In-Depth

Making the Jump to IT Consulting

Jumping ship from a career as a systems admin to that of an IT consultant can be stressful but ultimately rewarding. Some Redmond readers tell their tales of wonder and woe.

• By Greg Shields
• 11/01/2006

The artificial panic caused by Y2K, coupled with the short rise and long fall of the dot com era, has rendered suspect the true value of consultants' services. Despite the hard times, many IT professionals seem undeterred, willingly making the jump to consulting.

Have you considered leaving the comfortable confines of your cubicle job for the wild and wooly world of consulting, only to have your cold feet leave you frozen in place? Perhaps the following tales of adventure will give you the proper inspiration, or at least perspective, as you contemplate the jump.

Vishnu Benkert, now a consultant with Weston Technology Solutions in Bend, Ore., jumped both jobs and cities after nine years as a systems administrator.

"I've found that [consulting] is a much better fit for me as I get bored easily and enjoy constant challenges. With most companies, you have a fairly static environment with some yearly capital available for projects. Otherwise, you are performing generally mundane tasks with only the occasional brain-wrenching troubleshooting," Benkert says.

The Challenge Of Staying Challenged
The allure of constant challenge is a theme that runs through most of our reader responses. A major reason for that is once a company's network environment is up and running, there's not much left for an administrator to do. And with not much left to do, most find themselves filling their days with mundane tag-up meetings and weekly reports.

John Eberhardt, a self-employed consultant with Wise Enterprise Group LLC, tells us how he eventually managed to work his way out of a systems administrator job.

"After several years of good equipment funding, everything that was wrong was gone. It got to a point where you could hear a pin drop on the network. There were no [network] collisions, no layer three switches and no AppleTalk chatter, which meant no network troubles at all," Eberhardt says.

When he first started, his NT domain had 13 backup controllers and a separate domain for every department, Eberhardt recalls. Once the domain was flattened and nearly all the BDCs eliminated, log-ins became "lightning fast," all the fires went out and things got very boring, very fast. And with all the fires extinguished, feelings of job vulnerability crept in.

"Then, it just boiled down to me documenting everything I could, which is a great way for my boss to replace me with someone cheaper," Eberhardt says.

In addition to boredom, politics, aging technology and downsizing were all themes for wanting to escape the old job, according to most respondents. But once you get out and take the plunge, what is life like for a consultant, especially one that's living largely on the road?

Kent Draper, an experienced independent contractor who has worked in three locations over the past 12 months, describes an existence that can be a nomadic and sometimes spartan.

"Be prepared to go where the work is, live in a cheap studio apartment and eat out of a can," he warns.

To decide if you can afford to become a consultant, you have to do the math, Draper advises. For instance, will the work you find allow you to still pay your mortgage, travel to and from home, pay for lawn services and put some money in your pocket at the end of the month? A contract in New York or Washington D.C. may pay a great deal more than a similar contract in the Midwest, but you may find yourself paying $1,500 to $2,000 for housing in a neighborhood where your car will get broken into on a regular basis, he says.

Considering Entrepreneurship
Paul Schnackenburg, who owns his own consulting company in Queensland, Australia, describes a very different experience in finding work close to home. "I haven't had to do any marketing because out here in the sticks, word of mouth is the best marketing," he says.

But owning your own shop is very different than working for a larger company. Not only must you do the consulting, you must also do sales, accounting and financing, as well as head up the marketing department in your ever-shrinking spare time. While Schnackenburg admits that his bookkeeping skills are serviceable, for instance, he realizes not everyone has the ability to handle several very different disciplines.

Before Mike Bell joined Compu-Tech Inc., a large company in East Wenatchee, Wash., he first tried self-employment and soon discovered the challenges of being a one-man band.

"While I was on the self-employed track, about 15 percent to 20 percent of my billable day could be eaten up by things like marketing and accounting. Between tax forms, state revenue statements, brochure creation, estimates and pre-hire consultations, I was lucky that any of my hours were billable," he says.

Ah yes, billable hours. Keeping them up is critically important for any consultant, regardless of whether he or she works for themselves or for a larger company. Because billable time is the bread and butter of consulting, any amount of learning, writing and attending conferences only pays off if you can keep the billable time to a maximum.

But after all the billable hours are counted and all the network problems are resolved, how are our nascent consultants answering the real question: How's the money? Few, it seems, have had to take a pay cut.

"I remember back in Y2K when you could name your price. In a way, it's still the same. If your customers trust you, you can pretty much charge whatever you want," Bell says.

People with small consultancies say they find it comforting to be close to the budget, where the monthly numbers are passed around freely. Those with the highest billable hours often wear that distinction like a badge of honor. But those who work in larger organizations say their job responsibilities often position them far away from any budgetary decisions.

Val Clark, who left a technician's job with large banking institution for an outsourced financial consulting and information technology firm, waxes philosophical on the dichotomy between improving the company's internal infrastructure and keeping up his billable hours.

"I do both internal support for my company and external support for the customers. I could spend a week on something internally that does great things for the company, but none of it brings in money directly. So I have to juggle improving the internal stuff with keeping my billable time as high as possible," Clark says.

Tough Love
Despite some of their trepidations, respondents largely have positive things to say about making the jump. They cite a steady flow of new challenges and the lack of a smothering bureaucracy.

"I have found that consulting offers a new challenge every day, vastly different network environments and a variety of personalities," says Benkert of his experience. "If one company isn't upgrading systems or putting in a new solution, there's bound to be another one that is."

Asked what the most exciting part of his job was, Clark cites the complete absence of bureaucracy and environments where customers just want to see the work done. "That, along with client satisfaction -- I love engaging with the client, giving them solutions they can use, and having them say, 'Man, this guy's great!'"

Some miss the perks and benefits offered by their old jobs, but believe they are largely canceled out by the advantages.

"I miss the medical, 401(k), retirement benefits and knowing I will get a true annual salary rather than an hourly rate for an undetermined amount of time," Draper says. "But I don't miss a stagnant working environment and the office politics. I have improved my skills by working with a variety of good people in different environments. Change is good."