Posts Tagged ‘trends’

A discussion topic on LinkedIn made me think about why I wanted to become a consultant.  I had to ask myself the question “Why did I become a consultant? Was it the pay? The prestige?”   I started to write a comment on this topic but quickly realized that I would have to write this down first to collect my thoughts and then copy it into the comments section.  The problem was, I was 1000 characters over my limit when I posted my “comment”!  Therefore, I decided to blog about this topic instead.

The person making the post is a recruiter (and a good friend as well).  She states that she talks to candidates all of the time who are trying to “make the transition, have made the transition or have decided it’s not all it’s cracked up to be” and asks what are the pros and cons of becoming a consultant.

Let me start by clarifying what a consultant is from my point of view.
A consultant is like a freelancer… someone who is self-employed and is beating the bushes for work everyday.
(Put simply,  someone who receives 1099′s from clients at tax time instead of W2′s)

There are consultants who work for consulting firms but I view them as employees.  I myself have been a consultant for seven years but have only been a “true” consultant the last four years. I do find the work rewarding and I wouldn’t change it for the world, but I have experienced hiccups and headaches along the way.

The PROS of being a consultant are as follows:

More freedom: As a consultant you have more freedom in how you work and when you work.  You’re usually not tied to a cubicle and can come and go as you please. You can also pick what types of projects to work on.  You are able to  take on the more “sexier” projects and leave the more boring ones to someone else.

Increased pay: You can receive a substantial pay increase as a consultant then you would as a normal employee.  However, the pay increase doesn’t usually correlate with an increase in employee salary (more on that later).

Ideas are better received: As a consultant you will have  opportunities to talk to people who never would have interacted with you as an employee.   These people are usually decision makers in the company and can take your ideas and make them a reality.  As an employee your ideas can easily get squashed by a middle level manager and never make it to the person who can make it happen. As a consultant you are also the one that gets to “architect” a solution and design it the way you want it designed.

Work when you want, when you want: This correlates to more freedom.  Of course when the market is tight… you may not have this luxury.

As with any topic, with PROS come CONS.  Here are the CONS I see from being a consultant:

More responsibility: I’m sure that as an employee you often hear snide remarks towards the consultants working in your workplace:  “This project is not going right because of the stupid consultants.” or “Those consultants are supposed to be working on this and they keep screwing it up.” Well guess what… now you are the “stupid consultant”.  When a company hires you to do a task they expect it done right and working on the first iteration. That’s the reason they hire consultants.  You are the one that can fix all of their problems and only charge 40 hours to complete it. When it comes to you and getting the job done right… The BUCK STOPS HERE.  You are the one that is ultimately responsible for the task assigned to you.

You have to run your business as well as your consulting gig: As a consultant you are also a small business owner. There are things you must do for your small business that takes away from your billable hours as a consultant. Examples include accounting, legal, advertising, and catching up on paperwork (purchase orders, invoices, schedules, etc).  These tasks are crucial for your business to succeed but they don’t bring value in the terms of revenue to your consulting gig.

Most of the time you are alone with little or no collaboration with your peers: As a consultant you typically work by yourself on a task or a project. Since you are the expert, people come to you for advice.  But there may be times where you may need an expert opinion on something that may not be in your area of expertise.  As an employee you can usually find someone in your group to bounce ideas off of.  But as a consultant you usually don’t have that luxury.  This also brings me to my next con:

Your peers are now your competitors: Let’s face it… as a consultant everyone is competing with you.  Other consultants want your gigs.  Employees at your client site want you gone.  Everywhere around you there is someone jumping at the chance to make sure you fail so that they can come in and save the day. Consulting is not for the faint of heart.  It is a very competitive environment where emotions need to be left at home.

No Benefits: As a consultant you have no paid time off… no sick leave, no vacation, no holidays.  You don’t get a company car or free cell phone paid by your employer. You pay your own taxes and you buy your own insurance.  The amount you pay in insurance is usually 10 times that of a group policy given to a company with employees.  The IRS usually knows you on a first name basis and they usually have your phone number.  The tax laws change every year and those changes are usually not in your favor.  Yes you have an increase in pay as a consultant, but the expenses you pay to stay in business are more than the increase you made in your hourly rate.

To me the most important reason in becoming a consultant is not the money, but the freedom you have in consulting.  Do not go into consulting thinking that someone is going to take care of you and help you out.  Your success and/or failure lies directly upon you.

Here is a link that shows the top programming trends and their changes from last year:

http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html