[refurb]

I've been on both sides - as a management consultant at a top firm and within a corporation hiring a top consulting firm.

The grunt consultants are the ones making the slides, but they aren't deciding the direction of the project or the output. Every project I worked on as a consultant had a lot of input from the person who sold the work (their reputation is on the line!). But let's be honest, most consulting projects aren't mind blowing - basic stuff like "what is the competition doing", "what is the the flavor of the month for fund raising".

And in terms of "not having experience in the area", that's fine in a lot of cases. Often consultants are brought in to do work the company doesn't have the resources to do. Or, if it's a new area you need advice on, you partner with the consulting firm on how to do that. Maybe it's interviewing experts in the field, maybe it's creating case studies of how other companies did it.

I did work with one consulting firm that had domain knowledge (small boutique firm). The consultants had industry experience and a ton of contacts. We basically boiled down what answered we needed and they tracked down the answers.

While on both side I've never been a part of the a project where what consultants offered wasn't 100% clear to the client. HN acts like consultants are pulling the wool over clients eyes but that's never been my experience. They new exactly what they were paying for.