Become an IT Consultant
How to Become an IT Consultant is from Aussie contractor site www.Brainbox.com.au
So you‘ve decided you want to become an IT consultant? You‘re lured in by the big bucks, respect and promise of exciting work?
Well, you‘ve got two options.
You could sit down and read a ton of thick, boring books; then spend a few years sitting in front of a computer screen trying to figure things out.
After this apprenticeship, your career will become an endless round of solving difficult, thankless, deeply technical tasks.
But you‘re smarter than that, aren‘t you? So here‘s the quick and easy way. Get these things right and you‘ll zoom up to the top.
Most Important Thing in IT Consultancy
The most important thing to get right in IT consultancy is the clothes. What type of IT consultant you are is easy to work out by what you wear. Clothes are a dead give-away. Management will take one look at you and figure it out.
If you come to work dressed in casual, poorly-fitting, badly ironed clothes, you‘ll immediately get pigeon-holed as a geek IT consultant. Managers will see you as nothing but a whining smart-ass. That‘s no way to be successful.
Instead, get yourself a nice designer suit. Compliment it with a slick haircut and a leather briefcase.
Have Lots of Meetings
The way to climb up the slippery pole of IT consultancy is not, as some fools believe, by sitting in front of a screen. Meetings are the way to go. The more meetings you attend, the more important you are. Attend as many meetings as you possibly can.
Find any old excuse to tag along, or better yet, start meetings of your own. It doesn‘t matter if you‘ve got something to talk about, you‘ll find plenty of other meeting hounds like yourself willing to attend.
Make Simple Things Sound Technical
It‘s not worth being in meetings unless you get to say something. This where you let other important people know that you‘re hip to their action. The way to do that is by speaking their language. In general, you should collect words and terms that make simple stuff sound technical and cool. Here‘s a few examples to start you off:
1.Don‘t use, ‘utilize’.
2. Don‘t do something, ‘implement’ it.
3. Let‘s not talk about it later, rather we‘ll ‘take it offline’.
4. You‘re not printing that document, you‘re ‘cloning it to physical’.
5. And so on.
Knowledge About Computers and Networks
Along the way, you‘ll probably want to pick up a little bit of knowledge about computers and networks and other such boring stuff. The Discovery Channel can often be a good source of technical knowledge, as can the colour computer supplement in weekend newspapers.
The main thing is to never allow yourself to be seen as a geek consultant. Don‘t be tempted to line your desk with technical books or bring computer magazines into work.
Rather, wear your general computer illiteracy as a badge of honour. You want to give the impression that you‘re doing so much important stuff that you have no time left over for trivial technical knowledge.
Follow these tips and management will soon recognise you as one of their own. Before you know it, you‘ll probably be CIO.
Becoming an IT Consultant is easy, isn‘t it?
And all those geeks who laughed at you behind your back will still be fixing broken code while someone yells at them – suckers.
