Would you rather work for a corp. or a consulting company

BigTone

Looking for pros and cons of both... Interested to hear people's experiences/insight.

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Mishra

I'll give you a quick list from my experience. (there is no solid rule... these are generalizations)

Corporation -

* Not as exciting for people who like frequent change
* More in depth experience with a product as you solve the big and small problems for years instead of moving on like consulting
* Generally more politics
* Sometimes better benefits

Consulting -

* More money
* Longer work hours (probably no overtime with the longer work hours)
* Experience with wide varieties of hardware/software but no expertise
* You get blamed for any and everything
* Lots of travel and usually get paid for traveling

I personally enjoy working for a corporation better because its more laid back, you are appreciated more, and you really get to be in depth with the things you work on. I can implement my ideas and see them start helping the corporation in 1-12 months and it is a good feeling.

GT-Rob

I own a consulting company, working for a big corp. Best of both worlds

The lack of benefits is a big one, although in Canada its not as big deal. I do make more than people who have been there longer, and are hired on, but they also get vacation time and little perks. For me, its money, and getting experience, which is why I will turn down being hired on if they offer it.

HeroPsycho

With consulting you get less in depth experience?

I don't know about that. It really depends on the job. I work for a consulting company, but I'm receiving far more in depth knowledge and experience right now than I ever did working for a corporation.

GT-Rob

What I mean by that is you see more issues/networks/policies/whatever as a consultant, where as working with the same company in the same position forever, you generally see the same thing all the time.

Of course, it always depends on the company.

I am with IBM now and moving to AT&T later this year, which opens up a whole new set of challenges as opposed to staying with IBM.

BeaverC32

GT-Rob wrote:

I own a consulting company, working for a big corp. Best of both worlds

Sheesh, what kind of consulting do you do? I couldn't imagine having enough time to do both.

Mishra

HeroPsycho wrote:

With consulting you get less in depth experience?

I don't know about that. It really depends on the job. I work for a consulting company, but I'm receiving far more in depth knowledge and experience right now than I ever did working for a corporation.

Yes I understand. It is hard to make the list in the first place because it all depends on the company. But overall I would say that consultants mostly do small fixes or things the current IT department cannot handle. You might walk in and do a lot of NAT work because Joe doesn't know NAT but Joe knows everything else so you don't get your hands on all the other good stuff.

Or if you go into a company and do a full installation for a IT department. Fix all the outstanding issues. Teach the staff, then go to the next job. You never get to solve all the after problems as you would in a corporation leaving you with spotty troubleshooting skills.

blargoe

Or if you go into a company and do a full installation for a IT department. Fix all the outstanding issues. Teach the staff, then go to the next job. You never get to solve all the after problems as you would in a corporation leaving you with spotty troubleshooting skills.

I can't say that I agree with this. I think the breadth of exposure that you can get from consulting will develop you excellent "general purpose" troubleshooting skills.

Mishra

blargoe wrote:

Or if you go into a company and do a full installation for a IT department. Fix all the outstanding issues. Teach the staff, then go to the next job. You never get to solve all the after problems as you would in a corporation leaving you with spotty troubleshooting skills.

I can't say that I agree with this. I think the breadth of exposure that you can get from consulting will develop you excellent "general purpose" troubleshooting skills.

That is exactly what my point was. Maybe "spotty" wasn't a good word.

stlsmoore

I like corporations more because they are generally more laid back and you get to know your co-workers/clients on a more personal level.