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Pro
Conversation Starter
Wow, so no more free lunches…what a joke
Additional Posts in Consulting
How is the CMT vertical at Oliver Wyman. I keep telling the recruiter and the interview team that I am more interested and experienced in CMT, in particular tech/SW, but they keep pushing me towards AMI because of a few projects that I have done in that space. I am sensing the CMT vertical is non-existent in practice.
Pro
Best books on leadership and sales skills?
Rising Star
Help! What do I do to get it back to normal?
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Chief
It’s not just work. It’s life. Knowing when to say No will get you far.
I am still learning to say it even after all these years.
Chief
I mean I get billable hours is a metric but if you bill 80 or 40, you’re still getting paid the same. I just don’t get people who get worked up about this. If you give me an awesome review, help me get promoted, and make sure I get my bonus, I’ll bill whatever you want me to.
Ditto SPM. I generally shave off a few hours of billing after a certain point. Partially due to budget, partially due to me asking myself if those works are truly justifiable to bill.
Rising Star
Bill 👋 the 👋 hours 👋 you 👋 work 👋 always
Agree!
“I work 60-70 hours a week.” Sees 3 slides with errors all over it.
Yeah never succumb to that. It’s their job to sell and price the work, not ours. They can afford to eat the budget, they just don’t want to. I say, we can eat the hours, we just don’t want to. 🤷♀️
I AM IN THE EXACT SAME SHOES!!! I killed mauled and worked 40 hours M-Th so I could take Friday off for a long weekend vacation. And was told to only bill 32 hours because Friday I took off. And each day is 8 hour billable days, so even though I worked more I can only put 32
Oh sweet summer child
Terrible advice throughout this thread. OP you are here to deliver outcomes not just fill the hours. Don’t know about your firm, but most projects are sold at fixed price and consultants are paid a fixed salary - that leaves hours logging just a theoretical metric that quite frankly is a legacy of audit projects. In consulting, like a few other jobs, pays you a premium to work more than 9-5 (salary, growth, perks). If you don’t like it, that’s fine. Just find another job. There are 1000s of job that don’t make you work more than 8 hours
No I’m not a senior partner, and I recognize the BS of timesheets. Like I said they are a legacy of audit practices. A lot of consulting firms bill 8 hours no matter what since margins don’t change if you work 8 or 10 or 16. So the debate on billing your actual hours is valid since metrics are aligned to it, the underlying premise is still BS.
Second, this was not about billing hours. Look at the original OP comment and advice that followed which was ‘you should only work 40 hours because that’s what you are paid for’. That’s BS.
Every partner
Every partner: I don’t want to see any write-offs, write-downs, or margin variances on the engagement
Rising Star
Bill the hours you work. But, if you’re billing 60 hours a week, that model better be done and those slides should be close to perfect.
Our work is not nearly as hard or as involved as it would be at Amazon. The model is generally like 3 tabs of a high-level customer cost of acquisition and a pro forma P&L with some sensitivity analysis.
You gotta have money to say “no”.
Rising Star
Or self-respect
Every partner
Learning how to say know, without pissing people off is an important skill. I am always impressed at the people that seem to effortlessly set expectations of their work life balance and meet or beat those expectations.
Yes we know. It’s just funny. Enjoy your Friday!
Wait people fake their billable hours?????
Rising Star
I love the fact that I exited to industry everytime I see a post like this.
Work less, smile more
Rising Star
Bill the hours you work. Work the hours you bill.
There is no other way around it.
I didn’t know anyone legit booked more than 8 hrs per day. I mean, I’ve never heard of that happening
There’s a balance between being a people pleaser/pushover and providing solid customer service. As I learned the difference, more people appreciated the good customer service side.
Everyone says bill the hours you work. In reality maybe 10 percent of ppl are able to do that and not get pushed out. Question: if you are going for promotion would you say no/book actual hours?
Rising Star
10%? Maybe at your company but in my 15 years and multiple companies that was not my experience. Perhaps a better way to look at it is don't work more than the hours you bill (ie 40 should be pretty close to a true 40).