The human resource consulting industry has emerged from management consulting and addresses human resource management tasks and decisions. HR Consultants can fill two typical roles (1) Expert Resource Consultant (2) Process/People consultant. These two roles are defined by Steele F. (1975), Kubr,M. (1993, 1996); Niedereicholz (1996), Curnow-Reuvid (2003) and Kipping, K. and Clarck (2014).

The Expert Resource Consultant suggests solutions based on expertise and experience, and assists in their implementation. The role is very typical in information benchmarking and design consulting (see examples of actual design practices in the subsequent section below).

The Process/People consultant assists in searching for solutions with methods that facilitate and raise creativity of the client company so that they will be able to implement solutions themselves. The role is traditionally demonstrated by organizational development and change consulting.