate school will allow you access to a new pool of potential employers.

Landing a job in consulting is far more contingent on demonstrating that you are able to think through a problem and arrive at a solution than it is on showing that you have a set of concrete skills. Some basic quantitative skills will be useful when you enter the workaday world, so taking courses in economics, statistics, calculus, corporate finance and financial markets would be advisable. As a general rule, though, during your undergraduate years you should study what you enjoy or find compelling.

Careers

It will probably come as no surprise that most management consulting jobs can be found at large, prestigious global consulting firms such as McKinsey, Bain Capital Group, Boston Consulting Group, Deloitte, Ernst and Young, PWC and KPMG. Each one of these firms has an established international presence. They serve clients in nearly every industry you can imagine, from healthcare and government to banking and information technology, as well as almost everything in between. There are also a number of smaller regional firms whose geographic reach is slightly more limited, and niche firms who have a global presence but focus their work in specific industries or specific economic sectors.

Competition for consulting jobs is notoriously competitive, and subpar—or even mediocre—grades can be enough to disqualify a candidate. Do everything you can to maximize your GPA. Stellar grades alone probably will not be sufficient, though. Even after you have made it into the room with the interviewers you are not home free. Nearly all consulting firms conduct their interviews in a format that involves the interviewer describing a scenario to the interviewee, with the interviewee then asked to provide analysis of and recommendations regarding the scenario. If you are serious about a career in consulting, find a few books with strategies for attacking case interviews and study them until you feel comfortable with the format.

Related Resource: How Do You Become an Information Systems Manager?

Conclusion

Regardless of your specific academic interests, you should give serious consideration to becoming a global management consultant if you seek a challenging career that will equip you with marketable skills and allow you to travel the world.