| Topic Name: |
Getting into consulting |
| Message Name: |
Get a job! |
| Date Posted: |
07/01/2004 |
| In Reply To: |
i was wondering if anyone could help me? i am a 27 year old graduate, graduated last year in the uk i have a 2:2 in software engineering and 20 ucas points, also i have 3-4 years experience in helpdesk and networking as i was working and studying at same time due to personal reasons. what i would like to know is if it is at allpossible for me to get into consulting, this is what i have always wanted to do but i realise i do not have the academic requirements and that i am reaching old age, but is there any way i could break into the field, any help would be much appreciated thanks |
| Message: |
There are a few among us who might be offended by you thinking 27 is approaching old age! You're just starting out. I'm still in the business having written my first program 6 years before you were born. I no longer code but I am responsible for developers using all the current technologies and I still perform all the major design work. There is life after 30, particularly if you REALLY know what you're doing, and such a small percentage of us do. My recommendation has always been this?? Get some real experience under your belt and then become a consultant when you have something to bring to the table. When people use the world "consultant", silly me, I picture someone I can consult. That is someone who is experienced in the field he or she is consulting in. For this I'm prepared to pay good money. Unfortunately consultants have been devalued by the advent of PC's. Now, more often than not, a consultant is purely another body to throw at a project. There are too many college grad's with little or no experience who go straight into a consulting role. Okay, they may be able to quote me a text book but get real, how can they possibly be experts in their field? And yes, I know there will be the odd exception but I trust you get my point. My jab at PC's is because of this?? In the days of mainframes, the only way you got training was through companies like IBM, ICL, Burroughs, Univac, etc., and the only way you got experience was working in a mainframe environment where, more often than not, there were standards and procedures and people to guide you. The training and the work emphasized the right and wrong ways to tackle a task. In the world of PC's, little Joey (or Josette) buys a PC, writes a few Word macros, maybe even a VB program, and voila, we have a consultant. Occasionally there actually might be skill, but no methodology, no controls, no standards, no know-how, no one to guide them.
I'll step down from my soapbox and emphasize again, get some experience first. You may then find that consulting is not necessarily what you want. In deed, if you're good, I would suggest that the career path and earnings potential can be greater in a corporate environment. I've been hiring consultants, mainly programming, for many years and quite frankly, when comparing their increases with the increases in salaries I've seen for myself and my staff, I'm not paying them much more now than I was 20 years ago. Good luck sir.
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