IT consulting firms

[Bee]

Not always, back in the days when i was a permie at what is now HPE the management was deliberately blocking some of the best people from advancement as they would have left a gaping holes in their old positions. It was a wide spread practice involving multiple teams, so obviously a senior management mandate and not some line manager decision. That kind of flawed logic led to the best people leaving for other jobs or going contracting leaving HPE the steaming pile of tulip it is now.

This scenario is difficult to manage, is not deliberately, a good management would correct that. It's hard to survive in the IT Consultant firm, you need to play the game very well, but if you don't like you can stay at least 3 years and you will leave with a good preparation.

[aoxomoxoa]

There are a load of niche SME consultancies out there doing very well for themselves (as CoolCat says they are delivery focused). It's not all Big 4 and their competitors.

Take a look at your specialism and you'll find them there.

This. I get all my work through a handful of small niche consulting firms that align with my specialism. Of course they have salespeople, but my experience is that they are fundamentally focused on delivery - as specialists they have to be.

[itjobs]

Most of the consultancies (almost all of them) operate in a very specific pattern. Hire a contractor like you or me, shadow them with a "resource" (usually at free of charge for the client), after a period of 6 months+ provide an overview to client of how things can be improved (obviously learned from you), ask you to assist a bunch of clueless newbies and then get rid of you.

This almost happened to me in my previous contract through Infosys for UBS. When smelled it, I started getting undue pressure from UBS permie who was overseeing the "improvement". I rejected it point blank saying that "training is not in my contract" and got rid of them in less than 4 weeks. Their ego wanted me to leave early which was a great thing to me.

Now a days, I do not accept contracts when I have to go through any of these consultancies (Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, Capgemini, Accenture). It should be only Me -> Agency (minus exclusion list) -> Client (although Me -> Client would be awesome).

[blackeye]

Most of the consultancies (almost all of them) operate in a very specific pattern. Hire a contractor like you or me, shadow them with a "resource" (usually at free of charge for the client), after a period of 6 months+ provide an overview to client of how things can be improved (obviously learned from you), ask you to assist a bunch of clueless newbies and then get rid of you.

This almost happened to me in my previous contract through Infosys for UBS. When smelled it, I started getting undue pressure from UBS permie who was overseeing the "improvement". I rejected it point blank saying that "training is not in my contract" and got rid of them in less than 4 weeks. Their ego wanted me to leave early which was a great thing to me.

Now a days, I do not accept contracts when I have to go through any of these consultancies (Infosys, Cognizant, Wipro, Capgemini, Accenture). It should be only Me -> Agency (minus exclusion list) -> Client (although Me -> Client would be awesome).

I personally don't see the problem with this. You presumably got paid well for the work, so who cares if they 'used' you. Contractors are just hired help for every company and they have every right to get rid of us if a perm can carry out the same job.

[SueEllen]

I personally don't see the problem with this. You presumably got paid well for the work, so who cares if they 'used' you. Contractors are just hired help for every company and they have every right to get rid of us if a perm can carry out the same job.

The issue is expecting us to train that permie.

[adubya]

IBM are binning the permies at some rate.

Despite them still being required.

So, lots of contract opportunities

Makes perfect sense on a spreadsheet somewhere in Armonk.


(ex: IBM permie)

[NotAllThere]

You worked at any of those?

I had to staff a project team once using consultancy resources, with right of veto, so we got to choose who we took. In the end about 10% of them were actual employees of the consultancy. The rest were contractors. Some of them being paid more than we were paying the consultancy, which was nice. (They offset the loss against the silly rates they were charging for dumbo no-nothing "business" consultants).

[cojak]

IT consulting firms

The niche consultancies tend to use the same contractors repeatedly to cope with 'overflow'. Of course they would prefer to use their own consultants, but they'll never refuse work if those consultants are all assigned.

[SueEllen]

IBM are binning the permies at some rate.

Despite them still being required.

So, lots of contract opportunities

Makes perfect sense on a spreadsheet somewhere in Armonk.


(ex: IBM permie)

Permies have training, pension and other benefit costs.

[fool]

The issue is expecting us to train that permie.

Why?

I train permies all the time. The fact is, if they couldn't learn it on their own, they're not going to sufficantly supplant me from the market but I can hand over the bau and leave when the building of things has stopped.