<p>I’m a consulting Petroleum Engineer. Highest degree earned is BSPE. Worked for a major Oil & Gas firm for 16 years. Have been an independent consultant for the past 13 years.</p>
<p>The consulting world is not for everyone. It’s best for those that are independent by nature, and don’t need to be coddled by a corporate environment.</p>
<p>Consulting is a great way to make a living, usually more lucrative than following the corporate path. But it’s not as simple as it sounds to become a consultant. I leveraged some nice experience, some expert knowledge in a couple of areas (horizontal and underpressured drilling), many great industry contacts, and some savings. Without all those factors contributing, it would have been a tougher path to follow.</p>
<p>IMO, the biggest problem with consultants is the fact that too few of them are competent.</p>
<p>The difference in pay between corporate consultants and independent consultants can be pretty big.</p>
<p>Let’s say a government agency has a need for a Java Software Engineer. They are willing to pay $160/hour. Well some employer (Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed) will hire Java experts for $60/hr ($120,000).</p>
<p>Well let me take that back…Lockheed will hire for $50/hour…LOL…'ole cheapos</p>
<p>But I digress…</p>
<p>The employer pockets that other $100/hour ($200,000 year).</p>
<p>With an independent consultant who is a bona-fide expert, they can charge $115/hour ($230,000/year) and just pay their own health insurance. The government likes them because they are cheaper BUT liability insurance on a independent contractor is the reason why they are not hired all over the place.</p>
<p>"Let’s say a government agency has a need for a Java Software Engineer. They are willing to pay $160/hour. Well some employer (Boeing, Northrop, Lockheed) will hire Java experts for $60/hr ($120,000).</p>
<p>Well let me take that back…Lockheed will hire for $50/hour…LOL…'ole cheapos"</p>
<p>Wait…Since when does the government pay a higher salary than the private industry? And $100 an hour more no less… Also, on a side note, is Lockheed really a bunch of “cheapos?” They have the largest defense contract in the U.S., those greedy money-grubbers ought to pay a higher salary :P</p>
<p>I was using cleared/INTEL consulting positions. The clearance brings in $25,000-$50,000 extra a year.</p>
<p>Nah, around the Fort Meade circles, Lockheed does not pay as much as the others (Boeing, General Dynamics, CSC, Northrop) and does not care. Like you stated, they are the prime contractor on so many contracts that if you leave them, you may end up working for one of their sub-contractors and Lockheed will let them eat your higher salary.</p>
<p>Different things are called “consulting”, and here’s one:
You have in-depth skill in one area that a company can use to make them more profitable, or compliant with the latest regulation, or whatever. So you are hired to assess the situation, propose the change, and get the new process in place for the permanent staff to take over. </p>
<p>Companies employ consultants because they may not have the skill set in their permanent staff, or have a need to have someone with those skills after the setup is done. They pay more because there is a non-permanent need that is generally needed right away, and it’s cheaper to hire someone temporarily and let them go as soon as the work is done than try to develop the talent inhouse - like renting a car rather for a week than buying one.</p>
<p>Ohhh ok that makes a lot more sense. Though, if a consultant got a security clearance, wouldn’t that force the government to continually use them since they went through the hassle of clearing them? As purduefrank said in the 2nd post, “If the firm does this well, it is likely they will receive repeat business.” Having a security clearance seems to guarantee repeat business IMO. </p>
<p>Also, aren’t Northrop and Boeing both big defense contractors as well? Lockheed, Northrop, and Boeing all have over 10 billion dollars in contracts, though it is a 16:11:10 ratio.</p>
<p>There are a lot of different kids of consultants, hence the confusion.</p>
<p>My H consulted for years. He was employed by a company that provides SE and IT consultants. He worked side by side with regular employees, and other salaried consultants like himself, and independent consultants, who make maybe 2X the salaried employees but have no benefits and are on limited contracts (we used to call independent consultants ‘job shoppers’).</p>
<p>As a salaried employee of a consulting company, he made the same salary as regular employees. So in his case, there was no financial gain to consulting. In fact, because his was a small company it was a little worse in that the benefits weren’t as good as they would be in a large company. He liked it though, because they were a bit like ‘hired guns’ - they came in to a workplace when the work load was high enough to justify consultants, learned something new while on assignment, then left before things got boring between heavy periods. The client office politics rolled off his back - he didn’t care since he wasn’t sticking around. He had some bad commutes, since he worked all over the metro area. He had to interview before every assignment - that he didn’t like but he got used to it.</p>
<p>So some consultants offer specialty expertise, and others are more or less jack of all trades. All should have some applicable work experience before becoming consultants.</p>
<p>Yes, but sometimes they will sub-contract to one another also.</p>
<p>I have previously worked for Boeing and have mulled offers from both Lockheed and Northrop in the past. I would say in order of offers, it went: Northrop, Boeing then Lockheed. I know also 3 other folks who left Lockheed because of pay…but they do have a lot of defense contracts.</p>
<p>Right on with what I would say. Technical consulting firms usually prefer that you have a M.S or PhD degree before hiring you. In fact, most if not all consultants at Exponent have PhD degrees. As for the business consulting firms, you only need a B.S to qualify for entry level positions. A few B.S recent grads I know have landed these kinds of consulting jobs. They aren’t so good on the engineering side, but they can really talk quiet well.</p>