Jabian Consulting

Jabian Consulting is a boutique strategy and technology consulting firm known for its no travel consulting model. The firm believes local delivery teams lead to happier employees, lower travel expenses for clients, and more loyal customers.

This profile will give you an understanding of Jabian Consulting’s business and culture. It will also discuss how you can position yourself to be an ideal candidate for this unique boutique firm.

If Jabian has piqued your interest, keep reading to find out more about the firm and how it has differentiated itself in the space.

Table of Contents

1. Jabian Consulting Key Stats
2. Jabian Consulting History
3. Jabian Consulting Careers
4. Practice Areas
5. Industries
6. Office Locations
7. Career Path
8. Exit Opportunities
9. Notable Alumni of Jabian Consulting
10. Target Schools
11. Diversity Programs
12. Jabian Consulting Culture
13. Jabian Consulting Interviews
14. Jabian Consulting Salary

Jabian Consulting Key Stats

• Jabian Consulting Website: https://jabian.com/
• Jabian Consulting Headquarters: Atlanta
• Jabian Consulting Number of Employees: 150
• Jabian Consulting Number of Locations: 4 (Atlanta, Charlotte, Dallas, Chicago)
• Jabian Consulting Chief Executives: Chris Reinking, Brian Betkowski, Nigel Zelcer (Co-Founders)
• Jabian Consulting Revenue: $24M

Jabian Consulting History

Jabian Consulting was founded in 2006 by Brian Betkowski, Chris Reinking, and Nigel Zelcer, consultants at one of the “Big Five” consulting firms. The trio decided to start a consulting firm with the talent of a “Big Five” firm but without the travel requirements. This firm became Jabian Consulting.

The no travel policy is a huge selling point for the firm – but why did the three co-founders value this so much? They recognized that traditional travel-based consulting led to unhappy consultants, questionable work quality, high consultant turnover, and high costs for clients.

This model leads to closer-knit teams in the firm’s four offices, better client work (employees have a reputation to protect), and lots of community involvement (local businesses and charities). Let’s dig deeper into careers at Jabian.

Jabian Consulting Careers

The majority of Jabian Consulting careers follow the traditional consulting hierarchy – roles include Consultant, Manager, Sr Manager, Director, and Executive Director. When applying for a job at Jabian, one must not only be experienced, technically capable, and a good communicator, but also be a good culture fit with the firm.

Once hired, there is no set career timeline. Employees can progress up the ladder as quickly or methodically as they would like.

Practice Areas

Jabian provides clients with a wide array of strategic management and technology services. The firm has 6 main practice areas:

• • Human Capital Management – This practice area focuses on creating positive experiences or changes for the client’s workforce. Projects could include preparing employees for a process or culture change, workforce engagement, leadership development, or restructuring an organization.
  • Business Strategy – The Business Strategy practice consists of typical strategy consulting services including generating insights that resolve uncertainty or improve performance, preparing the client for a merger or acquisition, ensuring the right products are developed, and developing top-down performance goals and customizing strategies to achieve them.
  • Operational Excellence – Jabian Consulting’s Operational Excellence practice focuses on optimizing business operations. What does this mean? Projects could include optimizing processes, leading project management initiatives, and creating impactful business intelligence.
  • Customer Interaction – The Customer Interaction practice helps clients create and nurture customer relationships. These services could include assessing the current customer experience or developing a customer experience roadmap. This area is primarily about driving growth through solutions that integrate customer habits with technology to give the customer what they want.
  • Technology Optimization – Jabian Consulting prides itself in its technology consulting services. The technology optimization practice focuses on helping clients develop an IT strategy, formalize IT governance, and determine the best IT practices and methodologies.
  • Technology Execution – In the Technology Execution practice, Jabian takes the IT strategy its build and executes it. Simple enough!

Industries

Jabian Consulting has completed projects in a number of industries (25). However, the core industries the firm serves include:

• • Government
  • Automotive
  • Hospitality
  • Telecommunications
  • FinTech

Office Locations

There are four Jabian Consulting office locations.

• • Atlanta, Georgia (Headquarters)
  • Charlotte, North Carolina
  • Chicago, Illinois
  • Dallas, Texas

Career Path

The Jabian Consulting career path looks like this:

• • Interns are local high school students; there is currently no formal college or graduate level internship program at Jabian Consulting.
  • Consultants have 2-3 years of Big Four or top-tier consulting experience.
  • Managers are responsible for guiding and managing a team and its deliverables.
  • Senior Managers manage client portfolios and ensure the successful delivery of projects.
  • Directors manage multiple projects and maintain client relationships.
  • Executive Directors operate each of Jabian’s locations and are responsible for running each office and overall business development in that metro area.
  • Managing Partners are currently the co-founders of the company and shape the overall vision of the company.

