Anyone have any pro\cons about working as a consultant verus working as a permanent fulltime employee?
I see a lot of companies out there advertising jobs as a consultant.

I work as a permanent fulltime employee and thinking about consulting work.

Any advice?

consulting or contracting?


problem with either is keeping your queue full, so you get your 40+
in on a regular schedule, contracting is longer term, consuing could be both,
either short gigs i.e. 1 day to several years, depending on the clients needs.

What I disliked about being a consultant is the absolute lack of authority to make any changes myself, ever. YMMV.

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Anyone have a job for IT consultant? Plz private message me.

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This is not a job forum

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nor is it polite to hijack other peoples threads.

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"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

I think it depends on the market of the area too. The small city I live in has a college, but is poor and crime ridden anyway, so there's usually more skilled workers than there are jobs. I actually work like 30 miles away.

Meanwhile my friend's dad works as just about the only IT technician in the middle of bumfuck nowhere (I grew up in this bumfuck nowhere) charges small businesses like doctors/veterinary offices 70 dollars an hour for help-desk type services on the side of his regular job.

I was in consulting I hated it. Having to travel to random places all the time. Documentation never up to date. The places we were all headed into someone had lucked into the IT position because they had some basic knowledge of computers. Like Stretch said not having the authority to change anything is painful at times and most times people are reluctant to change even if the change is moving progress forward

Example...

Facility was on one flat /24 network (on the same note they were using a public network on an internal network) and we explained to them numerous times that they should invest in a layer 3 switch to vlan out their network or consider an ip address change (which would have been the more painful option). It took them at least 1-2 weeks of constantly running out of IPs, shutting down devices before they finally jumped on the bandwagon and got the layer 3 switch from us and worked with us to get it setup.

Frustrating to get those calls and emails about running out of addresses and there isn't a damn thing you can do about it.

EDIT:

On another note my boss at the time never had my back. I ended up driving an hour an half on my time to fix a problem given the IT staff was at least 3+ hours away and still go reamed by my boss at the end of the day because the client wasn't happy.

So if consulting is where you think you want to be at make sure you find a place that treats you well and has your back if something comes up

Especially when it is over 2 years old.

I have always done government contracting, and it is a little different than the commercial side. Usually long term (5 years+), and the contract in a broad term is "take care of IT services" so we tend to make decisions, and implement as needed. The problem usually comes when you need to buy anything. To the government a router is a router, a switch is a switch, and a hub is a switch. No need to buy a new switch when you have an old 8 port hub you could use collecting dust in the warehouse. I had a mission critical link running on a 2611 that they refused to replace because it is working. When I left it was still operational, but who knows how long that will last.

-Otanx

I'm a fulltime consultant (for a consulting firm). I enjoy it, but it tends to be more high-pace and stressful than a normal enterprise gig.

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I think there is also something to be said for someone who works as a consultant or for a VAR and they specifically/only deal with networks. I *almost* took a job for a VAR where I would also be required to do server/vm work. Glad I didn't. I currently work in an enterprise, but looking to either go with a VAR (network only position) or maybe even an SP/data center services provider area as my next position.

Wow.. Didn't even bother to look at the dates

me either, Zombie Attack! get out your aluminum foil hats... errrr I mean baseball bats...

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"If you're good at anticipating the human mind. It leaves nothing to chance."
-Jigsaw

yikes