The Reality of Consulting?

um7y1h83ge06nx

Hi guys,

I was wondering does anyone have an opinion about consulting. I was approached by a recruiter about a senior consultant's role in one of the big consultancy companies. The role is J2EE based with other bells and whistles.

What are the pros and cons of consulting?

stevenmu

'Consulting' can be a bit of a catch-all that can describe a range of roles and responsibilities. Generally it'll involve development plus 'other stuff'. 'Other stuff' will be mostly customer facing, pre-sales meetings, demos/presentations, requirements gathering/workshops, support, training etc. Technical other stuff could be solution design, managing junior consultants etc, and then actual development itself.

FYI, junior consultants are generally people fresh out of college with little/no experience, but make up plenty of expensive billable days. "Senior" consultant can mean a lot of things, it can either be just the standard level of developer, it can be more senior and involve more customer facing responsibilities and/or managing teams of more junior consultants, you'd need to discuss this with the potential employer.

Pros can be:
-Lots of variety, there's a variety of tasks for each project, from customer engagement to actual development. And, projects tend to run for a few weeks to a few months (some will go to multiple years), so you tend to get to work on a lot of different projects, often with widely different requirements using varied technologies.
-Lots of challenge, you'll generally be expected to be an expert on everything. You'll often get involved in projects which use technologies/frameworks/etc that you're not very familiar with, but you'll need to be able to design and implement solutions around them.
-Customer interaction can be an interesting experience. It can be enjoyable trying to manage customer engagements.
-You get a lot of freedom and input into the solution, generally you'll have a lot of say in how a solution is designed and implemented. As you become a better consultant you also learn how to guide a customers requirements.
-You'll probably get a mix of working independantly and working in teams.

Cons are pretty much the opposite of the pros. Some people won't like much variety or challenge, they [refer to stick to what they know day in and day out. Similarly some people won't want to get involved with customer engagement, they're happier to sit in their cubicle and code off a set of requirements. Some won't like the responsibility of being almost solely responsible for a projects success/failure. Another potential downside is that everything comes down to billable days, when developing an internal project you may have ideas that would lead to a more 'perfect' solution and be able to implement them, in consulting if the customer hasn't agreed to pay for the time to do it, it doesn't get done.

John_Mc

stevenmu wrote: »

'Consulting' can be a bit of a catch-all that can describe a range of roles and responsibilities. Generally it'll involve development plus 'other stuff'. 'Other stuff' will be mostly customer facing, pre-sales meetings, demos/presentations, requirements gathering/workshops, support, training etc. Technical other stuff could be solution design, managing junior consultants etc, and then actual development itself.

FYI, junior consultants are generally people fresh out of college with little/no experience, but make up plenty of expensive billable days. "Senior" consultant can mean a lot of things, it can either be just the standard level of developer, it can be more senior and involve more customer facing responsibilities and/or managing teams of more junior consultants, you'd need to discuss this with the potential employer.

Pros can be:
-Lots of variety, there's a variety of tasks for each project, from customer engagement to actual development. And, projects tend to run for a few weeks to a few months (some will go to multiple years), so you tend to get to work on a lot of different projects, often with widely different requirements using varied technologies.
-Lots of challenge, you'll generally be expected to be an expert on everything. You'll often get involved in projects which use technologies/frameworks/etc that you're not very familiar with, but you'll need to be able to design and implement solutions around them.
-Customer interaction can be an interesting experience. It can be enjoyable trying to manage customer engagements.
-You get a lot of freedom and input into the solution, generally you'll have a lot of say in how a solution is designed and implemented. As you become a better consultant you also learn how to guide a customers requirements.
-You'll probably get a mix of working independantly and working in teams.

Cons are pretty much the opposite of the pros. Some people won't like much variety or challenge, they [refer to stick to what they know day in and day out. Similarly some people won't want to get involved with customer engagement, they're happier to sit in their cubicle and code off a set of requirements. Some won't like the responsibility of being almost solely responsible for a projects success/failure. Another potential downside is that everything comes down to billable days, when developing an internal project you may have ideas that would lead to a more 'perfect' solution and be able to implement them, in consulting if the customer hasn't agreed to pay for the time to do it, it doesn't get done.

+1 Steve, that's a very good description of what it's like.

I've recently moved from a 100% development job, to one of the big consulting firms (perhaps the same as the one you're thinking of as they're looking for Java people at the moment). I like it, it's fast paced, there's a lot of variety and I'm liking the client facing aspect of it.

Hellm0

Consultancy is a lot like being an escort. You show up, do what you have to and try to service them as best you can. The client will likely try to exploit you, and your pimp will do nothing to stop them* (hours = money).

[EDIT]

* Though as you progress and gain "expertise", you may find yourself being flown to strange places, staying in hotels 5 nights a week and doing things you never thought you would have to for money.