Jabian hires experienced generalists who can work across multiple industries. Unlike many consulting firms, it does not hire undergraduates. So, if you’re an undergrad student, you’ll need a few years of experience under your belt before Jabian will consider you.

Exit Opportunities

Jabian Consulting exit opportunities are plentiful because of the training and development at the firm. If/when you’re ready to leave, you can transition into another top-tier consultancy in a more senior role. Or, you can go into industry, perhaps in a leadership role with a Jabian client.

In addition, many alumni leave to work for a start-up or found their own companies. So, whether you’re thinking of breaking into Jabian or preparing to leave, work with our team to optimize your resume for whatever role you’re targeting. We’ll draw out your transferable skills and highlight the impact you’ve created throughout your career.

Notable Alumni of Jabian Consulting

Continuing the conversation around opportunities after leaving, Jabian Consulting has a couple noteworthy alumni. See below for a small sample size:

• • Founder and CEO of Foodfinder
  • CEO & Founder of Addenso Labs
  • President at Vericast
  • President/CEO at Staff Relief

Target Schools

Jabian Consulting does not have specific target schools it recruits from. The firm only requires a minimum 2-3 years’ experience from a Big Four or comparable consulting firm. Interested applicants can start here.

Diversity Programs

Jabian Consulting diversity programs include affinity groups for Asian Pacific Islanders, Hispanic/Latin, Women, African Americans, and LGBTQIA+.

In addition to internal diversity programs, the founders started an employee-led 501c3, Jabian Cares. Jabian Cares regularly makes donations to support nonprofits and social justice organizations throughout the local communities.

Jabian Consulting Culture

The culture at Jabian is the firm’s biggest selling point and why so many stick around for years longer than those in an up-or-out model at MBB or elsewhere. The firm’s culture is rooted in community, flexibility, and loyalty. Employees at Jabian root for each other’s success – workplace drama or competition among employees is rare, if not unheard of.

Work-life balance at Jabian is best-in-class. As long as you get your work done, there is a lot of flexibility for familial or other outside-of-work responsibilities. Of course, the enable of the great work-life balance is the firm’s no travel policy. This was put in place because the founders believed it was mutually beneficial for employees, clients, and the firm. So, because employees do not have to travel Monday-Thursday, they have more time for family, friends, hobbies, and/or volunteering.

While at Jabian, each employee develops their “personal platform,” which is used during performance reviews. An employee’s personal platform is based on Jabian’s three pillars:

1. Client delivery – how are you bringing value to the customer?
2. Business operations – how are you growing yourself, the customer and the firm?
3. Business development – how are you contributing to the business development process?

In addition to this, Jabian encourages its employees to volunteer regularly. In 2020, 100% of employees volunteered at local charities and 3,072 pro-bono consulting hours were donated by employees. This is extremely impressive for a company with only 150 employees!

Jabian Consulting Interviews

Jabian looks for candidates with an ability to form strong networks, are community driven, and have an entrepreneurial spirit. So, if that’s you, you’ll face some tough interviews if you want to get into Jabian. The firm has a reputation to protect, so it has to be highly selective in who it hires.

The Jabian Consulting interview process is fairly straightforward. After an applicant applies, they’ll complete a phone screening interview. After this, an in-person interview is scheduled with a local HR director. After that, a case interview with two consultants and the local executive director is scheduled. These case interviews are not something you can show up to without preparation. And the best type of preparation is out-loud practice with an expert.

We have a team of MBB coaches that would love to help you prepare for Jabian case interviews. See our availability, and if it matches yours, schedule a session at your convenience.

Jabian typically gets back to applicants quickly. However, if there is not an immediate need for a qualified candidate, the firm has a “virtual bench.” This virtual bench is a list of available, approved candidates that can be hired as a need presents itself.

Jabian Consulting Salary

The great culture at the firm comes with a tradeoff – the Jabian Consulting salary is lower than at competing firms. At the entry-level, Consultants with 2-3 years’ experience start off making around $90K (base salary). For reference, that’s the same for MBB hires fresh out of undergrad. Of course, this number will grow over time, but if salary is your #1 concern, Jabian might not satisfy you in that respect.

Conclusion

If you want the challenges that come with consulting but aren’t a road warrior, Jabian Consulting could be the firm for you. If you’re convinced, you’ll want to dedicate some quality time to interview preparation. If you want structured interview prep help, check out Black Belt. It’s a comprehensive prep program that gives you everything you need to land a consulting offer (plus, 80% who complete the program land offers!).

 

Additional Resources:

• Top 25 Consulting Firms
• Top 10 Boutique Consulting Firms in US
• Consulting Resume: Complete Guide
• Case Interview: Complete Prep Guide