* Be ready for 50+ hour weeks. 40 hours of billable time for your project plus travel time (at least 8 hours a week) plus any non-billable you do such as interviews, office events, etc. 😪
* Typically high stress. Projects are often on a tight deadline with a demanding client. Projects can get cancelled all of a sudden. On top of that, traveling can be stressful too. Flights getting delayed or cancelled, dealing with hotel bookings, all add to the taxing nature of a traveling consultant lifestyle. 😰
* Lots of projects are in slow-moving, enterprise IT environments. Don’t expect to be working with hip tech companies. Expect huge organizations that move like a tanker ship, locked down laptops, frozen middle management, stuffy offices full of cubicles, and dress codes. 🏢
* Specializing in anything is hard. While you do have some say in what projects you get staffed on, its mostly luck of the draw for whatever happens to be available when you become available. 🍀