am I crazy to leave WFH for consulting?
i have a great wfh position at a great company making great money. i have an offer to join a consulting firm for ~20% more. i will have to commute everyday and im not 100% sure what i am getting into. im almost positive i will learn more at this place as its more aligned to my career goals. i am a young (30) professional and im not sure if i should make the move and get the experience or of i am crazy to leave such a good current situation.
Is there any reason your current company wouldn’t rehire you in a year? I personally wouldn’t do it. I’ve worked for consulting firms and it can really be awful if you get stuck with a client that isn’t a good fit for you. I would make sure their types of customers are a good fit for your personality.
I’m not sure what my current company would do ... I just thought that now was the time to make a move ... been here for 3+ years and got this new offer to jump in head first but now I’m having second thoughts
One option might be to try to leverage the offer for more money or a different position. They might be flexible to move you into a different role. The only caveat is prepare for them to decline. In other words, I wouldn’t bluff them.
If you turn it down, will you regret not having tried it, when you are 70?
You're losing a lot of flexibility if you leave your WFH position. If you're married and have children and do decide to move forward with the change, take into account that you're not always going to be home if your spouse also works. You may find that you take some areas in your current schedule for granted. Also, don't let fear set in and stop you from doing this. If you feel that this does align with your career goals, your skillset will only improve in this new role. If you were to market yourself two years from now, are you more marketable keeping your current position, or are you more marketable by having joined the consulting firm?
I think I’m definitely more marketable working for the firm. Right now I’m in a tech/ops role and in this consulting role I would be going 100% tech
Don’t be stupid.
Which position will help you build the skills to progress in your career the way you want to? Not everything is about the current comp of each role.
I can grow in both positions, the new position just offers a track directly in data science while my current role is a grab bag of data/tech/ops stuff ... I guess I can grow in my current position by studying but I know nothing beats field experience
Do it while you are young. No regrets later.
Is the new role at Ernst & Young?
No. Not at any of the big 4. Smaller company focused on data science and analytics
WFH can be rough and lonely, with expectations of increased availability and wonky work hours. I can see how you’d want to move out of WFH. However, calculate your hourly rate, and make sure your raise includes that cost of travel time. I left a full time WFH position expecting to boomerang for a raise, but found that I actually like working in an office. I split travel and WFH as a consultant and it’s been pretty awesome. (Outside of Infosys being crap)
So “work” from home for great money or work 80 hours a week in a suit for slightly more money. Grass isn’t always greener dude.
My thought was that I would get a lot of good experience at this new gig. Maybe I’m just fooling myself
Yeah if you want to gain experience, work on challenging side projects with your ample free time working from home. Let me tell you from experience that consulting ain't it if you want to grow This is an exceptionally bad value prop tbh