It’s great to be a consultant • Hacker News Board

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#51

Post by jpitz » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:21 PM UTC

immutology wrote: post #42

Is this "consulting" or "contracting"? In my mind, "consulting" is knowledge work. Your role is to lend knowledge and expertise, help with strategy, architecture, tool/platform selection, etc. "Contracting" is high-skill grunt work. Your role is to code your fingers off, deliver-deliver-deliver, typically according to someone else's (possibly ill-conceived) plan. Have these things truly become synonymous?

They're not always synonymous. Much of the time it's a little of column A, little of column B.

Even so, I try to ensure that my contracting engagements demonstrate my value as a consultant.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#52

Post by benjaminwootton » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

sam_lowry_ wrote: post #36

skinkestek wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do like I (and the author of the article seems to do) do: Work for a consulting company. Company have sales, accounting and a lawyer. I have all the benefits described in the article.

Consulting companies take a cut and and working for one company closes more doors that it opens. Businesses usually have a handful of preferred suppliers they source consultant from, as well as black lists. One thing a consultant has to figure out is how the procurement works in places they want to join. Some things are surprisingly public, like many tendering websites. You do not have to answer to a tender directly,…

They do “take a cut”, but signing up and managing relationships with big companies is extraordinarily difficult, time consuming and expensive.

If you are working through one boutique consultancy you aren’t actually doing too badly. Sometimes you’ll be working through a system integrator, through a boutique consultancy, and through a staffing agency. And to some degree they are all delivering some value, simply because working with big corporates is so painful and getting direct relationships is so difficult.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#53

Post by mettamage » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:23 PM UTC

> When you’re an internal employee, you’re often encouraged to ‘stay in your box’ and not disturb the existing hierarchy. By contrast, as a consultant you don’t need to worry as much about the internal politics or history when suggesting changes. Indeed, you’re often encouraged to step outside your boundaries and make suggestions.

What companies encourage this? I want to work for these companies. I have the feeling that companies like EY, Accenture, Deloitte and PWC don't encourage this. I also feel that McKinsey, BCG and Bain don't fully encourage this. So which companies are good to work for?

I am not looking to become a consultant per se. I simply know that I step outside of boundaries by default [1]. I am clueless in this, I need a career coach. I don't know how to find a good career coach.

What I have liked to do in the past (personal/professional): pentesting, Python, C++, JavaScript, data scraping, building web apps, data analysis, improving business processes, trading (signal trading), investing (value investing) and playing poker (standard math of hand ranges, pot odds, fold equity, etc.).

[1] Example: at one company I was a programmer and I saw an approach to improve their business model. This has helped the company to generate 10% more revenue. As a result they get pissed because I am not programming enough.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#54

Post by IggleSniggle » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:25 PM UTC

franze wrote: post #14

The secret on how to become a great consultant: Take all the blame, distribute all the praise. Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.…

Wow, you might have just convinced me to consider consulting. This is my natural personality/upbringing and I’ve always hated the internal rah-rah needed to do well for business units in an org, but at the same time am comfortable with self-promotion as needed.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#55

Post by jrumbut » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #25

franze wrote: post #14

The secret on how to become a great consultant: Take all the blame, distribute all the praise. Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.…

Would you say that this approach to management, blame-culture, is unavoidable as a consultant? I’ve had a previous engagement for about 1.5y with this type of culture, and it made me miserable.

It's not unavoidable, a lot of people don't do it. I would say they are making a mistake though.

The thing is that people on the other side should either recognize what you're doing or appreciate you relieving the tension in their internal politics enough that your emotional labor is rewarded with a positive atmosphere.

If that doesn't happen then you can only hope they're paying well. Doing this comes naturally to me though and I struggle in environments where you need to be a self-promoter so maybe it's a "horses for courses" situation.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#56

Post by scrollaway » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

stingraycharles wrote: post #25

franze wrote: post #14

The secret on how to become a great consultant: Take all the blame, distribute all the praise. Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.…

Would you say that this approach to management, blame-culture, is unavoidable as a consultant? I’ve had a previous engagement for about 1.5y with this type of culture, and it made me miserable.

It's not unavoidable no, but it certainly makes you a better consultant. I found this out only a few years ago and franze is right on the money.

I'd say it goes beyond consulting, too, and that knowing how to "take the blame and distribute the praise" is a superpower. Especially that first part. Knowing to take responsibility for things, sometimes even things that are outside your control, puts you on a different level to many people who will simply try to dodge it as much as possible.

As a consultants, clients aren't (generally) stupid and can smell the bullshit. What they'll see, if you do this right, is someone who is effective and professional. This inspires trust and gets you re-hired.

If this sort of thing makes you miserable, IMO then yeah it's not for you. Personally, I'd advise introspection: Why does it make you miserable, exactly?

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#57

Post by heavenlyblue » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:26 PM UTC

franze wrote: post #14

The secret on how to become a great consultant: Take all the blame, distribute all the praise. Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.…

For the sake of numbers, how much do you earn?

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#58

Post by ahartmetz » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:29 PM UTC

garrickvanburen wrote: post #32

rich_sasha wrote: post #4

6. The sense of relief when your invoice is paid is amazing. 7. Having to go into projects that really don't make sense but pay your bills teaches diplomacy and patience. 8. Having long-term financial committments on the one hand (mortgage, school and medical bills etc.) and short-term uncertain revenue is an interesting mental exercise to engage in. The last one is the killer for me I think, having dabbled in this a…

the last one is the toughest, and really comes down to how strong your stomach is and how your business model is structured - e.g. it can't be hourly & net 60, more like flat-fee, 50% upfront.

The solution is an old financial trick that has fallen a bit out of fashion: saving. Not spending everything you earn. It's easy given the very decent consulting rates in software. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is financially illiterate now...

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#59

Post by mrtksn » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

franze wrote: post #14

The secret on how to become a great consultant: Take all the blame, distribute all the praise. Here is the thing, being a consultant is a thankless job, and it needs to be. If a project does not go as planned, the success does not happen. Take the blame. You are an external, it does not matter. They got you into the company to improve the state of the client, to improve them. If it does not happen, you are to blame.…

I agree and I think it's true because of the way how working communities(i.e. a team, a company etc) are structured.

Just think about how a hiring decision is made in first place.

Someone in a company needs something get done and they are going to do it with someone else's money. Their interests are structured in a way to produce KPI specific to their job and their risks are loss of reputation.

It's extremely profitable(in a sense of career KPI) to get someone from outside get things done with the money of the company as long as the outsider transfers the success to you and assumes any blame for any failure. The only catch is, the consultant needs to have a track record that makes the successful outcome plausible at least on surface because the person who hired the consultant must be able to defend the hiring decision.

You know the “Nobody ever gets fired for buying IBM”? It's the same idea. With a plausible hire, the success is owned by the person who managed the process and the failure is on the person or company that executed the task.

Re: It’s great to be a consultant

#60

Post by benjaminwootton » Tue, Jan 18, 2022, 1:30 PM UTC

evancoop wrote: post #48

I might add two amendments here: The first is that "time and materials" is infinitely preferable to "fixed scope." In the former case, both client and consultant have an incentive to set priorities and make difficult, pragmatic choices. In the latter case, the potential for inadvertently over-promising is ever-present. Then comes either "fail and take the blame" or work through sunrise to deliver. The second is that…

Many good consultancies prefer fixed price for fixed scope because the margins are higher. You are of course owning the risk, but if you know how to write a contract and manage a customer, fixed price work is much more profitable and even easier to deliver.