Discussion on:

Why did you become an IT consultant?

... in one of the comments on the LinkedIn question is pretty good after you translate it into English.

But the reality was I had just quit a job where I was running the Technical Side of things for the State Supposedly when I was solving most of the problems for that company for the country actually.

I wanted something called a Holiday at least I think that is what it's called but as I have yet to experience it I'm not really sure.

Anyway the idea was that i could work a few hours per week and spend time with my Play Toys that I had not had any time to play with for years previously.

The end result was that 10 ex staff members approached me the week after I left the previous employer with a list of customers half a mile long if I employed them and I now have the same staff that I tried to escape from, all of those original customers who are still in business and even less time for my Play Toys.

I sent a car away to be repainted properly stripped back to bare metal any cancer removed and then repainted 6 years ago now and I'm still no closer to getting it finished than when I started. The Ducati Painted stuff is now sitting in the Wifes Daughters house waiting for her SO to paint it and that has only been 10 years since I started that project that should involve less than a liter of paint but a few hours of rubbing down and getting a good finish. I got to throw some paint stripper at the Painted bits but it took me 3 weeks to get back to wash it off and even then I didn't have enough time to do it properly.

It took me 7 years to get the Tank coated with a Pressure Pack Can of Primer to stop the metal all disappearing and the remainder of the time it's been with the Girl waiting for really good weather so it can be painted in what has been described as a "Home" paint job. Mind you the person in question does the top Vintage Cars that get judged so his idea of a decent paint job is slightly different to most others.

Since I started this "Part Time Business" I have stopped buying Classic Cars because I never get to play with them, given up whatever remained of a Life that I had and am now generally working much harder and longer than I ever did for a Boss with the added Disadvantage that my current Boss is a real Bastard who lets me get away with nothing. If there is work that needs doing it must be done before I can have any fun and as there is always work needing to be done I don't get any Free Time.

Money is OK though there is a lot of responsibility for the staff that goes along with the job and it's now official I'll be a Decade late to my Funeral. I just don't have the time to lie down and die and as things go on it gets just that much harder to even consider it.

Of course you have to love the work or I at least wouldn't be doing it.

Col

thanks for this kind of article.this article should be helpful who want to be a it consultant .

Interesting as it may lead to a good discussing what a consultant needs to have in the capability bag of tricks and SFIA standards for consultants.

I worked for a large IT company for a decade, they actually taught me a lot, training in project management, consultative selling, proposal writing, ITIL, CMMI, BA methodologies and lots of hands on experience in technical, account management and project leadership roles. I developed service offerings, price models, solutions, projects, the works so when they decided after a decade to retrench me with a large severance package, I looked around and decided that I wanted to do things that were diverse. By myself.

I had clients immediately, most times clients in the biginning who knew me and I built on that. I kept on educating myself to gain new knowledge and qualifications particularly in process improvement and EA. I guess consultant is a title, I just did not want to be boxed in.

Why? I wanted to be independent, I had some good but also some bitter memories from working for a big corporation and part of that was the constant conflict between my values and integrity and the company's culture. Values and integrity are paramount to me, I bing that to the table and it is easier as a consultant (what's in a name, I could be called a facilitator, trusted advisor, sounding board, coordinator, visionary and planner plus mother hen and police woman/traffic cop) to listen to what I want to and do not want to do.

Plus I love being able to choose my working hours. If I need time off for personal activities, I can do that. You know, I didn't call it consultant when I ventured on my own, I called it free lancer. So that is the story for me, like you Chip, it was not really a deliberate choice, but when the door opened, I pushed further and listened to the knocking. The road takes you in twists and turns, the more adaptable and creative we are, the more we can change and deal with adversity.

Life is what happens to you while you are busy making plans.

Was in school, working part-time for a small retailer overseeing hardware & network installations, and writing software on the side. One day, out-of-the-blue I got a job offer for a "dream job" from one of my clients, which was a big step to a career in that company's field, which was my major. (Not IT)

Unbeknownst to me, while I was just settling into the new job there was some sort of political upheaval going on within the company. Turns out that the partners were at odds over the future of the firm, and where it would be located. Seems the faction that had been behind the hiring of me had lost, and the firm would be moving some distance away. I was let go before I had even collected my first paycheck!

The experience left me rather crushed; A career opportunity of a lifetime combining my IT skills and major had literally evaporated just as it had begun, I had quit my previous job, and I was already depressed because of the end of a long-term relationship. It really was an emotional roller coaster.

But there was an upside: I had been turning down business because I was too busy with school, my former part-time job, and the other outside jobs I already had. I could have gone and groveled for my old part-time job back and restored the old routine, but I felt like I had already gone this far, I needed the change, and I might as well take the next step and try going independent.

My parent's wen't thrilled; they were of the predominant middle-class state of mind of the time that the key to success was to finish school, get a job at a big aerospace company and work your way up. Good thing I ignored them, as so many of my friends who did take that track have had far less stable careers than I have. Yes, being independent is seen as being less stable than having a "corporate" job. But then again, I'm also not dependent upon a single employer for my paycheck.

All in all, I cannot complain about how it worked out. After a few years of being "independent", I concluded that there was no way I could ever fit into a M-F 9-5 kind of career.

Being in the business for 20 years, 10 independant, I got some war stories. Take yesterday for example, I received a envelope without any money and a letter of terminiation. Now I have to go after it. The work is done and I'm not paid! You need thick skin to be a consultant. Otherwise, go work for a corporation and collect your pay.

When the bottom fell out of the .com boon, i watched all of my savings slowly trickle away while i looked for another job. When I found one, i swore that if something happened to this one, I would not sit back and watch my savings disappear waiting on someone else. I became a consultant in 2010 when i was 1 of 150 that were let loose nationally. Although, i have been consulting for a year now, the work does pay for itself, but isn't actually profitable to the point that I was at before. I am happier working on my own, as i am doing the exact same thing i was doing for "the company". I just have to keep track of the books and expenses now.

Seems like our stories has some similarities. I was working for a consultancy when one of the clients randomly said to me you should start your own. Now, at the time I had tickled with the idea but made no real plans until the client said do it, and we will be your first client. With agreement from my employer, I took them on under a new umbrella while still working for my employer at the time. Eventually through dedication and word of mouth referrals I stepped away from my employer, going full time on my own.