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So You Want To Be A Consultant
Stephen Friedl writes "I've been a self-employed consultant for almost 20 years - I still have my first customer! - and I'm asked often about the business by those who are considering it. It's not for everybody, and there are often surprises, so I've written up a Tech Tip that recounts my experiences and provides advice for the n00b. Executive summary: It's much more about customer service than it is about technical skill."
I'm a student who started doing software design as a consultant. Now I started this while I was still in high school and have made $70k in 4 years. Note that this is without much experience or a degree, and while still being in school... so if you devoted your time to this, perhaps it would be very lucrative?
Even if you regularly invoice at the start of every month, customers have their own schedule for paying, and this can be nerve-wracking to deal with
I think that's the reason why I wouldn't do consulting/contracting. A friend of mine recently decided to be self employed as a consultant and the biggest problem is getting people to pay him in an orderly fashion. When you are your own business you end up putting up money for various things, and when your incomming payments start to lag, you can end up in serious trouble.
I am also a self-employed developer/consultant (although I'm technically a programmer, I find myself spending a lot more time on consultancy)
Keeping your first customer is NOT perse a good thing. Only if you still make money on work for that customer. The first 10 years of my own business, I found my self spending a lot of time giving phone-support for previously programmer stuff. Or for other stuff... or for no stuff at all (help, my mouse doesn't work properly anymore !)... The most difficult thing in being self employed is : learn to charge for everything. If you work on something, even if it is only 5 minutes : bill'em.
It's the only advice I can give. If you start a relationship with your customer based on free support (in the widest possible interpretation of support), yuo're fucked
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Yup, most businesses would rather have an IT consultant that takes twice as long (and three tries) to solve a problem than one that won't return phone calls for days. I know, I've lost customers while busy with other ones - not because they were in a hurry to get something done, but because they wanted to talk it through and know, quickly, if what they're planning (whenever we would eventually get around to it) was rational or even possible.
Communication, communication, communication. And it's not billable, most of the time - so take that into account when you set your rates for the time you can bill. You can spend 60 hours a week working in this mode, and only be able to charge for 15 of them sometimes.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
"Consultant" used to mean an expert professional who could solve problems and provide advice based on years, even decades of experience.
With the Y2K and dot-com booms, "consultant" became used to mean someone with more than three months of IT experience...
Thankfully (for us real consultants), most of the amateurs have returned to horse farming, or whatever they used to do.
It'll still be a while, however, before "IT Consultant" on a business card impresses anyone.
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
It's much more about customer service than it is about technical skill.
...Not to be rude, but I've noticed this is the "rule" with the consultants that have worked on various portions of projects that I've been involved with (e.g. the guys customizing an ERP that our system will be integrating with).
The funny thing is that the consultants with the poorest technical skills make the most money (charge the most hours) - at least in the short term.
"As it so happens, I'm in the market for some kind of bespoke enterprise scalable solution. Don't suppose you'd be able to recommend anything ?"
This article definately sounds as if the writer was more aligned along the marketing/policy end of consulting rather than technology, the article comes across as pretty weak. Although I don't know any IT consultants, geological consultants are usually a bit more terse and limit their comments to things other than "warm fuzzy feelings."
I also have never liked the term consultant. Sometimes consultants are nothing more than paid mouths to spread an idea, and they don't actually "consult," or say their own opinions.
Because all work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy?
Mr Burns: Smithers, i was a stingy old fool. But from now on, I'll provide drug benefits to all my full-time employees.
Homer: Great news, honey. Mr. Burns made me a freelance consultant. Hey...what's this lump.
"I contracted a client today!" Jeez, can't we discuss this without mentioning viruses? Seriously though, I find your choice of words poor and I disagree with your classification, I've been a consultant for 9+ years now and I would say what you call "contracting" is typical freelance consulting and your definition of consulting is basically handholding. Top professional companies do not need handholding, so when you're dealing with them it's much more about technical knowledge than customer service. But since most of your customers need handholding I see why you would think that's the norm. It's not, at least not in my experience, YMMV.
You wouldn't want to teach a n00b--at least, if you distinguish between the n00b that refuses to learn and the newb that is honestly beginning his career.
Side note: Doesn't the poster's definition for contractor sound a lot like that of a one-night stand?
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
I've always found it much easier to take on sub contract work, this way you never have to worry about facing the non-techy clients and what needs doing is very clear. Granted you don't make as much but if you have a full time job already it is an easyish extra income.
moo
Man, this is a horrible troll.
.... and the fact that we were unable to defrag its ext2 file system."
"FreedBSD's
FreeBSD has never used ext2 as its native filesystem, nor the GPL. It looks like someone just found/replaced the word linux with FreeBSD.
A lot more of your expenses can be quantified and written off as business expenses when you work for multiple people. Of course, there's a little more risk here for error, but the IRS doesn't seem to put you in jail if you make honest mistakes.
Oh, there's certainly a lot more freedom involved too. You make your own schedule, and you're in a much better position to tell someone to fuck off without impacting your lifestyle too badly. On the other hand, when you're not charting up billable hours, you're spending your time marketing. Always marketing.
I've been doing this for about 3 years now and I don't think I've billed more than 20 hours a week on average, but being able to select which 20 is really convenient for your sanity. There are some weeks where you won't work at all and others where you don't lift your head higher than your shoulders. If you can't stand regular routine, independent consulting is the lifestyle for you.
There's a certain anxiety that comes with alway having to market yourself to new clients and not being sure if you can make ends meet in six months, but this isn't so bad in the computer industry since if you run into trouble, you can usually fall back on a fulltime job before you starve to death. You definitely need to save up a cash cushion to help even out the unsteadiness of work, but simply knowing that you have it there puts you in a better position to weigh whether you wan't to prostitute yourself out for that ActiveX project.
Unless you have iron will self-control, working out of your house is usually a bad idea because you end up finding as many distractions as possible to keep you from working. You also never feel that you're "off", since your day always looks like a 16-hour work/play haze.
All in all, I certainly don't regret getting into this.
I've been a self-employed consultant for almost 20 years, and I'd like to place a sales pitch for my services on Slashdot. What is Roland paying you?
My advice for new consultants:
Incorporate. Protect your savings, house, car, etc., if there's a disaster.
