Written By: Angie Kenno

I was raised to be a lifer – a long-time employee with the same company, hired right out of school, and well on my way to retirement approaching 25 years of service.  I was dedicated, worked endless hours.  I sacrificed time, time with my family.  In the blink of an eye, I was unemployed.   Position eliminated.  All my time, all my dedication, dismissed with a 20-minute phone call.

Panic set in.  What do I do now?  Where do I go?  Does anyone want to hire someone who has been there, done that, a person who is no longer interested in climbing the corporate ladder or working 60 hours a week anymore?  The answer is yes!  Enter the world of consulting.

By definition, a Consultant is a person who provides expert advice professionally – usually, an experienced professional in a specific field who possesses a comprehensive knowledge of the subject matter and uses it to help solve a client’s problem.  Their services span across many domains working in Project Management, IT, Business Processes, Management Consulting, and more.  Ideas drive consultants.  They can frame clients’ issues, diagnose root causes, and formulate solutions.  A consultant will assist in the adoption of the solution, providing specialized know-how that is not otherwise available to the client.  Consultants are self-directed individuals, implementors, advisors, trainers, and writers.

Aha Moment

The aha moment finally occurred.  All of those years of experience paid off.  I had built a solid set of transferable skills that would allow me to plug-and-play myself into any analyst/project manager position or project-at-hand.  Who knew!!  Discipline, motivation, analytical/problem solving, communication, and team player are all skills I had honed over the years that, ultimately, would make me a successful consultant.  But, are there benefits to being a consultant?  The answer is yes!

What’s so great about being a Consultant?

• Training & Continuous Learning

  When you work for a consulting firm, they are vested in your success. Being on top of your game means potential future opportunities to win work.  In turn, they provide fantastic training and professional certification opportunities to grow your knowledge.  And even better, they may absorb the cost, although programs vary by firm.  Training and continuous learning for a consultant can be done through seminars, workshops, coaching and mentoring, knowledge transfer sessions, and more.  Also, just by the variety of project assignments with various clients, you will have the opportunity to learn new products, be exposed to new industries, and vet the latest technologies.

• Exposure & Networking

  Consultants work with a variety of clients, all sizes and from all industries. There is no specific type of client that hires a consultant. Each client has different needs, products, and expectations.  This provides endless exposure that may otherwise not available when you are working as an employee for one company.  Inherently, with exposure comes the ability to share ideas and knowledge through networking.  Joining industry bodies, attending functions, online networking on dedicated professional networking sites, conferences and seminars, are all ways you can build your network as a consultant.  Building connections with people at your client site may identify a need that matches your business.  Networking also increases your confidence, an important attribute for business growth.

• Room to Grow

  Working for a single company as an employee can have career limitations. Often employees hit a glass ceiling that limits advancement and as a result, feel less in control of their career path.  As a consultant, you have the opportunity to brand and self-market yourself to sponsors and clients constantly.   Self-branding permits you to be you!  Your actions align with your brand, nobody else’s, which builds credibility.  Credibility gives your client confidence in your abilities to help solve their problems.

The true measure of success for a consultant is the ability to use their expertise to help clients solve their problems.  Sometimes that happens because the consultant can legitimize pain points of the client based on their subject matter knowledge and experiences; other times, it happens because the consultant brings creative, out-of-the-box solutions to address the problem that the client otherwise would not have been able to identify.

Being a consultant may not be for everyone.  You need to have a lot of experience.  You need to have flexibility because you will continuously move from client to client.  You have to be a fast learner, adapt to change, and absorb new information quickly.  In return, you get freedom with vast room to learn and grow.  You gain control of your professional destiny.  For those lifers out there who never knew what the consulting world could offer, relax, and take the plunge!

CONTACT US TODAY

Angie Kenno – Consultant

Ms. Kenno is an accomplished Business Analyst, Technical Writer, Facilitator and Trainer.   Ms. Kenno holds more than 20 years of experience in both state government and commercial sectors. She is a progressive-thinking IT professional with a unique combination of business, technical and leadership experience to bridge gaps among business units and IT groups.  Her strong interpersonal, communication abilities, self-motivation and managerial experience make her successful as a team leader.  She has exceptional documentation proficiency and enterprise-wide facilitation experience, enabling elicitation and documentation of complex business processes, system designs, and knowledge transfer materials into usable formats.  Ms. Kenno maintains extensive experience supporting enterprise system implementation projects across all System Development Lifecycle phases in analyst, trainer, project manager, and technical roles, offering her a unique perspective and ability to collaborate effectively on IT project teams of all shapes and sizes.