To Those Considering Consulting

You’re about to graduate from college. Good grades, well-spoken, gregarious, don’t wanna get stuck in the office of some trucking company. Why not try consulting? Here are some pros and cons of going into consulting:

Pros:

1. Better pay. Generally, as a consultant you can expect to make more money then your "in house" counterpart for doing the same job (or even less qualified one). And the higher up on the consulting ladder you are, the greater the gap usually gets.

2. More variety. The projects are generally shorter term, faster paced with different clients, and in different places.

3. Greater professional exposure. You’ll have a chance to work within different industries, different teams, and with different technologies. (That’s generally the case, but there are plenty of exceptions.)

4. Looks good on the resume. Especially if you’re joining one of the big five.

5. Learn valuable skills. Chances are you studied French literature of the Renaissance, and have recently discovered that it might be not the most marketable knowledge. Fear not; if you have good grades, graduating from a decent college, and don’t suffer from Tourette syndrome you’ll have a chance to join an elite band of professionals where you’ll be given an opportunity to learn some highly prized skills.

6. Better social life. Trust me, it just is.

Cons:

1. 100% traveling. It’s good for a year or two, but after a while it’ll start wearing you down. Missed flights before Thanksgiving or your girlfriend’s B-day, twice a week five hour flights sitting next to a 300 lbs redneck who hasn’t showered for two weeks.

2. Dishonesty. Wait! Wait! Hear me out first. On a very basic level, let’s get a couple of things straight: as a new college grad (regardless of your internships and god-given talents) you are not worth $150 an hour (and if you’re joining one of the big five, it could be more than $300). And yet, that’s what your time will be charged at (or something not too far off).

Another very common issue in consulting is just blatant lying. Lying to clients about the effort involved, the degree of difficulty, talking up a vendor with whom the company has a partnership, proposing a costlier solution when there’s absolutely no reason for it, low-balling the client on the initial proposal, and then bending him over on change requests; all very common practices within consulting. Those who say otherwise are either lying, or haven’t been there long enough.

3. Lack of in-depth experience. As a consultant, you’ll have a chance to work with multiple technologies and in various verticals. It is somewhat rare however, to work with the same technology for a long period of time, and to gain some solid experience within a single industry and a specific set of tools. (Jack of all trades, but a master of none.)

4. Career volatility. Ask five consultants whether they were laid off at least once within the last 5 years, and at least four of them will say “Yes”. And being laid off by a consulting company is not the same thing as being laid off by a blue chip company. You’re lucky if you get two weeks severance. You aren’t billable for a couple of weeks, and it’s the unemployment office you. There are some exceptions (generally they’re smaller companies that will try to find some alternative use for their consultants), but not many.

5. Difficult to transition to another job. As a consultant with 2-3 years of experience, you probably haven’t built some very solid skills in anything yet (like I said earlier, different projects, different technologies). You’re already making somewhere between 50 and 70K a year, and would like to keep this salary. The problem is, at this point you’re only a good match for some other consulting company (no blue chip or mom and pop shop are going to pay a snot-nose like you 70K/year). And when the economy is down, it’s the consultants that go first. That’s a fact.

6. Stressful environment. As a consultant, every time you come in to the client’s office, you have a bull’s eye painted on your back. Chances are, your mere presence alone is a negative reflection on someone who will be working along side you, and on whom you’ll have to rely for information. Your language, your attire, the car you rented, duration of your coffee break, the wording of your emails, all will be scrutinized by the client, and any one of them can be a reason for your dismissal from the project (I’ve seen it happen).

Hard deadlines. They do, exist outside consulting, but nowhere near to the same degree. Every deliverable, every milestone in every project must be met on time. And in a totally new environment, with a new team, and perhaps a new technology, it tends to put a bit of strain on you.

7. Politicking. You don’t know what situation you’re walking into. Perhaps some senior manager on the client side has failed to meet the milestones twice already, and doesn’t believe that it can be done. It could be high time for a scape goat. Or perhaps, the success of the project will reveal certain aspects about the company that the senior management would really prefer to stay hidden. Seen that too. If you fail – you fail, and if you succeed – you’ve failed even worse.

8. Long, long, very long hours. Every project, no exceptions. At some point, when the project nears the end, you will put in anywhere from 60 to 120 hour weeks. Depending on the quality of your management, this might go on for months. And in the end, there might not even be a bonus.


Off the top of my head, that’s all I can think of for now. But feel free to ask questions, and I’ll answer them with absolute frankness.