Be available. This includes evenings, weekends, and vacations.
Be responsive. Check your customer email several times a day and respond.
For future reference, you troll, FreeBSD doesn't use the ext2 file system nor does it use the GPL.
Excellent article and I suggest any consultant or person thinking of being one RTFA.
One thing I would like to add, though, is a fixed bid tip. The author admits he does not have much experience with this type of work and omits one important detail that can save a lot of headache for both parties and keep cashflow going during a large project.
Always try to do a fixed bid project with milestone based payments. This keeps the customer happy since they get to see the code at intervals, gauge the progress, and offer feedback. It lets you get paid as you go and helps you use customer feedback to make changes (and no matter how good the spec, there will be) as you develop.
The worst part is that I've seen the Linux version of this post, before "FreedBSD" was slapped on. <sarcasm>Un</sarcasm>fortunately, I've forgotten its URI.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
There are tons of them all around. Never figured out how this profession can be rewarding other than paying the rents and bills. Doesn't come close to sciences, has artificial buzz of applied mathematics.
=troll
No.
Although it's flamebait, I've run into instances where I needed to defrag unix systems but couldn't becuase "they never need to defrag". Whatever. I just wish someone would eventually start writing defrag utilities for unix file systems. THey don't fragment like ntfs or fat32, but they can fragment - and if they do you are probably stuck since you're only left with the "move the files somewhere else" method.
"I've been a self-employed consultant for almost 20 years - I still have my first customer!"
:D
Parents...
Privacy is terrorism.
Be available. This includes evenings, weekends, and vacations.
This is exactly why I STOPPED being a consultant.
Pfft. We know you don't have a life. Stop trying to hide the fact.
The people that are fed to the muzzle of a client for business. There's no excuse for violence against nature or for the triumph of evil is for good men to do things on the tip of my arm was left here by the army of another country or by a private army.
I think i've worked it out! You are the moments that you and your own schedule, and you're in a much better position to tell it like it used to be. My riches consist not in the hand is worth two in the extent of my very best intentions. The average man does not want to think that i haven't had the misfortune to meet you. I like to do things on the head with the shoulders.
A computer is a living creature endowed with voluntary movement.
A day is the opening at the end of the leg, and is the idea of movement from one place to another.
A cretin is someone who suffers from the shoulder of an ass and a tragedy for those who feel.
A torpedo is a nocturnal marsupial.
A financially-struggling consultant does not give a customer The Warm Fuzzy Feeling(TM)
Recently, I was in salary negotiations with a company without any competing job offers. I asked for a really high salary relative to others applying for the position. When asked why or do I have any other offers, I simply reiterated that I am very interested in this position, and the salary is what I have discovered through other companies is market.
The name of the game is: "Never show all your cards"
I saw this in a advertisment for a consulting gig.
50% Personality, 50% Technical Ability.
If you can't walk into an office and within 2 minutes be mostly comfortable and getting along with everyone, then you shouldn't be a consultant. You don't have a long time to get going, like you would if you were an employee. There's no training, no hand-holding. You are there doing your thing. It's actually quite fun and interesting most of the time!
I also still have my first client.... heh
-m
http://www.invisik.com
Persons allergic to incompetence cannot be consultants. - Ioan Tenner
"Executive summary: It's much more about customer service than it is about technical skill."
Wow, does that ever sound like a good consultant. Thats probably why they are hated in the IT field.
"Be glad you sailed for a better day, But dont forget there will be hell to pay" - Dave King/Flogging Molly
OS X has a feature which defrags a small part of the disk - the part used for the init process - to enable faster boot times. Even if a UNIX filesystem doesn't get fragmented per se it would be nice to be able to have it automatically relocate files accessed in sequence to be sequential on disk.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
I think he nails a lot of what people don't know, but should, if they want to make a living doing technical consulting. However, I think he's off-base on his suggestion to allow the customer to "own everything". The arrangement suggested is not legal and could result in an awful lot of trouble for either you or the customer down the road.
There are certain pieces of intellectual property that the customer owns simply because it originates with them--business processes, customer information, etc. Those things remain their property whether you are working with them in your project or not, and you can't re-use or re-publish them without express consent. However, in most cases, anything that you create remains yours under the same laws. It is possible for you to relenquish your right to the client, in effect giving the IP away, but if you do so, you do NOT have the right to re-use it again yourself in future projects. They own it, even the building blocks--you are infringing on their copyright at that point.
There are few situations in which this might actually come back to bite you (or them) but they are devastating if they do arise. For one, if you ever decide to sell another work based on that code to another client, under those same terms, you've created a potential liability for both of your clients, depending on how much you got in writing at any particular stage. Either the second is infringing because the first owns it, or the first is infringing after you sold the rights to the second.
It's possible, of course, to license your code any way you would like, but you have to retain ownership of the copyright in order to do so. You have to make it absolutely clear to the clients that you own what you code, but that what they are paying for is a perpetual license to use that code as they see fit. This has the same effect as what the author is going for, I believe, but without the potentially nasty side effects.
No relation to Happy Monkey
The other challenge is that some people seem to think that "consultant" means you're unemployed. Some say, "Oh, so you're between jobs?" I then explain that I have a roster of clients and that I've been doing this for seven years. I have also learned to stop saying that I'm a consultant and to start saying that I have run a small marketing firm for seven years.
Occasionally, I also run into potential clients who think "consultant" just means that they can avoid payroll taxes. They don't understand that I have other clients and that, while a full-time ongoing engagement is something I'd consider, I'm not using consulting as a way to scam the government. I've run into some companies that have had "consultants" working for them full-time for the past five years. (Canada's tax laws do not allow this.) Fortunately, I don't run into people like this very often.
-- SYS 64738 --
Try lots of shit and see what works :)
Berto
From years of experience consulting and running consulting groups, one of the biggest hurdles tech people need to come to grips with when entering consulting is the balance between elegant code and timely completion of projects. Most consultants are paid by the hour. They need to learn the tight rope walk between engineering the ultimate solution and get the work done quickly. Most academic oriented developers try for perfection in their solutions which usually take longer to develop. When your consulting you have to balance this with getting done more quickly. Figuring out when and where you can take shortcuts is something difficult for some to learn. Consulting is not for everyone.
