Being self-employed sounds appealing. There’s a lot to be said for making your own hours and rules without having to justify to the powers that be. But is it all roses?
Some benefits of becoming a consultant are:
• You decide what projects you want to take on, depending on your specific skill set. No more need to deal with companies you find hard to work with. The decision is yours and yours alone.
• You’re in charge of your time and typically you have more schedule flexibility. Taking a break from work for a 6 week trip? No problem. Picking up the kids from school on Wednesdays? Consider it done. Nobody to ask permission to.
• Showing up to an office means you meet new business contacts and participate in secret santa gifts
exchanges
• You get to set your own rates, and often make more money. All you have to do is decide whether you charge by the hour or by the project? Ensuring some easy-to-use tools to keep a timesheet of billable and non-billable hours is probably a good idea to make things easy on yourself.
• Your job can be as varied or routine as you wish. You can work with many different companies and industries if that’s what you wish. But it doesn’t need to be if a routine is what you prefer.
Some drawbacks of becoming a consultant are:
• There’s less job security, when you work for yourself. Income from consulting jobs may not be steady. You will have to squirrel away some back-up savings for the first few months when you are starting out, but also keep something aside for a rainy day.
• Being a good project manager is not enough. You will also have to be a skilled businessman or woman. Accounting and taxes may have been a yearly chore in the past, it will become (at least) a weekly one once you are out on your own. You will also have to invest the time and effort to build a network, have strategies in place on how to build a pipeline for ongoing jobs. And the one we mostly want to forget about: the endless paperwork. The whole pile.
• There will be extra costs, like building your own website, signing up for a project management software that meets your needs, paying the accountant, getting the insurance to keep you safe, etc.
• Having your own business usually means the end of having a 9 to 5 job. It means doing the paperwork at the end of a long day and answering client emails during the weekend. It’s important to draw clear boundaries. It sounds easy enough but in reality, it’s a daily struggle for many self-employed workers.
• Your job can be as varied or routine as you wish. You can work with many different companies and industries if that’s what you wish. But it doesn’t need to be if a routine is what you prefer.
Some drawbacks of becoming a consultant are:
• There’s less job security, when you work for yourself. Income from consulting jobs may not be steady. You will have to squirrel away some back-up savings for the first few months when you are starting out, but also keep something aside for a rainy day.
• Being a good project manager is not enough. You will also have to be a skilled businessman or woman. Accounting and taxes may have been a yearly chore in the past, it will become (at least) a weekly one once you are out on your own. You will also have to invest the time and effort to build a network, have strategies in place on how to build a pipeline for ongoing jobs. And the one we mostly want to forget about: the endless paperwork. The whole pile.
• There will be extra costs, like building your own website, signing up for a project management software that meets your needs, paying the accountant, getting the insurance to keep you safe, etc.
• Having your own business usually means the end of having a 9 to 5 job. It means doing the paperwork at the end of a long day and answering client emails during the weekend. It’s important to draw clear boundaries. It sounds easy enough but in reality, it’s a daily struggle for many self-employed workers.
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