Will Bachman 00:01
Does it make sense to pursue independent consulting opportunities? When while you look for a full time role? Hey, welcome to Unleashed the show that explores how to thrive as an independent professional. I’m your host, Will Bachman. I often speak with an executive leaving a role or a consultant leaving a big firm who tells me they are interested in independent consulting opportunities. While they look for a full time role. In general, my advice is, that is a bad idea. Now, in some cases, it may be a financial necessity. And if that’s the case, you got to do what you got to do. But if you have some savings, and what you really want is a full time role, then my advice is searching for a great job is in itself a full time job, it requires your full attention, you need to be reaching out to people doing research on companies, following up with people having conversations, learning about an industry going to conferences, meeting for breakfast, adjusting your resume staying active on LinkedIn, that is a job. If you take a consulting project, yes, you’ll get some cash in the short term, but you’re going to be distracted from your larger project. And you’re going to sub optimize on the job search. And if what you really want is a full time job, then you’re going to under invest in building a robust independent consulting practice, you probably aren’t going to give your practice a name, get branded email, get business cards, work on building your visibility, create a website, create collateral hone your fishing line, get a PowerPoint template of your own set up a CRM system, and all the other dozen of things it takes to run an effective practice. So if you try to do both, you’ll get up you’ll end up getting distracted from the job search while you take random projects that don’t really lead anywhere. So my advice is, pick one or the other. You can’t mine for call and drill for oil at the same time, you need to use different technology in different locations. And the same thing goes for getting work, you know, totally focused on your job search, or turn pro and build a real consulting practice. It’s really not possible to do both well at the same time. Now, one thing can happen. If you take that second path and you decide to build a consulting practice and you might end up serving a client that you love and who who loves you and who offers you a great job. And maybe I’ll even accept it. So that’s it for this episode. You can email me at unleashed@umbrex.com I’d love to hear your thoughts on this episode. You can also visit ask unleashed.com and you can record a question can sign up for the weekly email where I include some bonus features and a summary of each episode. You can also download a transcript of all the episodes on the website Unleashed is a production of Umbrex which is the world’s first global community connecting top tier independent management professionals with one another. Thanks for listening