If your business is considering inside or outside resources for a project, consider:
- What are the first 3 letters that Consultant begins with?
- Consultants are, at their core, like retail units, who must generate repeat business. Very few business models rely on providing a one off sale or service. Therefore, consultants create an ongoing product in terms of support, or licensing etc.
Lastly, consultant is different to contractor. While the 2 provide similar services, the consultant will only get out of bed for >$200. If this is not you then you are most likely a contractor.
In post Patriot Act America, the library books scan you.
Hmm... I have a feeling you're not in the US.
As a consultant myself I only realized that I am one a few months ago. I was self employed for 6 years now working for different customers on a variety of projects. I always thought I was a web guy, a sysad, a tech-writer or even a tech-teacher. But it turned out that I am just that: an IT consultant.
;-)
;-)
Thanks heavens that it turned out I am pretty good at it.
This is probably the best read on this subject I had in a long time. If you are planning to do this kind of job and follow his rules you really might have success and a lot of fun. If your idea of fun is work a LOT and have tight schedules and fix tricky stuff in no time that is.
The upside: You are doing lots of interesting stuff, meet many cool people, get to see a lot of different companies wich might just hire you if beeing self employed gets sour and last not least you might earn a living.
But don't call my customers or you might be in trouble...
I too am a small-time consultant. I have a client who likes my work. There has been a lot of feature creep, which is good as far as moeny, but problematic for keeping organized. I'm looking for a software package (hopefully LAMP) that is designed for the one-person developer -- feature estimation with nesting and dependencies, hour tracking, and invoicing. I've looked at dotproject and it seems to lack invoicing.
I would like to do this on my own of course, but I don't have the time with this client! What do you use?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Our hero goes out into the street, sees a man who is walking with a slouch, walks up to him and says:
Johnny: 'Don't slouch. That'll be 10 bucks.'
Sloucher:'Gee, thanks. Here's your money.' (Hands Johnny a bill). 'You know what you should do with that?'
J: 'What?'
S: 'Put it in a bank! That'll be 10 bucks. '(Takes the bill back).
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
All I needed to get started was this and this.
And maybe make one of these with Stinger, Antivir, and Ad-aware to clean trojans and virii.
Of course, service is the key to this. I make house calls and often spend an extra hour of non-billable time explaining things. Since I am in California I charge $75 an hour to wealthy clients and $45 an hour for the non-wealthy.
in my area of the country. A couple of years ago when I started out there were a great number of consultants in the area. Most of them had the social skills of Atilla the Hun but people used them because they just figured that all IT people were freaks. Currently, these consulting companies are having a very difficult time. Other companies (like mine) are hiring people that have people skills. It doesn't take a genius to figure it out. I must have interviewed 15 people trying to find a guy (no women applied) that fit the bill.
Ive seen a friend of mine whose much more savy "fire" clients for refusing to upgrade off old, vulnerable software. It was great.
Christ, I wish I could do that. I work in the IT department for a mortgage company and we have branches scattered all over the U.S. Many of those branches have shit for IT staff that barely know how to maintain their desktops let along their LANs. We've gotten tech support calls from branches whose computers were irrevocably corrupted with viruses, spyware, etcetera - and were running Windows 98. Windows 98, for God's sake! They didn't even have a firewall installed at the office and the branch manager was worried that sensitive customer data (credit reports, underwriting records) would be compromised if it wasn't already. Any IT desktop guy that lets the office people use such an antiquated, unstable, insecure OS on their machines doesn't deserve his position. We basically threated to cut off all technical support from corp HQ (where I work) unless they upgraded to Windows XP. And before you yell at me for not choosing Linux, our whole underwriting operation is based off COM+/.NET web-based applications that mandate IE 6 and other modern Windows software in other to run. (Want to bitch about that? Talk to our developers. They are genuinely infatuated with the system.) This didn't stop a couple of branch IT idiots from saying that they were going to ban the usage of IE from their computers... "How does Firefox work with your web apps?" "It doesn't."
So now you go from praising the UK for supporting the US to bashing the country for giving up its rights?
Got a nice phrase for you. the ends do not justify the means.
try to find some consultant friends! especially in the "time and project management" departement it helps tremendously to have a colleague who can jump in when you are short in time or are on holiday - and who doesn't try to "steal" your customer..
everything else is almost identically to my businnes practice and i can say: "it works!"
regards,
PAT
SEO Test: TIGI und SEBASTIAN - Online Shop - V
You... you... you're wierder than ME!
I would be very interested in finding a tool like that. Something FOSS, hopefully. There's aceproject.com, but they're a commercial service ...
:))
If you find anything, could you let me know? Thanks.
(I've recently switched to Bugzilla for bug and feature request tracking, that's been quite useful
For eighteen months I tried the consulting gig. It wasn't bad. But the executive summary is right on. Did some work for a small attorneys office and from there it blosomed. What I found out was that attorney are the least technically adept of any professionals.
In general, your work will be considered "work for hire" unless you explicitly define another type of license or agreement.
is competition from a class of people I call "idiots with a screwdriver and a copy of Norton". It's so easy to get started consulting (although it gets hard, fast) that just about anybody looking for work whose even seen a computer considers jumping in. It's really tough charging a decent amount for decent service when I've got morons charging half what I do and then calling Microsoft for support. Oh well, at least with everything going to India these shmucks are out their tech support life line. Should help weed out the worst of the bunch. My favorite is having another (usually better looking/more personable) consultant hiring me do to his job, and then double charging the customer. Oh well, I still get paid....
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
His recommendation, regarding the building blocks is one born more out of reality then legality. If the building blocks are so basic that they cannot be recognized as to where they came from then in reality it would be nearly impossible for someone to claim ownership or for you to not easily defend it. But it is certainly a moral gray area, in what is otherwise a set of very moral recommendations.
Was my biggest problem.
:-)
They simply refuse to do so, some of them taking as long as 60 days to pay on a invoice.
Doesn't matter the time on the invoice due date.
Handling this sort of thing is still dicey and although I am sensitive to customers needs, I still have to pay the bills on time as well.
Some tips not mentioned in the article:
1) Although shortening your invoice schedule may have worked for this gent, I can say that is rarely has any impact on my customers.
2) If you are going to start a consulting business, insure you have about 90 days of operating income (complete business quarter) to start with.
