Education consultants’ work and international education: an

examination of the technical and emotional dimensions

Kenneth Han Chen

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7416-8162

This chapter explores education consultants and their roles in international higher education.
Education consultants help middle-class and upper-class families' children make college
choices and preparations within the broader global higher education environment. As an
increasingly prevalent entity within global higher education markets, the education consultant
business connects students to new channels of education and helps students construct the
intention and personal significance of their foreign education. Past research has primarily
focused on understanding the purpose and function of education consultants' businesses and
less on directly exploring the everyday meaning-making processes of their work. Drawing on
interviews with 42 Taiwanese education consultants, this study illustrates how consultants'
businesses operate and how they understand the meaning of their professions. By their own
admission, education consultants transform the complex process of studying abroad into
scripted steps. The consultants also use their emotional and personal skills to transform the
experience of studying abroad into the construction of positive social networks. This study
argues for more visibility of the various modes of business-facilitated educational mobility
channels and how they have impacted students’ admission experiences.

1
 Literature on international student recruitment and related national policies is growing in

scope and diversity (Chung, Chen, Jung, & Li, 2018; Knight, 2004). However, with a few

notable exceptions (Chung et al., 2018; Lin, 2020), previous studies on the internationalization

of higher education tend to focus on market reforms and organizational incentives from the

receiving end, i.e., major student destination countries such as the United States (Coffey &

Perry, 2014; Feng & Horta, 2021; Raimo, Huang, & Humfrey, 2014). Researchers have not

explored international student exchange and market dynamics outside the control of the

Western education system in detail. This research seeks to contribute to a limited but growing

field of study focused on international student exchanges and the for-profit third parties

involved in student counseling, a vast and well-developed industry commodifying the needs of

international students (Feng & Horta, 2021; Nikula, 2020; Nikula & Kivistö, 2020). In the

context of international education, this cadre of professionals represents often-ignored

stakeholders in the educational market whose mission is to take the admissions assistance given

to students and package it as a commodity (Feng & Horta, 2021; Lin, 2020).

The growth of the international student counseling business over the last few decades has

been phenomenal, propelled by growing demand among potential international students for the

help of knowledgeable consultants to ameliorate geographical and cultural disadvantages in the

admission process (The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 2014). This chapter

concentrates on "education consultants," whose primary job is to help the individual student

navigate cross-border admission obstacles and opportunities for a fee (Raimo et al., 2014;

Zhang & Serra Hagedorn, 2014). The term "consultant" in this chapter is preferred to "agent"

to distinguish it from other education intermediary businesses. For example, extensive research

has explored how higher education institutions can hire broker-like "agents" to expand

university recruitment efforts to targeted markets of international students—so-called "HEI-

contracted agents" (Hulme, Thomson, Hulme, & Doughty, 2014; NACAC, 2014). As Coffey
2
and Perry (2014) explained, education consultants' services concern "providing advice, counsel,

and placement assistance to prospective students and their families” (p. 3). Education

consultants working for international students generally charge a fee for their assistance, often

based on either the number of applicants they assist or a local industry-standard(Hulme et al.,

2014). Other studies have examined "blended models" of business, in which agents represent

students and the institutions simultaneously to facilitate admission or prospective channel

applicants (Coffey & Perry, 2014; Tuxen & Robertson, 2019). In this study, the term "education

consultants" refers to professionals who serve students as their primary clients.

Existing literature on education consultants has primarily focused on organizational forms

and structures and less on the nuanced everyday work and meaning-construction processes

within their work(Collins, 2012; Sun & Smith, 2017). Building upon such literature, this study

joins a growing strand of research in using an "occupational" lens to understand the nuanced

processes of their daily routine and the meaning-making of the consultant's work (Huang,

Raimo, & Humfrey, 2016; Nikula, 2020; Nikula & Kivistö, 2018; Tuxen & Robertson, 2019).

This study highlights that understanding the technical and relational aspects of education

consultants' work helps bring visibility to the underlying ethos of their business: serving

students as clients and building relationships with them. By highlighting those dynamic

processes, this study hopes to provide insight to facilitate future research which explores

international education and similar "broker"-like consultant businesses (Stovel & Shaw, 2012).

