The Business and "Expert" Consulting Games view entire page
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| "A consultant is someone who borries your watch to tell you the time and then pockets it as payment for services rendered." - Old Business Proverb |
There are thousands of pages, from the Wall Street Journal to public service publications, which suggest that if the public's managers spent at least as much time managing, or learning to manage, as is spent talking to Management consultants, the public's business might benefit greatly. It is rarer to find a consultant outlining the Consultant Game. Below, Russel Coke advises others how to follow him into an industry after 3 years of experience in an industry where 5+ years still qualifies one as a neophyte.
Now some of you will have read through my pages and
decided that becoming a consultant is what they want to do. So I'll explain how
to do it starting from when you're at university (maybe some school students are
reading this). Feel free to skip a paragraph or two until you get to the part
that applies to you.
When at university high marks are not the most important thing. In fact you only
need to pass, but I recommend that you get marks that you consider to be
"good". Keep in mind that your university marks won't be on your
resume for long. It's been years since I've had my marks on my resume, I just
say that I have a B.Sc majoring in Computer Science and Software Engineering.
Don't waste your time doing extra subjects (unless they are fun). Most companies
will not be more likely to hire you because your degree includes
"co-operative education" (6 months of work-experience at half pay) or
because you did extra subjects in your Christmas holidays (if they do beware -
they'll expect the same degree of dedication when you're working for them). Try
to actually learn things when at university, spend time reading good text books
in the library. Skim-read manuals of relevant software packages. Marks that you
get at university won't matter a few years after you graduate. The things that
you learn are much more important.
Don't do post-graduate studies unless you want an academic career or a senior
research position (both career choices are under-paying but fun if you like that
sort of thing). A post-graduate degree will get you slightly higher pay, but
spending the same amount of time working and getting practical experience will
get you more.
When you graduate keep in mind that no sane project manager would hire a
university graduate in a consulting or contracting position. I don't get
criticised for being too modest, but I don't believe that I deserved consultant
pay straight out of university (for the record I didn't get it - it wasn't until
I had 3 years commercial experience that I started getting good money). So don't
expect to finish your university degree and get a large hourly rate. Of course
you could get lucky, if so then make the most of your opportunity.
I know of
some graduates who started out on significant hourly rates. Some of them get
convinced by their parents and other people who don't know much about the
computer industry that they should get reliable permanent employment (see my
writing on the point
of being a contractor for the issue of stable employment). Ignore them, make
good money while you can, you can get a job that pays less at any time. Other
graduates who get such contracts start to believe that they are actually really
skillful and deserve the high rates they get. This is dangerous as they then
tend to ask for more money and threaten to quit if they don't get it. That is
something you should not do unless you know for a fact that you can get another
contract on the same money. For a graduate-consultant there are two ways of
doing this, one is to get another contract offer (unlikely), the other is to
stick around until you've got a couple of year's experience before looking for
something else. Of course you can always feel free to disregard my advice. If
you've got 6 months of commercial experience as a consultant and feel that
you're god's gift to the computer industry then please quit and try and find
another position, then tell me about it for the amusement value. ;)
Really the most likely way to become a consultant is to spend a few years
working for consulting companies. If this is your aim then you don't want to
work for a large company. If you do so then you will probably only work in a
specialised area (which means you won't get a range of experience), and you will
not get a chance to learn much that's not directly related to the work you are
doing. From a strategic point of view working in a smaller consulting company is
the best thing to do, but to be practical take what you can get. Getting your
first job will be the most difficult, so just get started somewhere and look for
opportunities for advancement later.
I have been told that it used to be that you needed around 8 years of commercial
experience before you could become a consultant. When I started I had 2.5 years
of experience which is probably about the minimum. Initially I didn't get great
rates, easy work, or a guarantee of 40 hours work per week (NB when you are paid
by the hour you want to work more than 40 hours not less). I did not become a
consultant because of any great plan, I did so because the company I worked for
wasn't paying me as much money as I felt I deserved and I didn't get enough
opportunities to learn new things that were interesting. I believe that those
reasons are typical among consultants. I can only think of one person who became
a consultant as part of a career plan, but if you are capable of planning such
career changes then I think you're making the right decision to become a
consultant as you have the personality for it. This would also give you the
option of becoming a consultant when there's a good opportunity and when your
plans are ready to get good money right from the start (rather than being
relatively poor for the first 6 months as I was).
Once you've passed the above stages in your career then you have to get your
first contract. In most countries this requires first setting up a company to
manage your income (seek advice from an accountant not me). This shouldn't take
too long so you can start looking
for work before this is complete. One issue that you will face is what rate
to ask for. This is very important. If you apply for a contract and don't ask
for enough then you may be ruled out immidiately (after all if you were good
then you're expect lots of money). Ideally you would already know some
consultants who could advise you on what the going rates are. Sometimes job
adverts list rates but that is very rare in contract positions (and probably not
representative of the market rates). So if you don't know any friendly
consultants then the best thing to do is to guess at a large amount, phone up an
agency and ask for that much. If you are asking way to much then the agent will
say that they can't offer that much and can't help you if you expect that much
money. If you ask for slightly too much then the agent will say that you're
asking for a lot and they will find it difficult to get work for you. If they
just go through the motions of trying to talk you into accepting less money then
you're probably asking for the right amount. I generally tell the agencies that
I'll accept a lower rate if the work is interesting enough. That way I get to
have the higher rate put to the client, and I won't get immediately excluded
from consideration if the client won't pay the high rate.