3) Projects should be divided up into your invoice scheduling if that is what your invoice shcedule is.
If you really have certain customers that are really bad, work with them for a long time on timely bill payment (say 6 months). That means continually sending them letters, discuss it with a variety of people in the organization, not just your contact there.
If they continue to be greviously late, then drop them or stop work citing a long history late payment history.
I did this with one customer and all sorts of people started asking where Hackus was??? When they found out they were late on a payment AGAIN by 90 days, they paid and offerred me a job.
Your milage may vary.
-Hack
Got Geometrodynamics? Awe, too hard to figure out? Too bad.
# Be available. This includes evenings, weekends, and vacations.
This is exactly why I STOPPED being a consultant.
good for you. oh, yes I think I will have fries with that, thanks.
However, I think he's off-base on his suggestion to allow the customer to "own everything".
What I've typically done is include a clause to the effect that "Company reserves the right to re-use certain portions...etc, etc," If I'm ever asked, I simply explain that technical work (like programming) to a large degree, is based on collective knowledge. The more collective knowledge, the better the service. No one customer can take ownership of the means used to provide the service being offered- it's simply not feasible.
When it comes to the finished product, however, it varies - most of the time they will own it, but I've had one or two situations where they agreed to joint copyright so long as I did not use the software for, or market it to, competing entities.
http://shit.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/30/0 316219
Stephen Friedl fell at the first fence by writing up his experience and making it free to all. I am a **TRUE** consultant see:
If you want *my* insight into the industry and how to work it, I can arrange a coaching session or formal meeting together with comprehensive notes and a presentation - here are my rates...
AT&ROFLMAO
Please stop posting this over and over. you are an idiot and so is your post.
In mexico we are good administrators (some people think just the contrary), and somewhat bad programmers (all agree), but we can talk a lot with costumers... This is the only IT job which you can be well payed for that in the mexican industry. As a consultant, I earn more money than most of my friends, programmers or systems administrators.
If you are consulting on your own or contracting, it is nice when your spouse has a job that provides good benefits. This combination of careers is ideal. The steady cash flow from a regular job also helps even if she doesn't earn that much.
Consulting is something that you can continue to do part time after you retire. My father does this. He doesn't need the income but enjoys the mental exercise and comradery.
Downsides to consulting are finding new assignments and travel. Most people would much rather do work than find it.
Some assignments require weekly trips to another city. Travel by air has become less reliable and takes longer than in years past.
Because you get to choose which 16 hours in the day that you work.
searching around sourceforge.... might try tutos?
http://www.tutos.org/
today is a sad day for all the hate-mongering euro-trash out there. and of course also for most of the left-wing nutcases here at home, etc...
i'd love to keep this flame war going with you euro-trash no-good pot smoking hippies, but i have better things to do...
man those chicks on fox news sure are fine!!!
DELICIOUS!!!
Change your job title to something that does not have those negative associations. I suggest "IT Prima Donna".
Actually, it is the other way around. By default, the consultant owns all the intellectual property he creates. "Work for hire" only applies if you are an employee of your client. As a consultant, however, you are not an employee of your client, you are employed by yourself. Since you are not an employee of your clients, you own the intellectual property you create unless you have a contract with your client that says otherwise.
I recently finished my first big custom project (a hair over a year of constant work), and learned a lot about customer relationships. The article was very good, but I also choked when I got to the part about copy rights.
I told my customer up front that I would retain all copy rights to the code. I would provide her company with full source code, and the company would have a license to modify the code for its own internal use.
I also told her that it was not practical for me to then support their modified program. This was (and is) not a problem for her since her only reason for wanting the code was to guard against my getting hit by the proverbial bus and leaving the company in a world of hurt.
As far as I was concerned, the company was paying for the privilege of having its needs take priority in my program's functions.
She told me how hard it was for her to find a developer with good terms and a willingless to communicate on a regular basis, and copy rights were not even a concern. She didn't even want to try finding someone else to maintain my work.
The software has been in production for three weeks now, and she (and more importantly, the owner of the company -- her hard-to-please father) is thrilled with it. I am now in maintenance mode, adding minor features and fixing bugs (bug fixes are always at no extra charge).
I'm tempted to toot my horn too much, giving away my competitive advantages, but I'm not going to give any details about my work.
I will say, though, that I did this as a side job in addition to my full time work, and that I cleared it with my employer (retaining ownership of my work, promising no conflict of interest, etc.). Most importantly, I made my position clear to my customer.
Now I have a strong reference (this company has major influence in my area) and another customer waiting in the wings -- in the same business as my first customer, achieved via recommendation from the same first customer.
My first customer is already planning for version 2 of the software.
First off: I like both of these pieces of advice: Now here are two questions and a little plea for advice: Thanks!
Something I have learned over time that was not listed in the article is to pay visits to your customers periodically. Yes, it is somewhat of a fishing trip but at the same time, they get a feel-good visit from you and it often ends up resulting in a few "oh, while you are here..." requests. Regardless of whether you charge for those or not, it all helps the "warm & fuzzy factor".
It's much more about customer service than it is about technical skill.
That all depends on what you're referring to by "it."
If you're solely referring to having happy customers, making money, and running a stable business, then this is true. But then, it's a statement which says more about YOU than anything else. The argument begins to resemble a tautology at that point! It's one step away from simply saying, "Making money is all about making money."
However if with the word "it" you're referring to actually accomplishing something new and meaningful during your short time on this planet, then I highly disagree that it's all about customer satisfaction. Technical skills, vision and creativity... indeed brilliance, natural talent and creative genius if you can summon these qualities, are what will determine your true accomplishments in life.
You may be so ahead of your time, that there will be very few people you can even communicate with meaningfully. Your customers cannot possibly comprehend where you are going or where you would like to send them for their own long-term benefit.
In this latter case, if you are indeed a potential genius, then you have choice to make. You will either end up correctly viewing your customers as strictly a means to the end of pursuing your own R&D, or else you can make them willing participants in your master plan by impressing them so thoroughly with your uncompromising brilliance, that they will learn to trust your vision implicitly.
