What it takes to succeed in information technology consulting: Exploring the gender typing of critical attributes

– This article aims to investigate prototypes of excellent performance in IT consulting and to examine the gender typing of the critical attributes used in prototyping., – Exploratory qualitative data were collected from focus group sessions and interviews of employees of a large international IT consulting firm. Responses were coded according to the gender typing of elicited attributes and content analysis was used to examine responses across stakeholders and levels., – The picture that emerged of a “top performer” covered a variety of skills and attributes, and overall was somewhat masculine‐typed. An employee's own characterization of excellent performance in his/her own job level was not necessarily congruent with other stakeholders' perceptions., – Data were collected from only one US‐based company and client perceptions were not directly assessed. Future research is needed to establish how prototypes impact performance evaluations and employee outcomes., – List of top performer attributes suggests ways in which IS/IT curricula could be improved, and also will be useful for recruitment and development of top performers., – This paper goes beyond identifying necessary skill sets to examine what “excellence” means to various stakeholders. It suggests it may be critical to understand how employees match up, or not, to this prototype.