[Closed] In your experience, is the word 'consultant' just shorthand for...

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Doesn't the media refer to them as "experts"?

Bit of an odd thread as there are all sorts of consultants - I'm an IT consultants and worth every penny.... I suppose the OP means business consultants. I've worked with strategy consultants and change management consultants, easy to burn cash with them but potentially capable of significant results.

Expert of course being made up of;

Ex: Something outdated/defunct,
Spert: A drip under pressure.

I found myself sitting next to a "change agent" at a works "do", and after half an hour's explanation I was still clueless about what he actually did

I'd imagine they probably applied agile incremental innovative solution based work paradigms improvements to underperforming and immobile process problems.

I found myself sitting next to a "change agent" at a works "do", and after half an hour's explanation I was still clueless about what he actually did

If you were sat next to a Recruitment Consultant you'd have probably been blown under the table then found your wallet missing?

Some are genuine others are cowboys.

Now, let's start with some Innovative Management ideas ... 🙄

It is far more worthwhile if you are getting consultant for special technical advices.

If you want Management Consultant(s) I am your man. Hire me as your Management Consultant and I will make sure those zombie maggots in your company will be stepped on in no time.

😈

I am an engineering consultant-with a narrow band of expertise. If a client presents me with a problem outside that band I'll tell them and do my best to point them in the right direction.

My work involves doing calculations that other people cannot/willnot do and the clients use those calcs to make decisions. I often advise them on what course of action is best. My clients keep coming back.

footflaps - Member
Consultant is so last century, its Architect now darlings.
That's me **** then. I've got Architect in my job title.....

People who are Software Architects don't call themselves Architects outside of work though. There's generally no confusion, in my experience.. maybe not yours though!

In IT 'Architect' often doesn't confer any kind of skill or superiority - it's just a job title.

Recruitment Consultants are not consultants. They are [s]liars[/s] sales people.

mrmonkfinger - that's pretty much what he said for half an hour!

I'm seriously considering taking an exit package at the moment and going freelance consultancy.

You can say what the **** you want about me then, I'll be rollin' in it.

[i]Real life experiences may differ. Self employed consultancy may bring constant insecurity, periods without employment and generally being disliked. Always read the label.[/i]

Like any profession you have a mix of abilities....from genius to dangerous. I work in the SME sector advising on business turnarounds and I judge consultants/advisors on the impact they can quickly bring to a business measured in real sales and margin improvements.

To be fair to the sector, advisors are often very poorly briefed and managed, and often their common sense advice is ignored for short-term political expediency or parochial interests.

The best consultants are very smart people, with a wealth of relevant experience who add value very quickly to a business.

A person who takes paid redundancy, starts a consultancy firm then gets hired as a third party by previous employer. Very clever.

Or, someone who knows stuff.

We had a Time and Motion Consultant in work a few months ago.

He was getting rather annoyed with a few of us by the end of the second day so he lost his rag and went off in a strop for a while, leaving his name badge behind. It read:

Ian Marshfield

Consultant

A bit of work with the tippex and it was an accurate description of what we thought of him by that point. He never noticed.

Yes, self important, bullshitting bags of hot air

Really baffles me how these numb skulls get away with it and also earn 3 or 4 times my wages doing so

I'm on to your game, all of you. It can't be long before you're rumbled 😉

Really baffles me how these numb skulls get away with it and also earn 3 or 4 times my wages doing so

Whats your actual cost to the business? What is your internal charge rate (HR should be able to tell you, if the figure is not known they how do you know how much it costs you to do something?)
My internal charge out rate 10 years ago was about 750/day bringing somebody in for a week to do something is still more cost effective than employing somebody. Also if you all have time to do all the stuff the consultants are doing you need to be sticking your hands up and telling your boss.

So they peddle bullshite and get paid triple your salary

Who's being a numb skull?

My perception thus far is that business consultants generally listen to the people that the business do not. There tends to be some people in an organisation with very good ideas, but whose ideas are not adopted based on some perceived hierarchy or seniority. The consultant comes in, finds these people and presents back their ideas to the business as something new and revolutionary.

If the organisation was inclusive enough and valued their staff enough, they wouldn't need the consultants in the first place...

I work as a consulting civil engineer in renewables (hydro power).

The hardest part of the job is maintaining the confidence of contractors and clients that we know better than them. Because the contractors and clients have a lot of wooly ideas not based on science or engineering. Some of the respondees to this thread seem to have ideas based on the same ****wittery.

Believe me, nothing viable would get made without us.

I tweeted the other day that the name "consultant is just another word for incompetent."

I was asked to set out a design on a plot of land from the (reputable) consultants design in CAD format, no problem said as long as the coordinates are Ordinance survey which they replied they were.

To cut a long story short, I did a survey of the land area and pasted it into their CAD drawing to ensure correct positioning (no station control) but my survey didn't appear. Zoomed extents and saw a tiny dot on my screen some distance from the "design"

Not only was their scale wrong with their 25m grids measuring 25,000m their design located it in Gloucestershire somewhere, not Yorkshire! 80km long, 16km wide and not 80m by 16m.

I told the site agent he needs to demobilise his plant and head down the M5, oh how we laughed.

£more per day than I earn in a week, generally. 😀