I have walked both of these paths, and believe me, the latter path may be a little harder, but it is better. MUCH BETTER. If you have any ego whatsoever (who doesn't?) then it is even a lot of fun! Always! Your skills get actually challenged, and you really do grow. In this latter scenario, your technical skills and talents are indeed your most important asset in every way. They are your only true asset - your SELF. You can hire people to take over the mundane business functions; and if you need to, you can always find more customers; but when it comes to vision and skills... if you have them, those are extraordinary. Let your customers glimpse these talents and they will always call you for their most difficult problems. You will be able to charge top dollar, because you quickly solve problems that nobody else can even understand. You can gain a reputation such that simply allowing your customers access to your technical ingenuity is the greatest customer service they could hope for.
You should not take your natural talents for granted and you should NEVER compromise them or buy into the myth that they are somehow second to someone else's happiness. Skills, especially technical skills and vision, must be constantly nourished. Protect your skills! But if you get into a habit of not using them, you could actually lose them. Seriously. It only takes a year or two. Natural talents and vision can actually be lost. You could lose "it" if you complacently fall into a creatively stifling formula for success such as selling people warm fuzzies under the guise of IT consulting. And if you allow that to happen what do you become? Just another consultant.
If you have what it takes, don't settle for selling warm fuzzies. Sell "holy shits" instead. Blow your customers away with your talents and you won't believe what opportunities open up before you, regardless of your background.
To me, "it" is not money but life itself! "It" means actually accomplishing something with your life. "It" means means personally growing by being challenged and expressing your creativity. "It" is the success or failure not of your business, but of your SELF... and really, you have no other asset.
My credentials? I retired from active commerce ats a millionaire at age 39, having made most of my money in IT consulting. I have natural talent, no college degree and have never taken a single computer class. Now 40, I am pursuing my true projects
"Something" about them that makes people want to help or buy from them...
I was thinking about becoming a consultant. After looking at various successful self-employed people I've known in or out of my family circle, I've come to the conclusion they have one thing in common. Due to their personality, charisma, looks, or whatever combination thereof, other people feel compelled to do something for them or buy something from them.
Because of that "something", they can get the contacts, get the customers, get the personnel to help them, etc. If you don't have that "something", people will not feel compelled to buy anything from you or do anything for you (as is in my case).
Note, that's orthogonal from actually truely knowing what they're doing. In some cases, the successful person IS an expert at his/her field. But I've also worked with people who could charm the shit out of a customer and get the contract, but didn't know jack about what he was talking about.
In conclusion, I feel you really have to take an honest introspective self evaluation on who you are and how well you fit in with your clients prior to getting into your own business...
"Incorporate. Protect your savings, house, car, etc., if there's a disaster."
See, this is where I have the advantage - since I don't have any of those things to protect, I can undercut almost anybody in price...:-)
I may not know as much as somebody else, but I can find out in due time and still charge less for the work.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
i am a student and currently have two contracts to bid for -- whilst a job at subway awaits! nothing emboldens the entrepreneurial spirit like continuing a life of manual labour for next to nothing!
i was thinking of having myself and a couple of friends take the load of doing temp contracts as per time and appropriate skillset allows and divide money as work is done.. any helpful anecdotes?
it not like we are aiming ot be consulting gods but provide a niche service to v small businesses who suddenly need IT services but cant afford pro or pro-india based IT services!
i kind of get the feeling that most slashdotter did not have to work at college or indeed just put up with awful minumum wage jobs.
i did that to get through school and now i actually know a few things dont want to any more!
my question really though is this.. my idea/ sentiment is that i might learn even more if i do computer science related things while at universoty rather than flip burgers.
companies actually moan that we are all know-nothing theorists these days rather than
decent seasoned practitioners. well duh!
thanks.
Reading the article, it "would appear" that the author thinks that "the secret" to being a "good consultant" is to "put things in quotes" all the time.
I still have my first customer!
Realize he's talking about his mom.
- The first one because I hadn't yet decided on a career focus and I wanted to leverage my native English language skills to quickly get a foot inside a foreign country's IT sector, as a freshly landed immigrant;
- The second came as one of those offers one cannot refuse, based on my excellent performance at the first job.
Once I got pigeonholed into Technical Writing, applying for any other job became a dauntingly difficult task. I just kept on getting comments like:- This opening is for a Project Manager. That doesn't match your profile: you're a Technical Writer.
- Hi! This is Ms.Clueless BitchAufHR from soonbankrupt.com, how ya doing? Thanks for your application for this Product Manager position. We were all sitting here reading your CV and we have a nice Technical Writer job for you.
- Oh, so you're fluent in 7 languages. That's good, cause we're badly in need of a Technical Writer who can do both English and German.
At some point, it almost felt like my college degree was being systematically ignored, which made me ponder whether I would be better off switching field rather than fighting the HR drones.I stopped sending out CVs and instead focused on contacting old friends, which paid off in spades: within a few weeks, I landed myself a CTO position at a really forward-looking startup where a mere acquaintance was working, based solely on his pitching my CV to his boss.
Since then, I haven't bothered with the CV mailing game; I utilize the power of social networking. It works.
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
Article is interesting (I disagree with some of it, but hey, opinions are like strings, every yo-yo has one).
The one thing I want to point out is that the article is very *VERY* centered on consulting from a freelancer point of view. Working for a consulting company is an entirely different ball of wax. The emphasis on technical vs. soft-skill is different, and the politics are totally different.
While the author does a decent job of talking about what it's like to be a freelancer, don't read this thinking it tells you much of anything about how things work outside of that.
Bugs Bunny was right.
- We don't do anything billable without a contract in place. This means there are no unpleasant surprises later when the client says "oh, I didn't realise this would be so much" or "we don't have the budget allocated." On the other hand, if there is no arrangement ahead of time (perhaps what I'm doing is outside the scope, or they're a new client) then we don't invoice, and the time we spent was our problem.
- Don't charge for the small stuff. Quick phone calls don't add up to a ton of short charges as they do with a lawyer. But it also means that if the subject is clearly long then I have to pay attention and be sure to tell the client "You know, this is going to take more than a few minutes. Let's schedule a time to go over this in detail." It also means, as TFA says, that you have to fire people for whom this doesn't work -- in that case the calls are just a symptom of something worse wrong with the client relationship.
Basically our principle is: if you wouldn't like to receive a bill for it, you probably shouldn't be sending one for it.Bob Slidell: What.. what would you say... you do here?
