NSS: job offer

[djsusm]

Ah... i love the feeling you get when you get a job offer. Such a huge relief - knowing that you won't be bumming off your friends for the rest of your life!

[nickel]

what kinda job?

[Kim]

Congrats!

[cheapchinese]

good job

[djsusm]

Well.. this will be a consulting job - so lots of travel.

I really don't mind the travel right now, when I'm still young. And I get lots of Airline Miles!

[ray]

that's wonderful news. a job is a job in this economy. i bet there are thousands of people who would love to be in your shoes. best of luck to you.

[whitak24]

sweet. if you don't mind saying, what type of consulting will you be doing?

i did consulting for awhile. it has its positives and its negatives, but i definitely think it's a great job to start out in. good luck.

[djsusm]

This is a technical consulting position with Deloitte. So more IT based stuff. Do you have any advice for someone just starting off in consulting?

[ray]

My cousin has been a consultant with Accenture for nearly 2.5 years. Be prepared for odd hours, possibly working weekends. There will be times when you're not working on a project, and the company will pay you to sit at home. However, you can't go on vacation because they may call you anyday for you to join a project. The upsides of consulting are that you get to work in various industries doing different projects. This gives many people an opportunity to learn a great deal from such experiences. The downside is there are so many unknowns. Where will you be working next? Will you be working in 6 months?

My cousin has been looking for a new job because she doesn't like the fact that she's been working for government agencies the past 2.5 years. She doesn't mind the long hours nor some weekend work, but she hates the clients she has to deal with on a daily basis. They treat her like an enemy (she's been consulting with the US Postal Service for 1.5 years now) and her supervisors don't have any projects lined up for her.

[whitak24]

nice. deloitte is a good firm to work for.

i worked for accenture for about a year and a half. some parts of the job i loved (most of the travel, the people i worked with, the paychecks), other parts i hated (the utterly mind-numbing work).

i agree with what lilbigblue said. your hours will be irregular, at best. work will basically control your life, because you often don't know when a project is going to heat up and you're going to suddenly work a lot more hours. you also never know when you'll get sent out of town or pulled off an out-of-town project. so making any sort of long-term plans is difficult.

be prepared for a lot of client hostility. while some clients are great to work for, if you get put into a situation where a company is merging and you're trying to integrate the two companies' IT, or a company is putting in a new system to allow them to downsize, you are likely to have people treat you like you're the enemy. depending on the culture/age of the company, there is also resentment about a bunch of 20-somethings coming in and trying to change everything (when it comes down to it, most people don't like change).

as for advice, i would say the number 1 thing to do is suck up to your bosses. i know it sounds crazy, and you obviously don't want to be a total tool, but quite frankly the people who i know who did the best at accenture and advanced the fastest were the people who brown-nosed and kissed a lot of ass. basically, managers are busy and many of them have a hard time keeping track of who is doing what. so the people who make it look like they are being productive and turning out great work (even if they're basically taking credit for other people's work) tend to do well.

also, if you're going in with technical skill, you're at a big advantage. and if so, try to maximize that advantage by becoming something of an expert in some area. for example, one of my friends can build access databases VERY WELL. he is never unstaffed for long, because they need skills like that. on the other hand, those of us who were hired with no particular technical skill....let's just say that we don't work there anymore, and it wasn't voluntary :hehehmm: (other than the people who kissed a lot of ass)

when dealing with clients, i think the key is to always act competent, even if you don't entirely know what you're doing, but at the same time to not act full of yourself or try to bullshit them. if you treat them like friends and allies, they will usually respond well to you. recognize that you're there because of a specific skill set (the ability to learn new things quickly, and perhaps some particular technical skill), but that they are the ones who really understand the way things work there. they are typically going to smell bullshit quickly, and they'll lose respect for you quickly if they think you're putting on airs and acting like you know more than they do. and most of them are reasonable -- they know you're just trying to do your job and make some $$, just like they're doing. they may not like what you're doing, but they'll usually be fairly workable as long as you keep it real with them and don't pretend to be something you're not.

anyway, i've rambled enough. like LBB said, the advantage of consulting is that you can get a wide range of experiences in a lot of fields in two or three years. also, other employers tend to view consultants favorably when they're looking for employment later.

[djsusm]

Thanks a lot for your advice guys! There's no better way to learn than from past experiences, and better yet when they are others' past experiences. :)