IT consulting can be a great fit for individuals looking for a way to combine business problem-solving and technical expertise. The industry is experiencing strong growth, but competition for positions will still be fierce.
Individuals with engineering backgrounds need to show they are not too geeky to work with the technically illiterate; individuals with business backgrounds need to demonstrate they are comfortable working on tech-heavy projects. It’s an uncommon combination of competencies, but if you’ve got it, flaunt it.
Careers in IT consulting offer an opportunity to use both sides of your business-technology split personality. Starting salaries might be higher than what you would earn if you used only half of your skill set in a technology job or a business strategy position.
But the news isn’t all good. Consultants work long hours, travel almost constantly, and rarely get to stick around long enough to see their meticulously calculated projects come to fruition (or fail miserably).
That said, even if you end up fleeing the consulting gig after a year or two, which many people do—annual attrition rates at top firms fall between 10 and 20 percent—you will gain exposure to a variety of businesses, technologies, places, and individuals you wouldn’t get in a decade of working a normal office job.
Many companies—particularly Fortune 500 companies—call on external consultants even though they have internal consultants on the payroll, because it turns out to be more economical. External consultants generally tackle issues with which the client has little prior experience, or handle projects for which the client has insufficient in-house capability.
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