[Closed] In your experience, is the word 'consultant' just shorthand for...

I tend to find its just added to the end of 100's of job titles to make them seem more important.

We do specialist stuff for a variety of companies and charge accordingly.

Mike Smith
Senior Consultant

Yep, they're all just bullshit merchants.

Advisors are usually more use than consultants in my experience 😉

I do consulting work, but I'd like to think that I'm not a [i]utterly clueless ****-wit[/i]. I may be wrong of course.

I ended up in a conversation with a Social Media Consultant on a night out once. I have absolutely no idea what he did for a living.

Had a couple as business analysts who were really good, apart from starting the answer to any question with 'So,...'

Otherwise, can't think of a strikingly good one. Usually come in with the luxury of being unencumbered by history, politics or existing workload which means a lot of 'immersion' activity (talking to lots of people about what they do) followed by some random blue-sky malarkey.

My favourite bit is when they stay a little bit too long and end up going native 😆

you're confusing it with 'graphic designer'

Yep totally agree IME just come up with "solutions" to problems that don't/never will exist
talk a lot off faff and get in your way ....love a buzzword don't they
Cu*tsultants the lot of em

Some are good.

I'd say it's the temporary nature they are brought into fix and the longevity of thier contract/service levels TBF.

It's often a short term strategic fix they are engaged in, once done they're out. Can't complain about that when the Workstream Holders/Project Teams/Programme managers/Senoir Stakeholders all agree on strategy/legacy handling.

I think it depends whether you work for an actual consultancy or your job title (perhaps just the one you made up yourself because it looks good on linkedin) has 'consultant' at the end of it.

IHN - we know they're all idiots. But you just need to throw them some felt tips to keep them where they can't do any damage 😀

working with medical consultants, I'd have to say

utterly clueless and unbelievably arrogant ****-wit?

Does the old definition, 'A guy from out of town with a briefcase', still apply?

I'm a consultant.

I'm fracking epic i'll have you know. Worth every penny..........

I tend to find that people who can't see the value in consultants are usually part of the problem...

Pigeon consultants?

Fly in, shit on everything, fly out....

Does the old definition, 'A guy from out of town with a briefcase', still apply?

Not heard that one, sounds ever so slightly sinister

The rise in the number of people calling themselves consultants reminds me of what happened to the term "technician". Now there are "nail technicians" for example, the original sense of the term is devalued.

unknown - Member
I tend to find that people who can't see the value in consultants are usually part of the problem...

vickypea - Member
The rise in the number of people calling themselves consultants reminds me of what happened to the term "technician". Now there are "nail technicians" for example, the original sense of the term is devalued.

Don't get me started on the use of 'Engineer'.....

I tend to find that people who can't see the value in consultants are usually part of the problem...

Yep, we had a CEO like that. He pretty much bankrupted the company....

It is not a protected term so anybody can use it. There will be some good ones and some bad ones. In my experience they fall into three catagories.

Professionals who have left an industry and set themselves up as expert advisers. I've met some very good ones. They are usually worthwile as companies contract them in to help in areas where they have no experience.

Somebody wanting to sound more important and so puts it in their job title. Often useless if they don't have the skill, knowledge and experience to back it up.

Those employed by consultancy firms - Accenture, Mckinsey, and large companies with consultancy arms like the big 4 and IT companies. Can be ok although they take on graduates straight out of university and charge them out at ludicrous rates normally.

See also, drirector, engineer, nutritionist etc. for other non proteceted terms.

IME they are the same people you laid off in the last "re-organisation" to meet the headcount targets dreamed up by senior management, and then had to re-hire at higher salaries t in order to just get the job done.

Their days are numbered

(starts about 1min in)

Consultant - someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time.

Most of the ones I worked with in the private sector in the 90s were pretty sound. Just always wondered why we paid someone else to ask our staff how to make the processes and business work better.....

@ vickypea - I knew my work was devalued when I first saw the tern 'accounts technician'.

Can you walk quickly and purposefully?
Can you pout and look as though you're pondering something?
Can you polish your shoes?
Do you have a haircut?
Do you like lunch?
Can you raise an invoice?