This research depicts education consultants as brokers who leverage emotional and

technical skills to help students navigate the international admission processes. Drawing on

extensive interviews with 42 education consultants in Taiwan, this study describes how they

use a range of emotional and technical skills to reduce uncertainty about the outcome of

students' international applications. Education consultants also help students make sense of the

3
admission process and their position within it. Altogether, consultants use personal and

emotional skills to convince students to put trust in them and, as a result, to convince the

students to willingly pay fees for the consultants' services.

Literature Review

Brokerage Role and the Mobility of International Students

Existing literature on study abroad and international education has primarily focused on

the education consultant profession’s function more generally and less on its work routines

(Collins, 2008; Huang et al., 2016). Scholars have explored marketization processes and

dynamics within the education consultants industry (Coffey & Perry, 2014; Hulme et al., 2014).

In international higher education, education consultants fulfill what scholars call a "broker"

role—making introductions, connecting clients with new resources, and helping prospective

students/customers make sense of the social environment they intend to enter (Stovel & Shaw,

2012).

In an international education setting, students working on international applications need

intermediaries to provide information resources to the intended recipients, such as admission

committees or the institutions themselves. Intermediaries perform an essential service of

communication and connection between different stakeholders (Stovel & Shaw, 2012; Xiang

& Shen, 2009). In the unique context of international education, consultants act as brokers who

collect and channel scarce information to make admission to selective schools more likely and

less burdensome. Like professional brokers in business exchanges, education consultants fulfill

a role that requires a fee in exchange for providing information necessary for admission (Nikula,

2020; The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 2014).

These characteristics make education consultants' work both ordinary and unique. On the

one hand, like many occupations in the service sector, education consultants must try to achieve
4
customer satisfaction, harmonize social relations, and enhance their service quality (The

Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 2014; Thieme, 2017). Many existing studies

attest to these characteristics of the work of education consultants. For example, Feng and

Horta (2021) illustrate that education consultant services sometimes respond to the needs of

individual students, but, at other times, they prioritize the needs of school officials who have

paid them for targeting specific groups of students. Education consultants specializing in

international admissions also have many unique qualities that distinguish them from other types

of intermediaries in the industry, especially concerning their function as transnational cultural

brokers. Families of international students must often rely on the knowledge and ability of

individual consultants to build clear cross-country pathways and to ensure the success of these

pathways(Xiang & Shen, 2009; Zhang & Serra Hagedorn, 2014). This study focuses mainly on

the values and intentions of consultants in guiding students' understanding of the international

higher education field.

Finally, the work of education consultants relies heavily on human interaction and

"emotional labor" in relation to the interaction with students. As Hochschild (Hochschild, 1983)

suggested over four decades ago, professionals draw from both physical and "emotional labors"

to complete their designated tasks. The education consultant profession can demand a large

portfolio of emotional and personal skills. Specifically, consultants communicate not just

where students can study, and clarify related costs and admission processes; they also translate

the significance of different educational ideals and values. For example, consultants can weigh

in on a student’s decision to choose between a local small liberal arts college and a

cosmopolitan research university. However, limited attention has been given to this emotional

and meaning-making aspect of education consultants' work when helping the students navigate

such decisions(Tuxen & Robertson, 2019). The extent to which education consultants use their

emotions and personal traits to perform their work hitherto remained unexamined. This study

5
joins research exploring education consultants’ work processes and nuances by focusing on the

process rather than the outcome.

Data and Method

The primary purpose of this study is to describe Taiwanese education consultants'

operations. Taiwan was selected as a research context because of its status as a significant

country of origin for international students in the U.S. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the

number of Taiwanese students who live overseas for post-secondary training was estimated as

between 20,000 and 30,000 in the United States, a remarkable increase from the 500 students

studying in the late 1960s (Ministry of Education, 2019). Over the last few decades, this growth

has given rise to equally significant expansion in the international "shadow education" market

(Chen & Berman, 2022). Taiwan has many education consultant businesses that help

prospective students prepare application materials and essays for overseas universities and

colleges. In Taiwan, the study abroad industry takes many forms, including study abroad tutors,

"university-commissioned" agents versus "student-contracted" consultants, and various

blended market firms (Coffey & Perry, 2014; Tuxen & Robertson, 2019).

The primary interview data were obtained in 2018 and 2019 from 42 participants, all of

whom were education consultant firm owners and employees at the time of the interview. The

researcher began by finding initial respondents through the internet and social media and then

proceeded with a snowballing of interviews based on referrals from the initial respondents.

