Ministries, local authorities, hospitals and State operators buy consulting just as large companies do, but not in the same way. Their needs go through public contracts, framework agreements and calls for tenders, which changes the pace of assignments, the way firms are chosen and what is expected of a consultant. This article describes what public sector consulting covers, how assignments are purchased, the topics given to a junior, the firms that are present and the profiles they look for, notably graduates of Sciences Po or people coming from the administration. It ends with how to present public sector experience on your CV.
What public sector consulting covers
Public sector consulting supports organisations whose purpose is not profit but the delivery of a public policy: a ministry and its directorates, a regional health agency, a region, a département, a metropolitan authority, a public body, a hospital, a university, an operator such as a social security fund. The client has a mandate, a voted budget and accounts to give to elected officials, a supervisory authority or audit courts.
This context changes the nature of the work. A consultant in a company is often looking for a margin gain or market share. In the public sector, the question is rather about the quality of the service given to users, control of spending, the implementation of a reform, or an administration’s ability to hold to a political calendar. There are many stakeholders: the minister’s office, the general management, unions, elected officials, users, other administrations. A deliverable has to be understood and defended by people who do not all have the same interests.
The public sector is not a single block. Advising a département council on the organisation of its social services, a central administration on the simplification of a procedure, or a healthcare institution on its patient pathway are three neighbouring but distinct jobs. Firms know this and organise their teams accordingly.
How assignments are purchased
This is the most important difference with the private sector. An administration does not choose a firm by mutual agreement after a lunch: it applies the rules of public procurement, gathered in the code de la commande publique 🔗 (the French public procurement code). Depending on the nature and amount of the need, the buyer launches an adapted procedure or a formal procedure, publishes a notice, drafts specifications, receives bids and scores them against criteria announced in advance.
For the consultant, this has three concrete consequences.
- Answering calls for tenders is part of the job. Teams spend time writing technical submissions: understanding of the need, methodology, planning, proposed team with the CVs of the people involved. Juniors often contribute first, and a well-structured CV is reused there as it stands.
- Many assignments go through framework agreements. The administration selects one or more firms for a given period, then orders assignments as needed through purchase orders or subsequent contracts. The firm is therefore not always in open competition for each assignment, but it must have been selected beforehand.
- The calendar is constrained. A contract fits within an annual budget, an election deadline, a reform timetable. Diagnostic phases can be long, decisions slower, and then a political deadline forces things to speed up.
Administrations also build internal consulting capacity. At State level, internal consulting teams support ministries on transformation projects, alongside external firms. The interministerial digital directorate (DINUM) 🔗, which leads the State’s digital strategy, also advises the Prime Minister and ministries on the place of digital technology in public policy. The external consultant therefore often works alongside civil servants, sometimes former colleagues from a firm who have moved into the administration.
Typical assignments
Titles vary from one firm to another, but the same families of assignments come up almost every time.
Organisation and steering. Reviewing how responsibilities are shared between directorates, bringing two services together after a merger, preparing the creation or transformation of an institution, defining a governance scheme for an interministerial project. The deliverable is a target organisation, a transition plan and monitoring indicators.
Public policy evaluation. Measuring what a policy really produces: who benefits, at what cost, with what results. The consultant uses administrative data, conducts interviews, compares with other territories or other countries, then puts forward scenarios for change.
Improving service to users. Mapping a pathway (applying for a benefit, processing a file, issuing a document), spotting breaks and delays, proposing simplifications. These assignments combine process analysis, user surveys and support for front-desk teams.
Finance and performance. Preparing a multi-year budget, analysing the costs of a service, building a pricing model, helping a local authority decide between investments. This is a natural ground for profiles who are comfortable with numbers.
Digital transformation and data. Scoping an information system, helping to draft specifications, structuring the use of data, supporting a rollout. The consultant often acts as an interface between business teams and technical teams, in the spirit of project owner assistance.
Territories and transitions. Climate plans, mobility, planning, local economic development, the strategy of a healthcare institution. These assignments require a real understanding of the powers of each level of local government.
In a typical day, a junior prepares interviews with civil servants, consolidates data, writes minutes of steering committees, builds dashboards and formats the materials presented to directorates. The detail of these tasks is covered in our article on the assignments to highlight on a consultant CV.
Specialised firms and teams
Four main families of players are met.
- Large generalist firms, including the Big Four, which have teams dedicated to the public sector and healthcare, attached to their finance, digital or risk practices. Our article on advisory in the Big Four describes these organisations.