If you can answer yes to all the above then you too can make it in consultancy.

As a friend of mine once put it: consultants, they borrow your watch and then tell you the time.

To be fair, it's a tricky job to do properly. After all, if you know you need a consultant you probably know there are things you could be doing better. That said they should leave all the jargon at the door on their way in.

Consultants usually have to prove that their involvement has improved processes or bottom-line, %age etc.

The old 'I've worked here for years- said that, no one listened to me then a consultant comes in and says the samething and its listened to'.

Maybe- but then you were hardly pro-active, ambitious and forthwright were you? Without the Consultant the above wouldn't have happened so sometimes they are needed to negate.... [b]the politics[/b] of every business.

Working alongside medical consultants I have to say.

No far from it. Well not A&E ones anyway especially after one put another none A&E consultant in their place for essentially telling me I was wrong in my treatment of a patient. They not only supported me but told the other one in know uncertain terms why I was right and why they should listen to me. 😀

maccruiskeen - Member

Their days are numbered

A quick edit - or did you employ a consultant to help you fix it?

🙂

The BIL is a consultant. I wouldn't consult him on the time of day but he is very good at convincing the hard-of-thinking that he knows what he's talking about.

Consultant - someone who borrows your watch to tell you the time.

Brilliant!

KINGTUT
Recruitment Consultant.

Environmental Consultants are a mixed bag.
50% know what they are doing and provide a reasoned response to queries placed in front of them
The other half will just write their report to support the desires of the client and are morally repugnant

Consultant is so last century, its Architect now darlings.

unknown - Member

I tend to find that people who [s]can't[/s] see the value in consultants are usually [s]part of[/s] the problem.

I use a consultant at work on a regular basis - I pay him £1k a day and he comes in works his arse off and make a significant difference to be business.

Worth every penny but not all are the same

In IT, a consultant is just someone you hire from another company. Sometimes they are actually consulting on some specialist issue, sometimes they are just bodies for hire. They can be world experts in some topic or they can be just grads.

Obvioulsy the customers know the level of experience they are buying (and are charged accordingly) but they don't know the level of competence and intelligence. Consultants can be good or bad at any level of experience, just like any other worker.

As far as I can tell Consultant is used when directors want someone to blame for them getting a decision wrong rather than using their own and their staffs expertise to make a decision and be accountable for it.

Most of the conultants I have to work with charge a lot of money to take what you already know, reformat it into their corporate colours and then give it you back

Consultant is so last century, its Architect now darlings.

That's me ****ed then. I've got Architect in my job title.....

In the bigger firms (like the one I work for) it's only the junior staff that actually have consultant in their title.

I found myself sitting next to a "change agent" at a works "do", and after half an hour's explanation I was still clueless about what he actually did 😛

Most of the conultants I have to work with charge a lot of money to take what you already know, reformat it into their corporate colours and then give it you back

Sounds like a friends experience working in a council. The Consultants drill the staff for 'ideas'. Then present it as their own 'findings' and recommendations. I think these consultants are on 800+ each a day.

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Doesn't the media refer to them as "experts"?

Bit of an odd thread as there are all sorts of consultants - I'm an IT consultants and worth every penny.... I suppose the OP means business consultants. I've worked with strategy consultants and change management consultants, easy to burn cash with them but potentially capable of significant results.

Expert of course being made up of;

Ex: Something outdated/defunct,
Spert: A drip under pressure.

I found myself sitting next to a "change agent" at a works "do", and after half an hour's explanation I was still clueless about what he actually did

I'd imagine they probably applied agile incremental innovative solution based work paradigms improvements to underperforming and immobile process problems.

I found myself sitting next to a "change agent" at a works "do", and after half an hour's explanation I was still clueless about what he actually did

If you were sat next to a Recruitment Consultant you'd have probably been blown under the table then found your wallet missing?

Some are genuine others are cowboys.

Now, let's start with some Innovative Management ideas ... 🙄

It is far more worthwhile if you are getting consultant for special technical advices.

If you want Management Consultant(s) I am your man. Hire me as your Management Consultant and I will make sure those zombie maggots in your company will be stepped on in no time.