Tom: Look, I already told you! I deal with the goddamn customers so the engineers don't have to! I have people skills! I am good at dealing with people! Can't you understand that? WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE!
Your 'product' isn't something the customer can hold in their hands, taste, or smell. It's an intangible. They know their machine is getting fixed, the hardware is being installed, thier program is getting written, their network/server is being tweaked, etc... But, it's all intangible to them. That leaves customer service. They have to feel GOOD about what you've done. If they have any feeling that you can't do the work then no matter what you do, however great it is, won't be enough. They'll still feel uneasy about your work.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
So... your assumption is exactly the dangerous one that I am talking about. Unless you put it in writing, if you are not an employee of some sort, YOU continue to hold copywrite on your work whether you said so or not.
No relation to Happy Monkey
"I can't wait to see five or ten thousand dead US troops on CNN"
You sick fuck. No wonder you guys lose the elections.
Didn't see invoicing mentioned on their site, but I keep hearing a lot of good things about Basecamp:
http://basecamphq.com/
It is a newer offering, which also means it's likely actively gaining new features (they may be open to suggestion), and the price is more than fair IMO.
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with Basecamp in any way, it just came to mind. For my affiliations, see .sig :)
putfwd.com - 1GB Free file storage with a twist
Now, the real issue comes in now that I may be hired by a great agency full time with salary and benefits, but I don't know if I'll be able to work on personal projects on the side like this. Now, normally, if I got the job, I'd just quit this freelance thing, but since I don't have a termination clause, I can't figure out any way out of the contract. I get paid biweekly, and the deliverables are due at various milestones and the end date.
Any suggestions for how to get out of it? How should I approach this with my freelance client that I want to drop?
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
Here's a de-fragger for you:
#!/usr/bin/bash
echo " Defragging your C drive now!"
sleep 3600
echo " Defrag is finished!"
If people didn't use the SuSE method of multi-gig root partitions your machine _would_ boot faster. On my BSD home box / is all of 80MB. Once the bios is happy and the OS actually boots it's up and running in about 8 seconds, probably less if I actually clocked it.
I've never seen more than 3.4 percent fragmentation on a BSD box. Use my script, that way you can sit around and bill your client.
Blame the fragmentation.
Always use triplicate job sheets, and hand the initial job sheet to the customer. That way they can tally what's *already been signed and agreed to* with the invoice. Then you can attach the second copy with the invoices if your billing after a few visits. The customer sees exactly what's billed for and if you do discount, it's *ALL* listed.
And FFS be descriptive in what you did. Not enough to describe how to do it again, but enough that they know you even fixed the print spooler looping, etc
"We know what happens to people who stay in the middle of the road. They get run over." - Aneurin Bevan
All files smaller than 20MB are also automatically defragged when they are opened.
Let's see here... four years, 52 weeks a year (assume no vacation) and 40 hours a week... that makes your hourly rate about US$8.41... That's about the same as flipping burgers at Mickey Ds. (and in four years at Mickey Ds, you would have advanced to Senior Flipper!)
ROFL!
However, I think he's off-base on his suggestion to allow the customer to "own everything".
For me, this is always the stickiest point of contract negotiation with clients. I agree with the article: if you can let the customer own everything, that's much, much easier.
Of course, if much of your work is programming, it can be frustrating to keep rebuilding things that you need on pretty much any project. I've seen two good ways to get around this.
One is to invest some of your own time writing some of that library code. Then when you start with a client who needs it, you can say: I'll let you use my library code for free as long as I get to use any improvements I make to it while I'm here. This way the customer feels like they're getting something of value in exchange for something they probably don't care about. Everybody's happy.
Alternatively, you can release your library code as open source code. Then you add a contract clause saying that any improvements you make on open source projects will be submitted back to the project. Years ago this was a hard sell, but now the clients I deal with generally get that using open-source libraries is a big win for them. As a bonus, the open-source code serves as a free advertisement for you.
did it consultant for four years
cash flow is a nightmare with custoemrs just holding otu as long as they can meanwhile your credit card goes thru the roof...
take my advice.. do a trade or some other profession..
every tradey i have gotten to do work wants *cash* (no tax for them.. and when they finish the job they stand there with their hands otu for the money..
none of this IT "we'll pay you in 60 days crap" and these guys have work hanging otu of there ears...
you may enjoy IT as a hobby but as a future as job it's got little...
I, too, run my own business. With the article author's definitions, I would be a consultant, although I never really decided what to call myself. The part of the article that I can relate with the most is deciding if you have enough self-discipline to work by yourself at home.
/. obsession, please let me know, that would really help with my productivity...
I've been doing this kind of work for the last six or seven years. And it took me the first five to figure out how to work at home. During that first five years, working at home was not easy! I hadn't yet developed the discipline needed, nor the mental state necessary for home and work to co-exist.
I eventually figured it out, and am extremely happy with my lifestyle right now. The first step was learning how far I had to distance my work life from my personal life. For example, we bought a new house this year. When looking for a house, the number one necessity on my list was an office area on a seperate level than the living area. We found one with a basement den that became a really wonderful office. It's a half level from the living room, and a full level from the bedrooms. Wonderful.
Something else I learned was that, no matter how much I thought I could get done with a TV on, it was best to be distanced from all television. The same goes with music with lyrics. For maximum concentration, I need to listen to instrumental music (fortunately my two favorite musical genres are classical and movie soundtracks). Interestingly, as long as I play only instrumental music, I have better concentration than if I don't listen to any music, because it will drown out other distracting noises. (headphones are also a good signal to the wife: don't bother me!)
Speaking of the wife, another challenge after getting married was not only me learning to work at home, but my wife learning to let me work at home. Make sure that everybody in the household knows that work time is work time. If you worked at an office, nobody would expect you to swing by the house to straighten up the living room at 2:30 in the afternoon. Don't make it an excuse for not doing any extra work (believe me, wives hate that), but make sure that your wife knows that while she's welcome to ask you to help out, not to expect it to get done until after your work time.
Now, if anybody has figured out how to cure the
Punctanym: alternate spelling of words using punctuation or numerals in place of some or all of its letters; see 'leet'
I think this is one of those auto-scramble word association bots. I forget what they are called.
Table-ized A.I.