[/EDIT]

um7y1h83ge06nx

Hi guys,

Thanks for that, should give me something to think about.

RedPhil

Hey, nice to find this thread, I was looking for this type of information.
I too was approached about a consulting in Java role for one of the big 4firms and am in two minds about applying.. mainly because of all the moving around from site to site, not knowing where in Dublin your going to be based and the potential of never really being able to get to know your colleagues.

What sort of team environment might exist for a development consultant? How big? and do all the members of the same team move to the next project or are you likely to be working with different people (obviously the clients change from project to project) from your company each project. I think I'd love the variety it would offer, but constantly working with a different team could be difficult. Who would you go for pints with?

Do consultants that are out on site generally exist in a different ecosystem than their parent companies? The comp I'm looking at regular wins awards for best place to work etc. but I doubt that would cross to onsite workers..

Any elaboration on consulting on that already given is appreciated.

Phil-

Naikon

It should be the ultimate goal of any developer to work for him/herself. At least on the dream level. Think about it, total control. Software is one area I don't think the 9-5 grind really does much justice. At all. People complain about "the benefits". So what, you aren't sick on a regular basis barring long term illness. An employer only has to mutter the words "your fired" and there goes your revenue stream.

RedPhil

hey guys, any more input into what's it like in consultancy, particularly from a team craic / bonding type of standpoint.

stevenmu

It's very hard to say, it'll vary very much from company to company, and within the larger companies it'll vary very much by team/group/division.

I work for a small company (well, numerically small but with big ambitions ), so we'd all know each other pretty well, get on pretty well etc. But we'd rarely all be around and we don't manage to get together for pints hugely often. And I've been on site with a client for the last few months and there's been a few people who have started with the company that I've barely met.

Within the larger companies it's a bit harder to say, depending on your exact role/team you could end up working a lot with the same group of people (if you're in some kind of niche area), you could end up working with different people a lot, you could end up working on your own a lot and/or travelling a lot.

The only thing I could say for sure is that if you want your career to contribute largely to your social life it's probably not the best career path. It wouldn't be impossible to make work but being part of an in-house team would suit that better I think.

RedPhil

hey Steve, thanks for your response. Yeah, I kind of am hoping that the career would contribute a bit to social life, even on the odd Friday like, this role I'm looking at is for a huge comp whose currently taking on a lot of JAVA people but still not sure what it could mean, it would be great for the career itself I'm sure, but seems like I'm left with a decision to proceed or not. Seems like a lot a variables in consultancy roles.... you never know what your going to get kind of thing.

John_Mc

The consulting firm I work for puts a lot of time, effort & money into team building activities and nights out. We're regularly brought our for dinner with the team and there's usually pints on Friday night.

I worked in a software develpment role in an SME for 2 years and we did it no more than 3 times in total.

RedPhil

cheers John, your contribution to this thread is valued by me and OP I'm sure.

Your experiences about your company sound good, are you onsite with clients or in a central location?

Here's a bit of a rude question,,, are there many young people do you know on the it consultancy teams of people like bearingpoint, deloitte TI, kpmg etc. or are each and all seasoned pros with 15-20 yrs under their belts. Not that I'm a spring chicken myself or anything but wondering, is it a health mix of ages, backgrounds etc.

John_Mc

RedPhil wrote: »

cheers John, your contribution to this thread is valued by me and OP I'm sure.

Your experiences about your company sound good, are you onsite with clients or in a central location?

Here's a bit of a rude question,,, are there many young people do you know on the it consultancy teams of people like bearingpoint, deloitte TI, kpmg etc. or are each and all seasoned pros with 15-20 yrs under their belts. Not that I'm a spring chicken myself or anything but wondering, is it a health mix of ages, backgrounds etc.

Yeah no problem

I only started with the company back in November so have only worked on two projects. My first was on the client site in Cork (I live in Dublin), so that got a bit tiresome after a while but it was only for 2 months. My current project is based in the company HQ in Dublin, with travel to the client site once a week so I stay overnight and work 2 days down there.

I'm happy with that as it breaks up the week, and the expenses aren't bad at all.

In terms of the people working here, I'd say the majority are in late twenties to early thirties. Obviously the more senior you look, the older the people are are. There's also the annual influx of new recruits who would be a lot younger. All in all, there's a good mix of people working here and they would be of similar enough backgrounds.

I have to say that everyone I've worked so far with has been very competent and hard working. This is no doubt down to the performance evaluations which are held every 6 months, and the ambitions that everyone has to progress their career.

It's pretty fast paced, and clients can be demanding but the days fly by and the work is rewarding for the most part.

2ygb4cmqetsjhx

Been offered a job as a junior consultant myself. With this company http://www.riverland.com/ Tempted to take it too. Still not entirely sure. Just wondering where I will end up eventually given that I would probably be working there for five years as a junior consultant.