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Consulting Your Way to a New Job
by Jan Cannon - www.CannonCareerCenter.com
Have you thought about using your knowledge and skills as a consultant? In difficult economic times businesses are less likely to hire full-time employees, with their attendant benefit costs of health care and retirement contribution. They’re too expensive. But businesses will, and often do, hire short-term help in the form of consultants to fix problems and keep the wheels of the company turning.
Another benefit of consulting, as with any temporary assignment, is you get a chance to see the company and how it works and they get to see you and how you operate. If it’s a good fit, chances are that when things pick up economically you could be offered a permanent position. No guarantees, of course, but you’re in a more competitive position since you’ve already “shown what you’re made of” in the best possible way – in their halls.
Even if you don’t get offered a job at the company where you’re consulting, you get a good opportunity to find out what jobs are available in the field. And you can make good networking connections through the people you’re working with.
How to get started, you ask? Well, for one thing you could attend some meetings of consultant organizations, such as the Society for Professional Consultants (www.spconsultants.org) here in the Boston area. Their monthly meetings usually have a speaker on a topic relevant to independent consultants. A nice networking session is built into each meeting as well, giving you a chance to talk with others about how they got started, where they find their clients, etc.
Of course there are classes offered through many adult education centers – Boston (www.bcae.org), Cambridge (www.ccae.org) and Brookline (Brookline Adult and Community Education Program) come to mind immediately - that focus on starting your own small business as well as how to be a consultant. The price is right, and your community may have a similar program.
Geoffrey Day, president of The Consulting Exchange, a referral service for experienced consultants, suggests helpful books for consultants at his website (www.cx.com/bookcellar). There are several for what he calls “zero stage” consultants, those just starting out. And of course, the books targeted to more experienced consultants will also be valuable.
One of the challenges for any consultant is finding projects to be hired for. Your former employer(s) are excellent places to begin. They know you and your work already, so you don’t have to sell yourself, just your services. Other opportunities can be found through networking, especially through professional associations you already belong to.
Joining other consultants is also a good idea when you’re first starting out. Find people with complementary skills so you can offer clients more comprehensive solutions. If an experienced consultant is willing to take you on, so much the better. It’s a lot like the old fashioned apprenticeships, working at the hands of the master while learning the craft.
You may find that consulting is more to your liking than being employed by someone else. If that’s true, welcome to the ranks of the self-employed, which Fast Company calls “Free Agent Nation”. We’re always ready to accept new members.
Jan Cannon, MBA, PhD, has over 10 years of experience helping clients to find work that they enjoy through career coaching and resume preparation. She was an online expert with CIO.com and jobfindtoday.com and currently provides online content to the Career Connection of the Boston Herald ( http://print.jobfind.com ).
Jan speaks to groups and leads workshops on making career choices, networking, finding jobs, and staying motivated. She teaches courses on entrepreneurship for those interested in starting their own businesses. Jan has Myers Briggs™ MBTI™ and FirstStepFastTrack™ certifications and offers Inscape™ DiSC assessments.
Jan's book on senior job search will be published by Capital Press in April 2005.
Jan's own web site is at http://www.CannonCareerCenter.com
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