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Coach
Has anyone received an offer letter from EXL (Inductis India Pvt Ltd) that was extremely restrictive and reading which felt like one is signing up for going to prison rather than get employment? No leave policy mentioned, hundreds of paragraphs of worst case scenarios, pathetic salary breakup, etc. ?
Bowl Leader
I am following professor Aswath Damodaran's blog since long. Professor Damodaran teach Corporate Finance and Valuation and is well known valuation guru. Here's the link to his blog -
Musings on Markets (aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com)
His writing and videos have been great source of knowledge for me and hence sharing with this group.
Rising Star
Additional Posts in Consulting
What are your book recommendations?
CAIA vs CFA?
Has Deloitte gotten laid off yet?
Most definitely pie in the sky
Which consulting firm has the best 401k match?
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Lol just because we’re consultants that doesn’t mean our entrepreneurial spirit gets sucked out
True, but only one of those involves HR reporting. 😂
Whether you realize it or not, consulting is an entrepreneurial field. Yes we are all employees of usually huge firms, but within those firms, people tend to operate in small entrepreneurial groups that sell and deliver work to clients. You grow your network and you grow your practice. When your offering or niche isn’t relevant or popular anymore, you pivot to the next big thing. Most of us are directly interacting with and eventually selling to customers.
Outside of that, for me anyway, it’s about autonomy and ownership. As a consultant in most cases you don’t own anything you’re working on, and can’t actually make any major decisions on your own. You make recommendations and the client decides.
This was one of the biggest changes I experienced when I left consulting for my first startup—I (or we, as a team) owned the system we were building, and didn’t need anyone’s approval to decide how to build it. Yes of course we had to make our customers happy, but in my mind that’s a very different thing, at least once you have a lot of customers.
Green field, more control, a chance to not only consult but to execute and then be present to see the outcomes.
Freedom!!
Thank you all, and thank you for the detailed response SM1. The money argument just didn't make sense to me, because one could just dive into more PRDs, work harder, get promoted sooner and make more gauranteed money. However, I absolutely did get that consulting is entrepreneurial, which is why it's the only other thing I could imagine doing. The ability to control an outcome and experience success/failure through your choices I totally get though.
I think money is probably a motivator for some people, especially when they are first starting out. Campus / MBA recruits to the large firms tend to be high academic performers at relatively elite schools, and a lot of them likely have peers that went to FAANG or other firms people think of as startups (even though I’d argue none of those firms are startups anymore). They hear about the big compensation packages that include options etc. and I’m sure in many cases feel jealousy. I think many probably also dream of that huge startup IPO/acquisition payout.
Also, not having actually worked in early stage startups, many may have a distorted sense of how they actually work. They don’t know how hard it is to get funding, or the limited compensation available until you get a lot of VC capital. They don’t necessarily understand the risk either—how high a percentage it is of startups that fail and never have a successful exit.
My first startup did have a successful exit, first an IPO and then being acquired by one of the big tech firms, but I know I was very lucky statistically speaking, and my payout was still not enough to retire on, and it took them about 10 years to get there.
we’re all completely risk averse and fascinated by people who aren’t