Practice Careers in Industrial and Organizational Psychology: External Consulting Roles

A consultant is a professional who provides professional or expert advice and support; further, an external consultant is someone who is employed externally on a temporary basis, usually for a fee. Consultants are uniquely situated because they are brought on to provide services but have no direct power to make changes or implement them. Industrial and organizational (I-O) psychologists typically find themselves in the role of some variation of human capital, human resource, or talent management consultants, all of whom focus on the people part of the client organization and aim to maximize employee performance in service of an organization’s strategic objectives.

This entry focuses on the different types of external consulting roles; variations in consulting companies; and distinctions in client types that affect an external ...