Although the initial sampling strategy was not intended to be statistically representative, the

researchers tried to include consultants from different occupational positions and experience

levels to obtain a broader and more comprehensive coverage of their typical experiences and

interpretations. The final distribution of the education consultant businesses included in the

study is generally in line with that of Taiwan agents' population based on Ministry of Education

6
registry data from 2020. The overall distribution of the educational consultant business in my

fieldwork is shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Interviewee Background

Demography Number Percentage
of Participants
Gender
Male 11 26.19%
Female 31 73.81%
Degree
Undergraduate 14 33.33%
Graduate 28 66.67%
Age
20-30 8 15.15%
30-40 15 45.45%
40-50 10 15.15%
50-60 6 18.18%
60+ 3 9.09%
Owner/Founder
Yes(employer) 21 50.00%
No(employee) 21 50.00%

N(Total) 42

The methodological approach was guided by interpretivism, which previous studies have

used to seek rich understanding by exploring individual values and experiences in international

migratory trajectories (Sin, 2013). The consultants were asked to recall the process by which

they were selected by student clients, their work process and routine practices, and their

relationships with the students they serviced. Their narrations unveiled myriad details about

events and work with students on admission processes to which the researcher had no access

otherwise. After the completion and full transcription of the interviews, thematic coding with

the help of the qualitative software MaxQDA was used. Through this collation, a theme about

education consultants' "brokerage" role was revealed quite early, while the detailed technical

and human dimensions surfaced later.

7
Results

Roles and responsibilities perceived by the consultants

International students unfamiliar with the study abroad application process or who feel

they need an extra advantage in their study abroad application will often approach education

consultants for assistance. Catering to such diverse needs, education consultants have many

different roles to play. Some consultants act as information providers, others as informed

insiders helping the student plan their admission submission, and others guide students through

the unfamiliar cross-border application and study processes. To fulfill these myriad roles, some

consultants will develop a "script" to calibrate different steps and tasks of the application

process. Along with this script, they develop different interventions and endeavor to reduce the

burden of the application process on students or help them overcome certain disadvantages

(The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 2014). One such professional script is

shown in Figure 1, as obtained from a Taiwanese firm that took part in an interview.

First-time free consulting

Suggest application strategies and timetables for individual needs.
01
Sign contract
Sign the formal contract, and the consultant delivers the relevant preparation
02 package.

Guidance and translation of application documents

Prepare application documents, resumes, reading plans and recommendation
03 letters based on student backgrounds, and provide essay writing guidance.

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 Fill in the application form
The consultant fills in the application form and assists in sending the
04 application documents to each school

Application status tracking

05 Guidance and advice on school correspondence.

Assistance with admission procedures

Analyze the pros and cons of each school, write rejection letters, and write
06 extension application letters.

Planning and assistance before departure

Visa processing, visa applications instructions, booking air tickets, free pre-
07 enrollment language courses, accommodations and others.

Pre-departure briefing
Local school enrollment procedures, luggage preparation and travel advice.
08 Introduction of local resources and networks.

After-enrollment correspondence
Follow-up contact and assistance with schoolwork and life matters. Advice on
09 further studies and employment, transfer services, etc.

Figure 1: Standard Procedure for an Education Consultant in Taiwan

Although previous researchers have shown how education consultants perform many

distinct tasks, this study further examines how these tasks have been routinized and broadened

consultants' occupational boundaries. Showcasing the "script" of education consultants is

significant in illustrating how their work has been rapidly routinized and has concentrated on

a few designated tasks. In the following section, this study will illustrate the technical

dimension of the education consultants and how their performances have shaped their sense of

professional identity (Xiang & Shen, 2009).

Provide, interpret, and integrate information

Education consultants play a role in brokering student access to limited opportunities, and they

9
interpret those opportunities for their customers. When Taiwanese students are applying to

domestic undergraduate programs, their documents and other preparations are likely guided by

staff and teachers at their local schools as they navigate admissions to elite universities. Yet when

they are applying to foreign schools, international students have limited resources and social capital

on which to rely. This is where consultants step in to provide and interpret crucial information to

help the student navigate the admission process. Many consultants stated that their ability to help

students navigate the sea of information is a crucial "technical dimension" of their job and a

vital function of a consultant’s service. Thomas, a Taiwanese consultant in his 40s, shared how

differences in admission standards and cultural norms between Taiwan and the U.S. make it

necessary for education consultants to help their students select, prioritize, and adjust according to

the information they receive when preparing to apply:

They [students] may have too much information nowadays with the Internet. In this era
of information explosion, everyone can search the websites they want online and find a
lot of application materials and channels. Moreover, our students are often overwhelmed
by these mountains of information. Sometimes it is making decisions about the right kind
of language tutoring; sometimes, it is about delivering the correct order of business for
one's application. Our job, then, is to contextualize that much information for them. For
example, I will help him screen the information about school choice based on residential
preference. Do you prefer somewhere that snows? Cosmopolitan or college towns?