Well, it was, until the project kept growing, and they kept requiring me to bring on more people to help finish the project. I was opposed to adding people, but it was "if you can't, we'll have to find someone who can". We were billing on an hourly basis, but the lag time on invoices began to creep up, mostly due to the fact that my previous company was bought out, and the billing system cut-over didn't go all that well.
Long, sad story later, I was *way* in the hole, and about to vanish into a cashflow crunch that would eat my little company. I went to my client and laid out the situation for them. I told them that I had not expected to have so many people on the project (about 16 subcontractors, each pulling in around $50/hour), and pointed out all the efforts I had made to meet their shifting requirements. After a very reasonable conversation, my primary contact lit a medium-sized fire under the AP department, and I got a sizeable check that put us up to date.
So, I believe that sometimes letting the client know that they've put you in a bind can be useful. Particularly in this case, where replacing my whole team mid-project wasn't a great option for them.
you're spending your time marketing. Always marketing.
How exactly does one go about marketing to smallish businesses? I don't have a clue, other than cold-calling or walking into the door. Is that how it is done?
First, this was a great article. It was completely in line with my experiences and the fact that a consultant must be very customer-focused.
Last year (my first year) my profits were in the $5k range doing it full time. That is not a lot to live on but it grew every month, and I am expecting at least 4x that this year.
Consulting can be reasonably lucritive but you have to take into consideration a number of things:
1) How much time is done off-the-clock?
2) How much time is spent for business administration?
In the end, it is easy to live comfortably but difficult to get rich. Of course some consultants do become wealthy but you have to be very very good.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Do you recommend Firefox or Thunderbird to customers when they complain about viruses and trojans coming through IE and Outlook? If so, you should sign up at SpreadFirefox.com where you could earn a link back to your web site if you accumulate enough referral points to show up on the roll call. You also get a blog there.
The below comments serve only as guidelines and are not intented to be truths. Becoming a consultant is more than just deciding to become one. Here's where to start. You'll need no less than $10,000 to start depending on how good you are at bargaining. 1. Get an attorney. a. create an 'S corp' and 'LLC'. b. drawing up a consultant agreement form 2. Unless you own nothing of value or expect to own nothing of value in the next five years do the following; a. Obtain liability insurance of no less than $500,000 but preferably $1,000,000 and, if it has anything to do with accounting software/hardware $5,000,000. 3. Write down all the products or services you're going to offer. For lists less than 10 highlight the top three. 10+ the top five. a. For each of the highlighted - list five things benefits you'll offer. b. for each benefit list five things why it will benefit your customer. c. If you can't list five things then drop it. 4. Buy at least one terabyte of portable storage for backup purposes. 5. Bill by the hour (minimum 2 hours + expenses if incurred beyond normal) and bill monthly. Offer 10%, net 30. Either portal to portal (better if traveling 500+ miles) or on site. 6. Notify them when you arrive and have them sign. Notify them when you leave and have them sign. 7. Never give anything for free unless they're a new customer (and only for the first month) or if they incur monthly bills of over $1000 regularly and only then give one hour free). 8. Determine within the first three billing cycles if they are are bad customers (don't pay reasonably). Fire them...there are plenty more customers. 10. Get a very good business tax accountant (they are worth their weight in gold). 11. (unspoken) if you really believe in yourself - never give up.
For once, I've fully RTFA
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""Consultant" used to mean an expert professional who could solve problems and provide advice based on years, even decades of experience."
Read someone charging a lot, and inflexible to change.
"With the Y2K and dot-com booms, "consultant" became used to mean someone with more than three months of IT experience..."
Read market correction.
"Thankfully (for us real consultants), most of the amateurs have returned to horse farming, or whatever they used to do."
And as the "old timers" die off, and there ranks are no longer being replenished by "horse farmers" who are presently being driven off by the "we're too good to take the likes of you"*
"It'll still be a while, however, before "IT Consultant" on a business card impresses anyone."
Reads the post of a former highly paid auto worker.
*For an example of were this attitude is destructive to a profession. Look at the trades. Driving people off will eventually bite you back.
"if the person has had few or no renewals, then chances are they're one of those consultant/contractor people who are very good at interviews but useless when it actually comes down to doing work."
Or chances are they just got started in the profession, and your "kick to the balls" is some kind of hazing ritual.*
*Actually your attitude doesn't really bother me. If you want to kill off your profession with such shortsightedness? Be my guest. Evolution will simply build on your bones.
fuck you.
In other industries, this is called "customer service" and it is something that is sorely lacking in IT.
Completely agreed.
I have nearly lost customers simply because I was not as communicative as I should have been about what I was planning and they did not really understand what they were paying for. Fortunately these were easily resolved and once the customer understood what I was doing and why, he was far more inclined to pay for something that would later become a more lucrative contract.
In general, I have never had a customer treat me poorly. Indeed the customers who have in the past made legitimate complaints to me have become my best customers, and those who refer the most customers to me.
Finally, I personally hate the attitude in IT that "customers are dumb." In general I have found that when you explain things simply *in simple English* (provided customer is in an English speaking country), they understand things. It also helps the customer have faith in the consultant who can make things clear to them.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Translation from consultantese: it's much more about being able to shovel bullshit down your customers throat than it is about technical skills.
Customer service is not about sales. You have described one of the issues of marketeers (I swear, "gullible" must be in the job description of most marketing positions).
Customer service is about returning telephone calls and making your customer feel like you are doing your best to make them successful. I have had customers offer to pay me bonuses because of my customer service and the fact that I make sure I am going above and beyond expectations for my customers. And they know that.
Customer service is about calling your customer back immediately when they say they have a business stopping issue, and being willing to cancel other less urgent appointments in order to handle this. Yes, most customers will be happy to reschedule because they know that this is available of they ever need it.
Customer service is about setting reasonable expectations but doing everything possible to exceed them.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
if you like simple, command-line utilities that work with ascii text files rather than the panoply of quicken/timeslips and other stuff like that (my home is Windows-free), i wrote a couple of little scripts that i use when i fulfill contracts, they've been working great for me:
http://furius.ca/contract-tools
(written in Python)
granted, i don't have a great number of contracts, and i still make my invoices "by hand" in gnumeric, but the timesheet script works really nicely, combined with docutils.
cheers,
try: http://linkedin.com
a great idea, i think this one will go far. when you recognize that most of the work people get in their lifes comes from personal contacts, extending your awareness of your personal network through linkedin can be a great help.
