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Working for IT consulting firms is very tough job that has no work life balance. Do you agree?
Main Post: Working for IT consulting firms is very tough job that has no work life balance. Do you agree?
Top Comment: I work as a consultant and it's great. 90% remote. Pays above an admin equivalent job with great benefits and I never work after 5 pm or weekends unless I agree to. It depends in where you work, what type of contract you work, and your boss.
What is IT consulting and should I do it?
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Met a guy on the golf course who is an IT consultant. Job sounds interesting and pay is good. I’m majoring in MIS and Accounting and have an internship in IT and an audit internship next summer at a top 10 firm. Should I and how can I leverage my soon to be accounting internship and IT internship to pivot to consulting.
Top Comment: Consulting is typically something you do after a decade or two of experience because you want to build a solid foundation of expertise to be able to consult businesses on how to implement a piece of software or upgrade firewalls and secure their operational technology.
IT Consulting dead in US and Europe?
Main Post: IT Consulting dead in US and Europe?
What are the good and bad of working for an IT consulting company?
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I have a really easy dev manager job at a bank in Canada making just over 100k and have a remote opportunity with a medium sized 500ish people global consulting company and a 65% salary increase. I’m a bit concerned about the risk but I’ve never taken any chances in my career yet so I think it’s time I try something new but I’d like to know others experiences in consulting organizations.
Top Comment: Been at a consulting company for 3 years now. One of the biggest differences is the sheer breadth of projects you’ll likely take on. In my 3 years, I’ve worked on 6 different projects across 4 separate clients. I’ve used AWS, Azure, GCP. I’ve worked on mobile apps, websites, backend services, architecture diagrams, etc. I’ve coded in C#, Node, React, Vue, Flutter, etc. The list goes on and on for nearly any tooling a software dev might use on a daily basis IMO, it’s great experience to become familiar with such a wide array of languages and frameworks. It’s partially why people hire consultants; we see how other businesses handle things and can cross pollinate ideas pretty well. This can be a double edged sword as well though. It’s harder to master a single language or framework when your environment switches like that.
What exactly do "Consultants" do? (specifically technology consultants)
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I will be interning as a technology consultant during the summer, yet I have no idea what that actually is. I'm guessing you just go have lunch with the client & talk about shit & at the end you tell them how to fix their tech problem?
For those technology consultants here, what exactly do you do on a daily basis, is it difficult & how is the work load.
Top Comment: Make powerpoints
IT Consulting, are they mostly scams?
Main Post: IT Consulting, are they mostly scams?
Top Comment: Consultants are basically supplemental staff. Companies may hire consultants when there is not enough internal talent. Consultants might be temporary or fairly long-term. They work at the client site or not. As for legitimacy, it depends on what you mean by legit. What I've seen called "scams" fall into 4 broad types. Fake jobs. There is no job, it will never pay. The "recruiter" is just collecting your information. May directly ask you for money for "equipment" or "recruiting fee", might just steal your identity. Real jobs, poor reputation. These companies will pay you, but there may some trickery with actually being staffed on a project. Some focus primarily on hiring naive/desperate people who will take on any job. Real jobs, not tech focused. Once again, you will earn a paycheck, but might end up doing management consulting tasks (i.e., making PowerPoint presentations) instead of anything technical. This can stagnate your tech skills, making it more difficult to get a more technical job later on. Real technical job that stretches out work. I think this is inherent to the consulting industry because the success of the business model is based on the consulting firm being paid. And it's usually easier to extend an existing contract than to get an entirely new client. In practice, this might look like pushing of certain tools, designing infrastructure that is too complex for the company to maintain, making unnecessary recommendations, etc. Consulting can also get a bad rep for burning out their staff. At the more extreme end, there are people who work 60+ hour weeks. That is not sustainable for years on end. And pre-pandemic at least, some consulting jobs involved a ton of travel to client sites. Even for tech consulting, some people traveled every few days. You don't have to be a senior developer to work in consulting. Especially for a large consulting firm, they may need a lot of non-senior folks to finish the projects. Keep in mind, some clients my also be extremely non-technical. So even if you think you're a junior, just knowing how to operate a computer may be more technical than anyone at the client site. Recruiters might reach out to you for an actual job on LinkedIn. Definitely do your research and ask questions. If they ask you for a lot of personal information (like your social security number) and/or money - do not reply. Look up the recruiting company itself, as well as the client. Copy the job description into a search engine - if the same description pops up on a lot of sites, it's probably not a real job. If the recruiter's message has a lot of typos, possibly a scam. You may also run into some sales techniques when interacting with recruiters. It doesn't mean the job is a scam, but recruiters are ultimately sales people and some of them are aggressive. It's up to you to decide what you want to deal with. For me, I don't further conversation that doesn't include the salary and the client name. I also do not like when a recruiter pushes for a phone call instead of answering my initial questions. It's one thing if they answer my questions and offer a phone call. It's another if they refuse to provide details except via phone.
How to break into Tech Consulting?
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Lately, I've been feeling a strong need to bring in additional income and I think consulting or freelance software dev work makes the most sense for me, but I have no idea where to begin.
I've had a weird career path so far that has included:
- Software Development
- Data Engineering
- Logistics
- Procurement
- Customer Service
- Application Support Engineering
- Generative AI engineering (most recently)
I am extremely talented at learning new systems, identifying issues, and creating easily implementable fixes. I spend several hours a day keeping up with new technologies, services, and skills to identify new ways to solve a problem.
How can I turn these skills and expertise into a successful business?
How do you decide an hourly rate?
Should I cold call people?
Top Comment: Cold calling isn't the the best approach. You gotta network and build relationships so you can get connected to the KDMs.
HELP: Creating an IT Consulting and Services LLC with Just me
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Hi Everyone, I am creating an IT Consulting company in IL and I was just looking to get some insight that everyone has here.
So I have already:
- Filed my company over to the state (Awaiting Approval)
- Created my Website (Would love Feedback)
- Have my Operating Agreement filled out
- Google Ads / Analytics / Bussiness Page / Company Index Completed
- Looking into getting my General Liability and Professional Insurance (If you have recommendations I was going to just do progressive)
- Created Linkedin Company Page
- Built Brand and Logo
- Picked out Bussiness Bank once I can get my EIN number
- Signed up for Upwork, FieldNation, and Work Market
- Bookmarked the Annual State Report and 1040 Form
What is the best way to find clients that you have seen and is there anything you think I should add to my list of things to do or take into account? It's been a long dream of mine to get this done and finally got the money together to move forward with making it become a reality. If you have any contract boards or anything I would love to hear them.
Top Comment: Ok, IMHO, contact form should be reachable without scrolling down. There should be conversion event when I complete form. That is your Lead. Conversion events on page views "Contacts" and "About Me" is unnecessary. Clicks on telephone and email is much more valuable. I would integrate calendly or something like that, to make you more reachable. Plus calendly interactions is easy to track. P.S. If you gonna go with calendly and some weird redditor will propose you gtm calendly recipe for money, just dm me, lol