Education consultants may not direct all student choices; however, they can influence how

students access and interpret information and tweak students' final choice of destinations. In

this context, education consultants pride themselves on engaging with student decision-making

through their ability to "identify opportunities" and "plan for the unknown." Tina, a veteran of

the industry, shared what she considers to be her "professional skills" as a consultant:

Our role is to give what our clients believe to be informed decisions, provide context
and knowledge to support their decision, and help them make plans accordingly. We
use our professional judgment to tell students (and parents) what a good choice is
and what is a wrong choice. What makes their application advantageous, and what
makes the application environment more of a barrier.

10
 Gathering information is not enough; consultants must also select and present admission

options that seem credible and appealing to the students. Multiple studies have found that

international students today have become more "brand aware" as consumers in the higher

education market (Nikula & Kivistö, 2018). One prevalent topic in the interviews was that

parents and students often glamorize the possibility of studying abroad. They are convinced

that the consultants can achieve grandiose feats because they often pay significant fees (from

1,000 to 10,000 USD). In those instances, consultants expressed that they took precautionary

steps and attempted to lower, or sometimes re-direct, students' and parents' expectations toward

potential admission outcomes and experiences:

Many people romanticize overseas studies, and some consultants reinforce that . . .
If they {students} can pay handsome fees and tuitions, they can be the boss, slack
off, do nothing, and still receive their credentials. Moreover, the school has to cater
to their needs as paying clients. However, I often tell my students to be realistic. To
attend decent schools, they need to think like athletes to work toward their goals. If
you did not dare to do something in your own country, do not do it abroad. If you do
not go to class in Taiwan, you will be failed; why should you anticipate otherwise
studying abroad? So we need to get that out to our clients quite early on. They need
to understand the reality.

Unlike other brokers (such as realtors), education consultants do not obtain the power to

interpret information by monopolizing access to that information. Instead, consultants use

various methods to convince their customers that they are qualified to decipher this information

through a series of demonstrations of membership in the collegiate community.

Making Predictions and Planning

Consultants also help students predict and plan for the unknown. In this context, one

consultant mentioned that, while they can help the student "foresee" obstacles and opportunities,

they cannot guarantee specific outcomes. Unlike selling a chair or television, people who

broker education admission opportunities cannot promise reliable results for their clients.
11
However, many consultants will still offer promised outcomes, but those promised placements

are often packaged in carefully crafted rhetoric and shoptalk. In one case, a consultant called

this process "placement analysis," a step that evaluates the student's likelihood of acceptance

among a variety of school choices:

Yes, we need to develop a list [for the students]. Sometimes, it is not necessarily
good, but we must apply to the most suitable school for the student, according to his
grades, personal characteristics, and preferences. Some schools they [students] have
a relatively higher chance of getting admitted, while others may be his "dream
school" that he could aspire to. So, you need a list of dream schools and a list of
"safety school lists" to plan for the unknown. Experienced agents also know about
taking precautions.

A significant aspect of the consultants' job is to increase the predictability of a student's

admissions outcome and, in a related effort, to address the risk of failure. This further links the

education consultant function to other professional advising work, especially those dealing

with uncertain situations(Sun & Smith, 2017; Thieme, 2017). Moreover, the education

consultants' can be considered service workers dedicated to limiting both the contingencies

their clients face and disturbances in the institutional environment(Collins, 2008; Nikula &

Kivistö, 2018).

In addition to advising, Tina explained that another crucial technical dimension of

consultants' work is helping students avoid the risk of application failure:

We tried our best to prevent you from failing the application. There should be no
instances where students cannot find any programs to be admitted that they can
accept. It is simply unacceptable. They should have known better to develop some
backup plan with the students regarding their applications.

Precluding failure is a significant responsibility of consultants because not doing so

threatens their authority as experts and credible professionals. A critical duty that consultants

must perform is to advise students to consider the appropriate course of action, balancing

university rankings against a realistic assessment of their own attributes.

