Ask HN: Difference from being a consultant and employee?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17255273

3 8 8 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Im considering a role with a consulting company, and a regular non-consulting position; both full time.

I have never been a consultant before and wondered how its different ?

As a consultant are you just expected to know your shit completely? Or this there opportunity to learn from others more experienced in a subject matter?

Thanks

gk1• 8 years ago

As a consultant are you just expected to know your shit completely? Or this there opportunity to learn from others more experienced in a subject matter?

Depends on the company. Larger consulting firms will have different levels of consultants--associate consultant, consultant, senior, manager, and principal--and will pair newer consultants with more experienced ones. You should ask the company.

a_lifters_life2• 8 years ago

How about smaller consulting firms? e.g. > 100 employee

akhil_lb• 8 years ago

I have seen almost a similar structure with few smaller consulting firms as well, but you will get a clear answer from the company itself.

mgliwka• 8 years ago

In my experience it's mostly the same.

Since the demand exceeds the supply by far, most consultancies take on less experienced candidates, then train them and/or pair them with a more experienced colleague.

I've worked for several smaller consultancies focusing on different domains and technology stacks and always learned it on the job.

apohn• 8 years ago

You should ask the company.

This x100. Every consulting organization is different. I worked for the consulting arm (paid services) of a product company. We had levels from associate to principal and none of it actually meant anything apart from pay grade. When I joined they said "We will train you to become an expert, promote you during your career, etc." In reality the training was very basic and your level was determined by your previous job and negotiation during hiring, not by your performance. The only way to get promoted was to threaten to quit. The end result was that there were principal consultants who were useless and associate consultants who were amazing. The job title was not an indication of competence at all.

How much knowledge you need is also going to vary greatly. Some consulting firms are looking for experts because they provide a high level of expertise to their customer and they charge their clients accordingly. Some firms just want bodies to fill seats at big companies and the work may be incredibly boring.

I did consulting early in my career and I got a lot of it. Not because of the company I worked for supported me, but because I was enthusiastic and got exposure to a lot of different clients and business problems. Some were amazing, some were awful, and most were mundane. But I learned a lot. Even with the awful clients, I learned to recognize early-on when projects were going to fail and how to handle people who act like terrible human beings.

nickjj• 8 years ago

I do freelance / consulting work (but I'm self employed with no employees).

Most gigs start with "ok, we have this problem..." and my job is to figure out how to solve it. It could be anything from fleshing out technical details to implementing the solution myself. It really depends on what the client wants.

I never worked an employee position but I would imagine if you're hired to do either one for someone else, you would be expected to interact with your company's customers directly as a consultant as opposed to an employee where you'd likely only be told to write XYZ code away from any direct customers.

I learn something new on every gig I take, but I'm mainly learning from my clients, not other consultants since I am a solo consultant. Although I do learn from other consultants in more social means (talking with other consultants, etc.). It's just we rarely work together on the same job and every job is very different.

prokes• 8 years ago

One thing to consider about consulting companies is they charge your time to the client by the hour, hence they want you working as many billable hours as possible. This is measured through utilization and in my experience I had to account for every 15 minute block of my day. This became a burden and eventually quite stress inducing ("Why are you only at 70% utilization?"). On the other hand, full time work is more relaxed. It is goal oriented but not down to the minute.

On the plus side, you will generally be exposed to more and different types of work in consulting, so you may learn and grow faster. You can also expand your network through clients you meet who can help you down the road.

Ask HN: Difference from being a consultant and employee?

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