Consulting Careers
Just wanted to write a short post about Consulting careers. In a previous post i spoke rather negatively about my time in consulting. This post is to clarify my views as i would not want to appear to be someone bitter an angry over a failed job.
Overall I think Consulting is a great job for the right person. Not everyone's experience is the same and it can vary quite alot. The main factors in how well you do in consulting depend on a few key areas:
Most firms try to cover all the key area's but each is better for a particular area. For example Deloitte where i work in in the top 4 consulting firms worldwide. However no matter how much they try they are still not number one. This is not to say working for the number one firm is better it's just one factor.
An example i can give where Deloitte excels in in Oracle Consulting. The Deloitte Oracle practice is accredited with Oracle and can get licence discounts no one else can, this is on top of our Oracle expertise and experience. I was part of a smaller firm Dataweave prior to being acquired, The then owner formerly worked at Oracle and had contacts and employed highly experienced consultants.
By acquiring Dataweave Oracle has unrivalled advantage over other firms in the Oracle space.
Having worked in the team i could question how good we are but the official word is we are really good. Our rival firms also have expertise we cannot match, I cant give any examples since i have not worked for the firms but is safe to say they have their specialties.
The firm and it's reputation does not guarantee it is a good place to work. Although everyone is to share the same core values and act the same their is always differences. Sometimes for the worse or for the better. I will use Dataweave again as my example, we were a small team and it could be said that we were less than professional behind the scenes, as long as the work got done and the clients see a professional service it doesn't matter how it gets done. Being on a small team is often good as things are less rigid and your more likely to gain experience outside of your job description. This worked well while we were small. Once we became part of Deloitte things changed but the team did not.
It took 6 to 12 months to get the billing and finances sorted out. We were unusual for Deloitte who normal work on a project basis with a start middle and end. Besides our implementation projects we offer a managed service where we proactively monitor clients databases and take action when something breaks. The managed service did not fit into the Deloitte way and took some time to integrate.
To this day we still have not fully taken on the Deloitte way, we still do things the manual or hard way, we do not encourage career progression or life balance all key Deloitte values. This brings me to why i am leaving, I got tired of promises to progress only to be delayed. I was expected to do more hours without pay because that's what the others do. This was to encourage us to go above and beyond but without any reward. Eventually i got to the point where i did not have the motivation to work hard anymore because i will not progress and my pay would remains the same. On top of this we did not seem to be appreciated.
This is vastly different to what i hear from other teams. Many love Deloitte and the people they work with. Most consultants talk highly of their work and the teams they are on. I could only wish to be on one of those teams. Our team and project is not they only one to have a down side, I have heard that consultants who go to work on a SAP project for the state transport organisation tend to not come back and also work very very hard with little reward.
My last point about project is pretty much covered above but it is possible to be on a good team but a dead end project or the other way around.
In summary if you love to solve problems and work directly with the client you may find consulting a very rewarding career. Just keep in mind if this sounds like a good career choice just be careful which firm or project you work on. It's really a matter of luck but if you can be careful where you get deployed as this could make or break your career.
Overall I think Consulting is a great job for the right person. Not everyone's experience is the same and it can vary quite alot. The main factors in how well you do in consulting depend on a few key areas:
- The firm you work for
- The team you work with
- The project you are put on
Most firms try to cover all the key area's but each is better for a particular area. For example Deloitte where i work in in the top 4 consulting firms worldwide. However no matter how much they try they are still not number one. This is not to say working for the number one firm is better it's just one factor.
An example i can give where Deloitte excels in in Oracle Consulting. The Deloitte Oracle practice is accredited with Oracle and can get licence discounts no one else can, this is on top of our Oracle expertise and experience. I was part of a smaller firm Dataweave prior to being acquired, The then owner formerly worked at Oracle and had contacts and employed highly experienced consultants.
By acquiring Dataweave Oracle has unrivalled advantage over other firms in the Oracle space.
Having worked in the team i could question how good we are but the official word is we are really good. Our rival firms also have expertise we cannot match, I cant give any examples since i have not worked for the firms but is safe to say they have their specialties.
The firm and it's reputation does not guarantee it is a good place to work. Although everyone is to share the same core values and act the same their is always differences. Sometimes for the worse or for the better. I will use Dataweave again as my example, we were a small team and it could be said that we were less than professional behind the scenes, as long as the work got done and the clients see a professional service it doesn't matter how it gets done. Being on a small team is often good as things are less rigid and your more likely to gain experience outside of your job description. This worked well while we were small. Once we became part of Deloitte things changed but the team did not.
It took 6 to 12 months to get the billing and finances sorted out. We were unusual for Deloitte who normal work on a project basis with a start middle and end. Besides our implementation projects we offer a managed service where we proactively monitor clients databases and take action when something breaks. The managed service did not fit into the Deloitte way and took some time to integrate.
To this day we still have not fully taken on the Deloitte way, we still do things the manual or hard way, we do not encourage career progression or life balance all key Deloitte values. This brings me to why i am leaving, I got tired of promises to progress only to be delayed. I was expected to do more hours without pay because that's what the others do. This was to encourage us to go above and beyond but without any reward. Eventually i got to the point where i did not have the motivation to work hard anymore because i will not progress and my pay would remains the same. On top of this we did not seem to be appreciated.
This is vastly different to what i hear from other teams. Many love Deloitte and the people they work with. Most consultants talk highly of their work and the teams they are on. I could only wish to be on one of those teams. Our team and project is not they only one to have a down side, I have heard that consultants who go to work on a SAP project for the state transport organisation tend to not come back and also work very very hard with little reward.
My last point about project is pretty much covered above but it is possible to be on a good team but a dead end project or the other way around.
In summary if you love to solve problems and work directly with the client you may find consulting a very rewarding career. Just keep in mind if this sounds like a good career choice just be careful which firm or project you work on. It's really a matter of luck but if you can be careful where you get deployed as this could make or break your career.
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