How Some Consultants Fake an 80-Hour Workweek (2015) • Hacker News Board

Re: How Some Consultants Fake an 80-Hour Workweek (2015)

#101

Post by da02 » Tue, Sep 25, 2018, 4:59 PM UTC

gringoDan wrote: post #97

rohitb91 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP but to get in generally go to an ivy league school, or go to a non target with an amazing GPA, ECs and luck, or have connections.

OP here - I agree with this. If you're at an Ivy the banks and consulting firms come to you, then it's just a matter of 1) studying the basic interview questions and being able to speak semi-intelligently about financial topics and 2) interviewing a ton until you find a firm with people similar to you and like your personality. I left because I was depressed during the job and realized I wanted work with fewer hours…

What industry/field did you go into afterwards? B2B or B2C startups?

Re: How Some Consultants Fake an 80-Hour Workweek (2015)

#102

Post by wink » Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 1:12 AM UTC

Boulth wrote: post #100

ryanwaggoner wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rules of thumb are humorous, but they indicate an appalling lack of ability to both estimate and manage a project. I've been a self-employed software engineer for more than a decade and I've worked on 100+ projects. Very few of them got done on the original timeline, but none of them were overdue to anything close to this degree. If I tell a client it'll take 3 weeks and it takes 6 months, there will be a mount…

Do you have any resources about good estimation? I have good intuition how to approach it and generally I'm close to estimated values but I'd like improve still.

Even after 18 years it's still a bit magic to me. The only thing I can pretty accuretely tell is... if I can estimate it correctly. So if I say "1 day" it will be 4h-16h, when I say 3 days, it will probably be done in a week. But if say "I have no clue" - then it can literally be 1 day to 1 month.

Re: How Some Consultants Fake an 80-Hour Workweek (2015)

#103

Post by gringoDan » Thu, Sep 27, 2018, 6:37 PM UTC

da02 wrote: post #101

gringoDan wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP here - I agree with this. If you're at an Ivy the banks and consulting firms come to you, then it's just a matter of 1) studying the basic interview questions and being able to speak semi-intelligently about financial topics and 2) interviewing a ton until you find a firm with people similar to you and like your personality. I left because I was depressed during the job and realized I wanted work with fewer hours…

What industry/field did you go into afterwards? B2B or B2C startups?

I've worked in both. I'm of the opinion that early on in your career it really doesn't matter, you could do either. There are far more important things to think about (company & personal growth trajectory, coworkers & culture, learning opportunities, etc.) when choosing a company.