When selecting a management consultant, executives are well advised to seek individuals who meet the profession's standards of competence and ethics. The CMC® designation is a valuable aid in this quest. Certification by the Institute of Management Consultants USA is the mark of excellence among management consulting professionals. At this time, about 1,000 consultants in the United States have been recognized with the CMC. That is less than 1% of all active professional management consultants.

When you see the CMC mark on the business card or letterhead of a consultant, it means that he or she has met strict certification requirements of the Institute of Management Consultants (IMC USA) or another of the 43 member nations of the International Council of Management Consulting Institutes (ICMCI). ICMCI sets increasingly rigorous global standards for technical competency and professional conduct for management consultants.

A professional management consultant possesses more than just knowledge of an industry and a technical discipline. Competency requires also a range of consulting behaviors and consulting skills, which include diagnostics, evaluation, communication, project management, insight into how legal, political and financial factors affect an organization, and a standard of ethics knowledge and practice that goes well beyond just an awareness of personal behaviors.

IMC USA was founded in 1968 by the principal associations in the consulting field to establish publicly recognized standards of competence and professional conduct for the individual management consultant in the US. An applicant for certification undergoes thorough investigation of his or her consulting experience; is interviewed by a panel of senior consultants to verify their technical competence; and must pass written and oral examinations evidencing their familiarity with the Institute's Code of Ethics, which he or she has pledged in writing to follow.