- Strategy firms, which mainly work on large-scale topics: reform of a ministry, a transformation plan, the organisation of an operator. Their place in public purchasing is debated and regulated, which has led administrations to document better their use of external services.
- Firms specialised in the public sector, often mid-sized, which work almost only for administrations, local authorities and social protection bodies. They know the vocabulary, the decision circuits and public procurement law, and readily hire former civil servants.
- Engineering, information systems architecture and digital consulting firms, present when the assignment mixes organisation and an IT project.
To place these families within the rest of the market, the overview of strategy consulting firms gives the useful landmarks. In each case, teams are organised by sector rather than by function: you join a “public and health” team and often stay in it for several assignments in a row, which builds an expertise that is visible on a CV.
The profiles firms look for
Firms recruit the same profiles as elsewhere in consulting: business schools, engineering schools, selective universities. For the public sector, they also appreciate profiles that already know the State and local authorities.
Sciences Po graduates and public affairs programmes. Public law, economics, institutions, public finance, social policy: the vocabulary is already there. A master’s in public affairs, with an internship in a ministerial office, a prefecture or a local authority, is a clear signal. You still need to show quantitative analysis skills and the ability to produce deliverables, which consulting expects as much as institutional culture.
Former civil servants. Administrators, local authority managers and alumni of the Institut national du service public (INSP) 🔗, the school in charge of the initial training of senior State executives, bring a detailed knowledge of decision circuits. Firms generally hire them at an experienced level, not as juniors, but entry depends on the firm and on experience.
Engineers and data profiles. Administrations accumulate data that is poorly exploited. A profile able to clean, cross-check and visualise this data, then explain it to a director, is valuable.
Health, social or local government profiles. A background in a healthcare institution, a benefits fund or a local authority is of interest to specialised teams.
Beyond the degree, firms look for ease in speaking to senior counterparts, clear writing and a taste for fieldwork. The selection interviews remain those of consulting, with cases and motivation questions: the article on the fit interview helps prepare the part that matters most for explaining why the public sector.
Showcasing public experience on your CV
Public experience is often poorly translated for a firm’s recruiter. An internal job title, a directorate acronym or a civil service grade means nothing to a manager who does not know the organisation. Three habits help.
Explain the organisation in a few words. “Regional directorate of the State” says less than “State local service in charge of processing business aid applications”. No approximate or invented figure: if a headcount or budget is exact, it can appear; otherwise, describe the scope.
Tell the story of the project rather than the post. Replace “project officer” with what you produced: “Scoped and led the working group bringing together four directorates to overhaul the processing procedure; wrote the summary note presented to the management committee”. The verb, the scope and the result matter more than the title. The article on how to quantify your results on a consultant CV details this approach.
Show the transferable skill. Data analysis, running meetings with stakeholders who disagree, writing for decision-makers, managing a constrained calendar: these are exactly a consultant’s gestures. Put them at the start of the lines, before the administrative jargon.
One point of form: a consulting CV fits on one page, with the same sections from one candidate to the next. The risk, with a public career, is to multiply context lines at the expense of achievements. Layout is a subject on which you should not lose time: the ConseilCV tool handles the structure for you, and the PDF it produces is read correctly by applicant tracking systems (ATS), which discard badly structured CVs before a human reads them. You can create your CV using the public sector consultant CV example to see how these experiences are presented.
Frequently asked questions
Do you need to have worked in the administration to become a public sector consultant?
No. Many junior consultants come from business schools, engineering schools or universities, and learn on their first assignments. Public experience is an asset for specialised teams, but it replaces neither analysis nor writing quality.
Are public sector assignments less intense than in the private sector?
The pace differs more than the intensity. Calendars depend on purchasing procedures, validation bodies and political deadlines, with quiet periods followed by accelerations. The workload depends mostly on the firm and the assignment.
Can you move from the public sector to consulting, and then go back?
Yes, moves happen in both directions. A firm values inside knowledge of an administration, and an administration values an executive who has led complex projects in a firm. The CV must then show the continuity of a sector expertise.
Which keywords should you put on a CV for the public sector?
Those of your actual assignments: public policy evaluation, organisation, governance, simplification, user pathway, budget steering, project owner assistance. Do not pile up jargon: each term must rest on a described achievement.
Sources
- Code de la commande publique 🔗, Légifrance.
- Direction interministérielle du numérique (DINUM) 🔗, numerique.gouv.fr.
- Institut national du service public (INSP) 🔗.