I recently started at a tech consultancy company that works with different clients from different industries.
They have projects that range from 3 months to a year long.
At the moment working with one of their media clients.
I like how diverse the clients and opportunities are in the consultancy different from being in a single company.
How has people experiences been like in a consultancy company?
Hell yea consultancy is the best 
You are bound to your employer and you can swap clients very often. Depending on the company and project of course. I chose to do small projects from 2-12 months at a time. I even did 2-3 projects at the same time once example:
Some people spend 1-5 years at the same client but it’s totally up to you in my experience. If you don’t like the client, you can ask for a different one. (within reason)
The best part about consultancy is that you are not going to be called a “job hopper” and the more projects you do, the bigger your resume and tech that you see.
You’ll get way more knowledge this way then being in a regular company since they often have internal knowledge sharing sessions & they’ll provide budget for conferences and trainings (which here in Belgium, in a normal company is pretty rare)
How many years did you spend in a consultancy company?
Are they normal fixed term contracts or permanent positions?
8 years now
Positions are permanent but this could be different in another country of course.
The role I’m in is a fixed term contract for six months. Likehood it will extended for another six months, or they will put me on an another role with the client or an internal project the consultancy company has.
It probably varies between consultancy companies, what tends to happen if the project is over and looking for another project, do they still get paid?
If you are a permanent hire, you still get paid. You’ll just be put “on the bench” as we say. People without projects, they can then do a lot of trainings, upskilling or work on internal projects.
Oh I see what happens to consultants who are fixed term contracts. Would they also be on the bench or would be let go if they no projects?
I think Kristof definitely got the positive side of consultancy! I spent a decade doing it, and by the end of it I was exhausted and kicking myself for not just going contracting. I see consultancy as contractor conditions without the pay.
I was shipped off to all parts of the country, very rarely at home and never able to dictate what project I worked on. It was literally what was available at the time. The very few times I was on the bench I was expected to ‘improve quality’ by writing documentation, mentoring others, etc. My job was no more secure than a contractor, in fact I’m not sure how I survived several rounds of redundancies.
I suppose the only benefit was the sheer variety of work. Even if I hated it (and I frequently did), I could at least learn some new technology or technique. But eventually even that ran out, and I started to see duplicate work.
I don’t know, I’ve never seen a fixed term contract in our consultancy agency
But I would guess so yea
oo we have a restriction of 1 hour travel time MAX. Unless you really want to, we always have interviews with the client and if the consultant says ‘no it’s not a project for me’ then it’s a No Go. So you have your own input in what kind of projects you like. (You don’t see this at many consultancy agencies though)
Most of my work experience has been at test consultancies but more recently in my career, I decided to move to working at a product company.
The 2nd consultancy I worked at, was really good in particular - I got to travel for work, I got lots of interesting projects and opportunities and I worked with some fantastic colleagues who I admired.
I enjoyed the variety of projects and really nailing the skill of learning how to learn etc.