As IT consultants working in various industries, how can you handle contract work?  Your involvement as IT consultants with your clients depends on your position within the company and also any biases of the hiring manager.  It also will depend on the atmosphere within the company in question.

IT Consultants and Small Businesses

In the small business sector of the computer services industry, most IT consultants can expect to be hired to do mainly desktop support, help desk, systems engineering, network administration, project management and training functions.

For these types of positions, IT consultants will need to have excellent people skills.  You can typically get by with even non-technical degrees (BA’s in English Lit., Economics, etc.) and still do fine with a lot of the work required to serve small businesses.  

Technical Degree Replacements for IT Consultants in Small Business

Certifications (MCSE, CCIE, etc.) can take the place of technical degrees for IT consultants working in the small business environment, as can field experience.

The small business market is very different than the environment within Fortune 1000 companies.  With Fortune 1000 companies, there are typically “people” people and then technical people.  Therefore, a lot of hiring managers will be choosy about college credentials.   

However, with small businesses, everyone is visible to clients and the requirements for IT consultants involve being able to answer “Yes” to the following questions:

1.     Can the person do the job (does he/she have the right certifications, field experience, etc.)?

2.     Will clients like the person (does the person have a good rapport with people)?

The Bottom Line about Contracted IT Consultants

For IT consultants working with small businesses, people skills and experience will be much more important than technical degrees.

Added By:  Computer Consulting 101 Professional Kit