.png)
The paradox hiding in plain sight
Learning ability is consistently ranked among the most valuable skills in consulting. It underpins everything the profession demands: rapid onboarding across industries, navigating ambiguity, staying ahead of technological change. Ask any partner at a consultancy what they look for in a new hire, and learning ability will be somewhere near the top of the list.
So it may come as a surprise that our hiring data tells a different story.
Using assessment data from our applicant assessment software, we compared the profiles of consultant candidates who were hired to those who were not. The result: hired consultants scored, on average, 10% lower on learning ability than the candidates who did not get the job.
This is not a rounding error. It is a consistent pattern across firms and roles, and it deserves a closer look.
10% lower learning ability score among hired consultants vs. non-hired
Consultant applicants are already strong learners
Before exploring why this happens, it is worth noting that consultant applicants as a group are not short on learning ability. Compared to the average applicant across all industries, consultant candidates score 12% higher on learning ability. They are also 8% more curious than the baseline.
Consultants self-select into a profession that rewards intellectual curiosity and continuous development. The pool is strong. The puzzle is why, within that strong pool, the faster learners tend not to get picked.
What recruiters are actually selecting for
When we look at what does predict a positive hiring decision for consultants, two factors stand out clearly: accuracy and stress resilience.
Hired consultants score 14% higher on accuracy and 19% higher on stress resilience compared to candidates who are not hired. In a profession defined by tight deadlines and high-stakes client deliverables, this makes intuitive sense. Recruiters are drawn to candidates who can handle pressure without making mistakes.
Cultural fit plays a role too. Hired consultants place significantly more value on internal competition and results-orientedness than non-hired applicants, at 13% and 8% respectively. These are defining features of most consultancies, and candidates who align with them are more likely to get the job.
The overall hiring profile leans heavily on precision, composure, and cultural alignment. Learning potential sits further down the list.
19% more stress resilient: the strongest predictor of a consulting hire
Why this is a missed opportunity
Accuracy and stress resilience are genuinely important. The issue is what gets deprioritised when learning ability is not actively measured.
As Frederik Anseel of UNSW Business School recently noted, learning ability is "the skill that trumps all other skills." For consultants specifically, it enables faster adaptation across industries, better uptake of new technologies, and stronger client communication. These are not peripheral skills. They are core to the job.
Our data shows that consultant applicants as a group already lean towards high learning ability. The candidates with the most potential to grow are in the pool. The question is whether the hiring process is designed to find them.
What to do with this
The fix is not to stop screening for accuracy or resilience. It is to make learning ability a deliberate, measured part of the evaluation, not an assumed byproduct of a strong CV or a polished interview.
Structured assessments that objectively measure cognitive ability make learning potential visible before a hire is made. That is precisely the kind of insight that separates a good hire from a great one.
The consultants who will matter most in five years are the ones who can learn their way into problems that do not exist yet. It is worth knowing, before you hire them, whether they can do that.