[Courses] Re: Bad opinions of consultants & working hours

[Karine Proot]

Mary wrote:
> I can think of a few reasons. Like all employer prejudices, they're not
> all valid all the time:
> 
>  - people sometimes use "consulting" as a replacement for "unemployed"
>    -- eg they were unemployed for a year but they got the odd 10 hour
>    job fixing someone's Windows install so they say they were
>    "consulting"

Impossible here, consulting meaning having a contract with a consulting 
company.

>  - in Australia, consulting is seen as "better money" so the employer
>    asks themselves why you suddenly want to move to a salary

Same here, but it is a natural move (see below).

>  - consultants are used to short-term work and to not committing
>    themselves to a client forever. Employers really want employees who
>    will commit to their company for a long time.

Consulting is not short-term work anymore here, though it should be. My 
boss where I work has been there for 4 years through his consulting company.

> Karine, is any of this the case in France where consulting is so common?
> Or is it just viewed as simply an alternative way of working?

Having done some consulting work on a resume is not a problem when you 
later apply to a 'direct' job. It is a very common career start for 
juniors. And as I said, the diversity of experiences can be a good thing 
to speak about at interviews. And it is a very common career path to 
drop consultancy one day, so you lose that ability to quit the current 
job and continue being well paid, but you gain being really part of a 
company. That is the only disadvantage I can tell about here : a 
consultant is not listened to as much as direct employees, usually he 
cannot move up in the client's hierarchy, he is not invited to company 
events... (even though there are the consulting company events, but you 
never get to know people that much as you never work with them anyway)

Someone also told me about temp agencies, we have those but the main 
difference is you stop being paid when there are no clients to make you 
work.



Julie Bovee wrote:
 > We call them consulting companies in the U.S., and the people who work
 > for them are called consultants. I have some friends who do that for a
 > very large firm, but they're very unhappy: bad pay, long hours, little
 > choice of the work to do, and contracts that prevent them from being
 > hired by the company the are contracted out to.

Well... good pay, small hours, some choice because consulting companies 
are wealthy those days, and being hired directly is not a problem.

About the hours : it has nothing to do with consulting companies. French 
law is now : 35 hours per week, with 5 weeks off a year - OR - 39 hours 
per week, with 7 to 8 weeks off a year. You get more days off when you 
stay longer in a company. I call that small hours because my non-french 
friends seem to think that's paradise.

Though, most people in France do far more than what the law said. They 
keep their days off but work like 10 hours a day... And when the 35 
hours law was voted, some people continued working 10 hours a day while 
losing 2 to 3 weeks off !

I don't follow those working habits. I do what is written in my 
contract. It is 39 hours (in fact I do 40 because I never saw the point 
of treating friday as a smaller day, so that 8 hours a day 5 days long 
and a completely free week-end). I don't mind doing one evening of 
overwork, but one week or one month means the project was badly planned. 
A lot of my bosses told me they felt nervous about me doing that, 
couldn't I stay at work a little more? This could get me fired and blah 
blah... The fact is, I'm starting to play games and read websites when 
I'm asked to stay later - and I'd rather do that at home. In the end, 
they leave me alone as it seems I do the job anyway (maybe because I 
don't spend 1-2 hours in the day smoking/drinking coffee/whatever). And 
when I leave, suddenly I hear I am great and they want me to stay...

So, working habits are changing. And maybe the french law will change 
because of it (if everyone was working 10 hours a day and start to work 
7 or 8, there may be a problem?) but I don't mind, all I want is having 
clear contracts and not lying about my own hours so that work inspectors 
don't blame my company.

Karine