Start Your Consulting Career With A Bang

Although we may often think of consultants as business professionals, they can also work in technical, educational or other fields. In essence, a consultant is a professional hired by a company to teach or help its employees by using their experience in the field. Consultants are hired to affect changes or lend their expertise to various companies and organisations.  Consulting jobs can offer good pay, freedom to work as you like, a chance to help others with your knowledge, and a challenge to those who excel in their field.  The first challenge when you start your consulting career is finding jobs.

 

Join a Consulting Firm

Companies that hire consultants will often both hire individual consultants as well as teams of consultants from consulting firms.  As such, it’s possible to work as an employee for a consulting firm and still work as a consultant for another company. Working for a firm allows you to build up your resume with consulting experience, after which you can go solo.  It also allows you to network, which is essential in the world of consulting.  The more contacts you have, the more job opportunities you will get.

 

Career Fairs

If you’re a recent graduate and are new at consulting, then you may want to check out career fairs.  Recruiters are always looking for recent graduates at career fairs, especially in technological fields.  Come prepared looking your best with plenty of copies of your resume on good paper.  Show off your professional side and your special skills.  These are also great places for talking to people in the industry and learning more about it.

 

Colleges And Universities

Colleges and universities are often looking for consultants.  With college consulting jobs, you may be working with students to lend them some of your real-world experience.  These jobs are also great resume-builders.

 

Contact Companies Directly

Research the top companies in your field and send them your resume, telling them that you’re interested in consulting work.  Large companies are often looking for consultants to hire on a temporary basis rather than hiring new permanent staff.  It’s a great opportunity to get some experience as well as a great resume item.

 

Build Your Resume

As a consultant, you’re on your own.  For this reason, building your resume is very important.  Always look for opportunities to add something valuable to your resume, even if they don’t pay well.  They’ll pay you later when it leads to a great consulting job with a high rate attached.

 

Look Online

There are increasingly more opportunities for consultants online.  Consulting message boards and freelance sites are great places to look for jobs.  Look at forums or other places where professionals in your field hang out.  Technology and the spread of the internet have created a boom in consulting, partly because location no longer matters as much.

Because of the boom in technology nowadays, it’s much easier to be a consultant than it was in years gone by.  You can work from home and cut down overhead costs of renting an office and hiring staff.  The important thing is to be good at what you do.  You must have knowledge, experience and passion.  Be a good problem solver and be flexible.  Most of all, you should have a love of teaching others. These are some of the things it takes to find great consulting jobs.

These consulting career tips courtesy of HirePulse, the place where you can launch your career as a consultant, a service provider, a freelancer, or a contractor. If you’re feeling inspired then take a look at this article on Social Recruiting – The Place For Finding A Job Is Online.