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 Any work and coaching which involves helping students select particular schools or

destinations entails some diagnostic components. The foundations of successful admissions-

related action planning are grounded in excellent dialogistic work, i.e., by defining and

analyzing problems and purposes as well as the factors that promote or hamper the change

necessary for the clients to achieve their individual or organizational goals (Stovel & Shaw,

2012).

Trust building mechanisms and process

The "human dimension" concerns the interactions and trust-building aspect of education

consultants' professional tasks. These human dimension tasks complement the "technical

orientation" examined earlier to construct a legitimate professional image for the education

consultants. This kind of service requires interaction and emotional labor to create a

comfortable environment and pleasant experience for clients (Coffey & Perry, 2014; The

Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, 2014). Consultants must often engage in

intensive interventions in the student's work or interact with the student more personally. For

example, many consultants listen tactfully to students' difficulties and needs, sometimes even

accompanying them through their personal anxieties and emotional issues. Therefore,

maintaining customers' trust and confidence and supporting the legitimacy of the consultants’

paid service depends upon the consultants consciously emphasizing these elusive human

dimensions in their work with their clients. By analyzing those human aspects of education

consultants’ work, the following section further illustrates that these consultants are, in effect,

using various relational tools and emotional labor to downplay the fact of their for-profit

orientation and thereby secure business transactions.

13
Creating a Trusting Environment

All of the education consultants in this study mentioned some form of "trust" as a

prerequisite they must build with the students before accomplishing their tasks. Of the 42

interviewees, 25 used "expertise" or "professionalism" to describe how they build trust with

student clients. The interviewees described diverse dimensions of trust in working with

students: one relating to students' trust in the worthiness of their expertise and another relating

to belief in their loyalty to the students' best interests.

It is straightforward: if a student is sitting before you, you want to give more than
surface answers to their questions. You want to showcase your knowledge and
professionalism and win their trust through your conversations. You want to be
beyond their expectations: tell them a different vision and let them see they have
other better choices. I have been working in this industry for more than a decade, and
I continue to cultivate my capacity to have this kind of vision. That is why my
students feel assured working with me.

In contrast to the later stages of the process, when they have often gained the clients’ trust,

many consultants mentioned that students (or their parents) were often hesitant about

consultants' motivations in the early stages of the collaboration. When asked to describe the

unique context of such interaction, many interviewees highlighted the fear that the consultants

would "cheat them" or "scam them for their money" as a typical initial response from their

clients. This lack of initial trust necessitates that consultants spend considerable time and

energy assuring students and parents of their worthiness and loyalty. However, there is an

inherent risk of revealing too much about the consultants’ intentions and motivations to

students. At times, efforts to communicate may foster trust, but other times it may backfire and

create more disbelief. Yet despite such a risk, almost all consultants interviewed insisted that

fostering trust was a conscious goal, which could allow transitions between tasks to be the most

effective and efficient. An education consultant named Emma shared the following:

In this job, I feel that you cannot afford to just carelessly present yourself with a
14
 professional persona because you can appear too distanced, speak about the jargon,
and make the application process sound incredibly complicated. [You will need to
do] Quite the opposite! Students need to feel that you are working with them. They
need to understand what you understand. They need to see what you foresee.

Education consultants also must speak and interact with students in ways students

find accommodating and comfortable. In doing so, education consultants must invest

considerable effort in creating a shared rapport and an atmosphere of trust. As service

providers, multiple consultants referenced professional counselors' work, which likewise

involves considerable interaction and trust-building.

Multiple consultants also highlighted the emotional aspects of their work. In their eyes,

good consultancy work requires more than technical expertise, including specific "soft" human

skills. When done well, these emotional work exertions can create a strong bond between

student and consultant that transcends typical client-merchant relationships. A few other

consultants also noted that building rapport with their clients often entails serving as "liaisons"

between children and parents. In the Taiwan context, such a liaison role is vital. Even though

most students are adults when they go abroad, most of the expenses are paid by their parents,

and this often makes it necessary for consultants to reconcile the expectations and imaginations

of both parties regarding studying abroad. In some cases, parents may ask consultants to

convince their children to pursue certain degrees or specific school programs, or vice versa.

The function of this kind of communication surpasses merely passing information to the other

party or diagnosing or planning specific activities. Instead, consultants' work often requires

emotional and relational skills to cater to the student's more personal demands.

