Reply to: Experiences of working for Big 4 Consulting?

[malvolio]

Or you were lying and now you're trying to backtrack on your absurd claim

Yeah, whatever. What would lying achieve, especially one as obvious as that? It's equally likely that my phone's autocorrect chose "five" instead of "four" when I typed in "fior". But you stick to the pointless insult if it makes you happy.

[ensignia]

Or, of course, I made a typo? Or perhaps wasn't specific about where the decimal point went? And didn't think it important enough to worry about?

Or you were lying and now you're trying to backtrack on your absurd claim

[malvolio]

£60k over 3 months (13 weeks) is just over £4600 a week. Not to be sneezed at but very short of the "solid 5 figure payment every week" you mentioned.

Even if we're generous and round down 2 months to 8 weeks, that's still £7500 a week, which isn't 5 figures.

Or, of course, I made a typo? Or perhaps wasn't specific about where the decimal point went? And didn't think it important enough to worry about?

In reality, not that it matters in the slightest, my average weekly over the years when engaged was around £4.5k, but I was often paid on delivery rather than day rate which rather skews the numbers.

[Snooky]

Most of my gigs ran about 2-3 months. I was there to fix stuff, not deliver it. It was not unusual for me to save them more than they were paying me; the best case was rescuing a £17m support contract for about £60k.

£60k over 3 months (13 weeks) is just over £4600 a week. Not to be sneezed at but very short of the "solid 5 figure payment every week" you mentioned.

Even if we're generous and round down 2 months to 8 weeks, that's still £7500 a week, which isn't 5 figures.

[malvolio]

You're saying they paid you somewhere between £500k and £5m pa?

Most of my gigs ran about 2-3 months. I was there to fix stuff, not deliver it. It was not unusual for me to save them more than they were paying me; the best case was rescuing a £17m support contract for about £60k.

Work to live, not live to work.

[Snooky]

Complete nonsense, but a solid 5 figure payment every week sort of made up for that

You're saying they paid you somewhere between £500k and £5m pa?

[SussexSeagull]

There's a special place in Contractor Hell for those who willingly throw their fellow contractors under a bus by complying, staying late, not working how and where they see fit etc.

Big companies aren't special - say no. Life's too short, and all of their assumptions can be challenged (see how WFH hasn't caused the sky to fall in in the last 2 years)

In one contract about 12 years ago the rest of us were struggling to find work and one guy was averaging about 12 hours a day. He got one extra month at the end of the contract while the rest of us went off and found something new.

Being interesting to see how contractors who like to go native get on in the post IR35 reform world.

[PerfectStorm]

It doesn't help that big clients expect contractors to be part and parcel, and basically all contractors are happy to toe the line.

I was given notice two separate times at two different banks because of a combination of working from home 2 or 3 days a week (not asking, just doing), using my own equipment and refusing to sit where a manager (also a contractor ) asked me to sit.

If you complied and became a "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" contractor (9/10 contractors) at these places you could easily stay on for years and years collecting a healthy day rate and this was pre-IR35 reform.

There's a special place in Contractor Hell for those who willingly throw their fellow contractors under a bus by complying, staying late, not working how and where they see fit etc.

Big companies aren't special - say no. Life's too short, and all of their assumptions can be challenged (see how WFH hasn't caused the sky to fall in in the last 2 years)

[edison]

Worked for Deloitte at a government account, was easiest job ever, outside IR35, basically doing nothing (it was government) got £650 per day and found out they charged £1650 per day for me. Next time I'll ask more.

I'm more on the IT strategy/transformation side so can't speak so much for pure techie roles.... but there are an increasing number of consultancy networks made up of mostly associates that are taking on Big 4 consultancies - at least for smaller projects.

I think you'll likely get nearer to £800-900 pd or more for the kind of client rate you're taking about. For more senior roles (say at least £1000 day rate to the consultant), the client will get someone with 20 odd years experience who can actually deliver stuff for the same price as a fairly junior Big 4 consultant. I know plenty of people who have gone down this route in the last few years.

[La Petite Valse]

I worked for Capita back in 2016 on their Armed Forces Recruitment Portal.