😈

I am an engineering consultant-with a narrow band of expertise. If a client presents me with a problem outside that band I'll tell them and do my best to point them in the right direction.

My work involves doing calculations that other people cannot/willnot do and the clients use those calcs to make decisions. I often advise them on what course of action is best. My clients keep coming back.

footflaps - Member
Consultant is so last century, its Architect now darlings.
That's me **** then. I've got Architect in my job title.....

People who are Software Architects don't call themselves Architects outside of work though. There's generally no confusion, in my experience.. maybe not yours though!

In IT 'Architect' often doesn't confer any kind of skill or superiority - it's just a job title.

Recruitment Consultants are not consultants. They are [s]liars[/s] sales people.

mrmonkfinger - that's pretty much what he said for half an hour!

I'm seriously considering taking an exit package at the moment and going freelance consultancy.

You can say what the **** you want about me then, I'll be rollin' in it.

[i]Real life experiences may differ. Self employed consultancy may bring constant insecurity, periods without employment and generally being disliked. Always read the label.[/i]

Like any profession you have a mix of abilities....from genius to dangerous. I work in the SME sector advising on business turnarounds and I judge consultants/advisors on the impact they can quickly bring to a business measured in real sales and margin improvements.

To be fair to the sector, advisors are often very poorly briefed and managed, and often their common sense advice is ignored for short-term political expediency or parochial interests.

The best consultants are very smart people, with a wealth of relevant experience who add value very quickly to a business.

A person who takes paid redundancy, starts a consultancy firm then gets hired as a third party by previous employer. Very clever.

Or, someone who knows stuff.

We had a Time and Motion Consultant in work a few months ago.

He was getting rather annoyed with a few of us by the end of the second day so he lost his rag and went off in a strop for a while, leaving his name badge behind. It read:

Ian Marshfield

Consultant

A bit of work with the tippex and it was an accurate description of what we thought of him by that point. He never noticed.

Yes, self important, bullshitting bags of hot air

Really baffles me how these numb skulls get away with it and also earn 3 or 4 times my wages doing so

I'm on to your game, all of you. It can't be long before you're rumbled 😉

Really baffles me how these numb skulls get away with it and also earn 3 or 4 times my wages doing so

Whats your actual cost to the business? What is your internal charge rate (HR should be able to tell you, if the figure is not known they how do you know how much it costs you to do something?)
My internal charge out rate 10 years ago was about 750/day bringing somebody in for a week to do something is still more cost effective than employing somebody. Also if you all have time to do all the stuff the consultants are doing you need to be sticking your hands up and telling your boss.

So they peddle bullshite and get paid triple your salary

Who's being a numb skull?

My perception thus far is that business consultants generally listen to the people that the business do not. There tends to be some people in an organisation with very good ideas, but whose ideas are not adopted based on some perceived hierarchy or seniority. The consultant comes in, finds these people and presents back their ideas to the business as something new and revolutionary.

If the organisation was inclusive enough and valued their staff enough, they wouldn't need the consultants in the first place...

I work as a consulting civil engineer in renewables (hydro power).

The hardest part of the job is maintaining the confidence of contractors and clients that we know better than them. Because the contractors and clients have a lot of wooly ideas not based on science or engineering. Some of the respondees to this thread seem to have ideas based on the same ****wittery.

Believe me, nothing viable would get made without us.

I tweeted the other day that the name "consultant is just another word for incompetent."

I was asked to set out a design on a plot of land from the (reputable) consultants design in CAD format, no problem said as long as the coordinates are Ordinance survey which they replied they were.

To cut a long story short, I did a survey of the land area and pasted it into their CAD drawing to ensure correct positioning (no station control) but my survey didn't appear. Zoomed extents and saw a tiny dot on my screen some distance from the "design"

Not only was their scale wrong with their 25m grids measuring 25,000m their design located it in Gloucestershire somewhere, not Yorkshire! 80km long, 16km wide and not 80m by 16m.

I told the site agent he needs to demobilise his plant and head down the M5, oh how we laughed.

£more per day than I earn in a week, generally. 😀