Creating new networks and relationships

Finally, an often-overlooked aspect of consultants' work is facilitating social networks

and relationships and even creating new ones. This includes enhancing the bonding and mutual

assistance between students (those currently studying and those applying for admission) and
15
helping students connect with other interpersonal resources. These links help students

accumulate the necessary cultural and social capital and serve as another means of legitimizing

consultant professionalism. For example, many consultants like Max are known for initiating

"study abroad networks" that connect applicants with common interests, ambitions, and ages

to prepare to study abroad:

It is great to have such networks come to such a scale to reap the community's benefit.
People can quickly find others with similar interests, backgrounds, and experiences
when the community rises. We can be a crucial platform where they meet others,
connect them with other people and resources, etc.

Senior consultants usually have a cohort of "model students" who will share their success

stories and advice when needed. These model students may provide personal accounts,

techniques, and other information about studying abroad. Most importantly (from the

consultant's perspective), they can also provide an endorsement of the service by sharing their

personal experiences and describing how the strategies developed while working with the

consultant proved successful. These informal networks also play a latent role: they help

transform the market exchange into a personal exchange. The best example of this

transformation is reflected in what students call each other in these interpersonal networks.

Consultants commonly employ various relational cues to contextualize their relationship with

their students. For example, in observing the interaction between a Taiwanese consultant Tina

and her students, I noticed that she often used terms like “shue chang”(“big brothers” or

“senior”) or “shue jie”(“big sisters” or “senior”) to refer to other international students who

have more experience. When pressed to explain why such instances would occur, Tina's

explanation helps highlight why personalizing such interaction is essential:

It is not necessarily just a question of trust. They [Students] must learn how to interact
with others, admit that they need help, and then seek resources and contacts
beneficial to them. They are a junior and senior peer network collective outside our
16
 institutions. Even when they go abroad, other people will help them, such as the
Taiwanese Students Association. They will become part of a network, a collective.

Although the term “senior” may be used in other contexts as a mere term of endearment,

in the eyes of consultants, such a term has more of a symbolic function. It is a testament that

education consultants invest a fair amount of energy in building a network of international

students and their communities. They also promote various mechanisms to ensure that this

network of students facilitates reciprocal and productive exchange among its members. These

conversion processes contribute to the professionalism-building work of consultants. Or, to put

it another way, consultants can also utilize such relational connections to subtly remind

students that they genuinely care about their academic and personal success.

Conclusion

The global education consultant market continues to expand with a widening middle class

aspiring to study in developed Western countries (Collins, 2012; Huang et al., 2016). In

addition, with the emergence of many new "educational hubs" in Asia, such as Japan, Korea

and China, the development of related demands for such service will only increase(Jon, Lee,

& Byun, 2014; Sidhu, Ho, & Yeoh, 2011). Education consultant businesses are part of this

growing trend, helping students find resources and opportunities (Coffey & Perry, 2014; Feng

& Horta, 2021; Huang et al., 2016; Raimo et al., 2014; The Observatory on Borderless Higher

Education, 2014). Education consultants have also become one of the industry actors in the

global education chain, marketing international education as a commodity to schools, students,

and parents (Collins, 2008; Nikula, 2020; Nikula & Kivistö, 2020; Tuxen & Robertson, 2019).

A growing body of research has explored the education consultants’ portion of the

industry from various perspectives, although relatively little attention has been placed on the

nature of their labor and their work's technical and human dimensions. This chapter contributes

17
to the existing literature by highlighting the prevailing education consultants' role in helping

students navigate the admission process. It problematizes the taken-for-granted singularity of

admission assistance and brokerage practices, a misperception of the industry which comes

with the assumption that education consultants' business practice is based solely on economic

terms. This chapter instead focuses on the technical and relational aspects of this job to add

depth and specificity to the investigation of the educational consultant business.

This study further suggests that the success of education consultant professionals in

delivering services and convincing people to pay for them often depends less on calculation

and more on managing relational clues. Moreover, this study has advanced our knowledge of

the task-based formality of these fee-charging, contracted practitioners who help students apply

to overseas schools(Huang et al., 2020; Hulme et al., 2014; Lin, 2020). By elaborating upon

the technical and relational aspects of their work, the participants in this research demonstrate

that education consultants often value economic rewards and the building of social meaning

through their daily work routines. The education consultant workforce helps students adjust,

integrate, and reshape education aspirations. Additional research in this direction holds the

promise of further developing a new "occupational lens" to advance our collective knowledge

of managing and understanding education consultant professionals and their roles in

international higher education markets.

18
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