Consultancy Consultant VS a One-Man-Band Freelancer.

[juststarting]

I was interviewed by a few of the biggies last year and the experience made me decide to go as a contractor.

Basically they weren't interested in my experience as much as whether I had "sold anything." One, whose been mentioned a lot in the news the last week or so, actually asked me outright in the interview, "When was the last time you sold anything, what was it and how did it make you feel?"

In short what they were most keen on is having a team of consultants who could sell knock-on services to the client or actively promote and sell their licensed software whether or not the client actually needed it.

I really got the impression that the role was first and foremost a sales position with actually helping the client a little further down the list. In fact your bonus was based largely on how many knock-ons you had successfully sold the client, or how much of an extension to your original contract you had secured.

It is horrible isnt it ? After being there I swore I'd never ever work for a consultancy business, which happily opened my eyes to contracting.

[JoJoGabor]

I'm working as a consultant now after contracting for the ast 5 years (how did I end up here??)

I have to agree, my bonus is entirely made up of being "self-sufficient" which means how much business I bring into the company. My speciallist field is VMware nowadays and I feel that my level of technical expertise has gone down since contracting as I am not working on it day in day out. About 50% of my time is doign sales meetings, proposals and designs.

If I was a client, I would choose a consultant to do a set piece of work (up to 3 weeks), but any longer I would use a contractor. A contractor is much more integrated within a team Despite what we all say about IR35) and will pass knowledge on much more effectively to the team. A consultant has defined a number of days based on how quickly the job can possibly be done while still winning the business from other consultancies, so there is no time to do things fully, its pretty much a rush job every time, but as long as this is managed propoerly by the client it works well.

[swamp]

Difference between Contractor and Consultant is about £300 a day.

HTH

[Robwg]

With an Oracle consultant that is more like 700!!

[pmeswani]

Difference between Contractor and Consultant is about £300 a day.

HTH

As little as that? I would have thought a man of your talent would be boasting about £1500 a day.

[bobhope]

Have a read of:

Rip-off!: The Scandalous Inside Story of the Management Consulting Money Machine (Paperback)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rip-off-Scan.../dp/1872188060


Funny book for anyone having worked with Accenture and co.

[swamp]

A big consultancy are being thrown off the public sector project I'm on. Pure reason is cost, I'm led to believe. They've been milking it for four years so they've had a good run for what has essentially been "bums on seats" work for them.

Apparently there are redundancies in the offing at said consultancy, and being "benched" is a very bad career move right now.... Feel a bit sorry for some of them as they seem a bit disillusioned -- they have been body-shopped for years on paltry wages and now things are tough they actually have less job security than us contractors

[juststarting]

Difference between Contractor and Consultant is about £300 a day.

HTH

Cute eyes.

[juststarting]

Feel a bit sorry for some of them as they seem a bit disillusioned -- they have been body-shopped for years on paltry wages and now things are tough they actually have less job security than us contractors

Oh please , anyone who has at least 10 months backup in the bank can reskill re-train , grow brains , learn plumbing , whatever .