(btw i am not affiliated with these guys, just a happy member)
Note that the term Consultant/Contractor is not always clear. When I was unemployed from a full time job, I posted my resume in monster. Some small company Technology People ( http://www.techpeople.org) mined my resume and with my permission, contracted me out. These people also own http://www.prithvisolutions.com and traditionsindia.org (Note that this is not similar sounding techpeople.com. I don't know anything about them) . Company's owner Amarender Tipathy (akd Amar ) and Sunil Muddam (aka Sunny) gave me real hard time on paying me. Besides being timely to send my Statement/Bill to them, I had to call almost several times per day to remind them that they have not paid me. For the 6 months I worked for them, I had 4 bounced checks. I had to spend money for lawyers etc just to put out a strategy. For $10K, lawyers don't want to deal with you and of course, they prefer it climbs to about $50K. From new consultant friends, I've heard similar stories. This was my first experience of anything like this in my 12 years of career. I hope first time consultants/contractors don't have to go through this. Check out the company before signing the contract and watch for the non-compete clause and understand its consequences. - Get references for people who work for the company and talk to other consultants. - Get any/all kind of information including tax id etc of the company and do credit check if possible.
You need good social skills to develop business and good technical skills to implement it. There is often a disconnect between these two capabilities in IT consultants. For better or worse, the person with good social skills and mediocre technical skills often comes out ahead. So the advice is to beef up the social skills.
You are right and I am incorrect about the legal technicalities. However I still believe it is safer to assume that your client will consider it a work for hire, even if it is not technically such, and to prepare your contract accordingly.
That way you get paid for that type of work.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
I like PHPCollab http://www.php-collab.org/
Yup... that's excellent advice. Most clients will assume that they own what you are producing, and it is in everyone's best interest if you make sure to clear the matter up with them before you ever get started.
No relation to Happy Monkey
- Get an S Corp and an LLC? What the fuck for?
- Write all the products or services you are going to offer? I sure as fuck didn't know that when I started out. I still don't know.
- List 25 benefits for each service? What the fuck customer is going to read that?
- One terrabyte of portable storage? What the fuck client would let you hook up your storage array to their network? What the fuck use could that serve other than to rape the client of every piece of intellectual property you an get your hands on?
- Who the fuck lets you bill 2 hours for a 5 minute question? Not even my lawyer would dare try that.
Seriously, I doubt you have ever started a successful company of any sort. I have started two and am working on my third. The best piece of advice you can get on starting any business: Immediately perform the activities that make you money, and do not let stupid shit get in your way of making money.That means you may not know every stupid little detail about your business before you start. That means making some mistakes. But I can tell you one thing. If you get yourself caught up in the details of corporate entity structure and keeping minutes and having annual meetings and 25 benefits for each service you think you might provide, never mind that you are probably wrong at this point regarding what services you actually are going to provide, you will never, I repeat, you will never make any money.
Here is how I started my consulting business:
- I filed Articles of Incorporation for S-Corp (your CPA will tell you why this is better than an LLC for your consulting business)
- I called everyone I knew who was in a position to hire me and just talked about their technology woes.
- I called literally every other person I had contact info for and told them about my technical consulting practice.
My first gig came from a guy I had worked with a few years earlier whose contact info I just happened to still have. He didn't have anything for me, but he knew someone who knew someone who desperately needed me. Ever since that first client, I have had more work than I can handle and I have to subcontract it out.To this day I still don't own a terrabyte storage array.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
You need the balls drop everything and to act and do what you believe you can. The balls to go outside your comfort zone and ask someone for his/her business. The balls to ignore your "helpful" friends and relatives who would make you think that you can't be successful.
The rest you pick up along the way.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
- See if your client would be willing to hire you fulltime (assuming you like your client, otherwise skip to step #2). Frame it is a win-win value prop.
- See if your client will work with you on ending your contract so you can seek a fulltime salaried position. Seriously, a contract is just a piece of paper. The paper contract may be what is enforceable, but the real contract is the meeting of the minds between you and your client.
- If the above do not work, call a lawyer who is familiar with employment and contract law.
It amazes me how much value people put in a piece of paper at the expense of negotiating. I'm currently buying a property and the purchase contract expired months ago. Am I worried that I won't get the property? No. Because the seller and I have a meeting of the minds, and we both want the transaction to take place. Of course, I have structured the deal so that I'm not out any money if the seller walks, but you get the idea.Paper is just paper. It's the people involved who make the decisions.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
In God we trust, all others require data.
Some of us can tweak TCP/IP stack performance AND perform flying lead changes by seat cues alone! Though not necessarily at the same time. Now let's have no more of this dissin' on unixy horsey consultant farmer types.
/. account. ;)
-U
anonymous only 'cause I don't care enough to create a
I forget what they are called.
Retards.
Writers imply. Readers infer.
Lately, because of the hard times, I've seen more and more fake consultant technical writers show up at my contract gigs.
Most of the corporations and headhunters have no idea how to evaluate technical writers, so they don't bother. They'd slaughter a Fake programmer, but as long as the fake writer isn't peeing in the coffeemaker, it's fabulous.
Then the bosses won't admit they hired a bad one, and pretend he's great. The rest of us have to hunt down all the problems or we get punished. And provide free training to this, essentially, thief.
This hurts the tech writing profession, as people think we're all sniveling, incompetent idiots and liars. It hurts the company, because the content: manuals, internet/intranet, training materials can look shabby, not work, be really crappy and make the company look incompetent.
Almost no corporations or headhunters do skills tests. If you even talk about it, they just ignore it, saying "Well, that's great, can you just send me your resume?"
It's soooo easy to create a Fake Portfolio and Fake references from friends. This is ALL that corporations and headhunters look at. I've even been fooled by these, only to find that the "writer" could not do the work, or was obsessed with becoming a Fake manager, booking tons of useless meetings per week, schmoozing and delegating their work to others.
Look, it's amazing to see corporations who right-size constantly, keep on a fake consultant who's good at manipulation, while getting rid of the ones who do the actual work and cover for these creeps.
I've given some Tech writing skills test tips in my Slash journal...