At the point that I came in, they'd totally scrapped the previous 18 months' work using a low code solution and started again using the Microsoft stack.

I left after 3 months.

My understanding is that when it went live it was a total disaster and they had to fall back to manual processes.

Suffice to say, this one doesn't feature on my CV.

[ensignia]

Agreed. An awkward conversation or two toward the start of the engagement pays dividends that even Rishi can't tax.

This usually doesn't work unless you're in some kind of organisation which understands the difference between an external consultant and an internal resource, and most organisations don't. Contractor or perm there are certain rules to follow, and if you set your stall out early you'll have your card marked.

It doesn't help that big clients expect contractors to be part and parcel, and basically all contractors are happy to toe the line.

I was given notice two separate times at two different banks because of a combination of working from home 2 or 3 days a week (not asking, just doing), using my own equipment and refusing to sit where a manager (also a contractor ) asked me to sit.

If you complied and became a "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" contractor (9/10 contractors) at these places you could easily stay on for years and years collecting a healthy day rate and this was pre-IR35 reform.

[PerfectStorm]

As a contractor, I can't understand how someone can let themselves/their business into this situation.

It really is important to set your stall our early and make it clear you're a service provider, not an employee (not that working till 11:30 should be normal for employees either)

Agreed. An awkward conversation or two toward the start of the engagement pays dividends that even Rishi can't tax.

A lot of people think that contracting is a game of "yes sir, no sir, three bags full sir" - which to an extent it is - but when it starts impacting on your mental health or your life - and I think this goes for employment too - then the answer is "no, thank you".

[malvolio]

I was an employee...
The contractors however did get dragged into the nonsense

All too easy. More than once on one project I was sat there for 20-odd minutes while the client manager edited my perfectly functional spreadsheet - which was just to calculate some arcane point about delivery dates against workload so only the bottom right hand corner was actually relevant - to make it look pretty (extra blank columns, text formatting, re-aligning cells, whatever). It wasn't going anywhere other than his desk, and was not going to be an ongoing report anyway so was a complete waste of both of our time. But since I was getting paid anyway, I just sat there trying not to look bored. I've also ben caught in meetings that went two or three hours longer than necessary while every man and his dog had their input listened to and discussed, regardless of its relevance to the point of the meeting . After all, meetings without objectives are utterly pointless. Which is most of them in permieland.

As I've said before, I mainly retired because my tolerance of highly paid idiots was pretty much exhausted.

[hungry_hog]

As a contractor, I can't understand how someone can let themselves/their business into this situation.

It really is important to set your stall our early and make it clear you're a service provider, not an employee (not that working till 11:30 should be normal for employees either)

I was an employee...
The contractors however did get dragged into the nonsense

[SussexSeagull]

There are two types of employee, those who can and those who get promoted. The latter are the ones pushing the long hours, since the partners - who mainly came up the same way - seriously believe that time expended equals progress made. The detail that the progress is going into reporting and planning rather than actual delivery is irrelevant. Hence the pushy ones do the stupid hours and drag assorted minions along in their wake.

I spent the last 6 weeks of one assignment sitting in a datacentre control room on a three shift rotation in case my skills were needed. The fact that I'm a Service Management expert, not a technician, and my reports were far more capable than I was at sorting any likely issues was not relevant. What I did achieve was keeping the client management happy, which was not actually part of my role, so the workers could get on and work. Complete nonsense, but a solid 5 figure payment every week sort of made up for that.

You have to be a bit cynical about it. The Big 4 are largely staffed by MBAed incompetents. If they're stupid enough to pay me to sit around, I'm not going to argue. I'm there to gain income, not promotion.

The project I was on had start from the client side as well who were encouraged by Accenture to work long hours with them. What they didn't realise was the client staff got overtime. Fast forward a few months and someone pointed out the whole overtime budget for a multi year project had gone in the first year.

I found the whole exercise slightly distasteful. The client management stood by and watched people work hours they wouldn't have dreamt of asking their own staff to do.

That said some of them as individuals were good and talented people who went onto better things. Coincidentally one of them got in touch with me yesterday about a contract so not all bad.