Quick thought

[yvannairie]

Damn all this eloquence is wasted on a person who doesn't know how to talk about anything but themselves.

I've got that "scary articulate" thing going for practically nothing.

Comments

[snake_socks]

Consider a career in consultancy?

(I'm only half kidding)

[yvannairie]

What would I consult on? I don't have a degree in any field where consultation would be regularly needed and I don't have a long enough work history to speak on anything else without mostly talking out of my ass :'DD

[snake_socks]

Funnily enough, consulting, while coming in 100 flavors, is pretty often something where you can actually get hired with a variety of degrees, and get trained on the content. Being sharp and talking fast are basically the primary requirements.

Management consultancies like McKinsey are like, the platonic ideal of that, where they recruit the top graduates out of pretty much any program with a math requirement, stuff them in a suit and run them ragged on 60+ hour weeks for a couple years, until they jump ship with a prestigious reference and a 6 figure bank account.

That's. Not for everyone. But there's a whole spectrum below that, branching into two major varieties.

1) consultancy as a service - kind of like the big fishes, just more specialized on specific topics, and less high stakes/high stress. Here, being a subject matter expert from experience is more expected, but depends.

2) product consultancy - imagine going to a really fancy tailor, where they have you sit down, fondle fabric swatches, offer you a drink, take your measurements and really talk shit through. Imagine being that tailor, but not actually having to sew anything, just the talking and measuring part. That's it, that's the job. Only for, e.g. software, telco tech, training programmes, catering, furniture, or literally anything else a company might spend enough money on to warrant a little handholding and customization.

Still not for everyone, but tbh often pretty great for Jack of all trades types like me xD

[yvannairie]

Oh man. This was actually super informative, thank you. I feel for consultancy as a service, I'd still need some kind of a degree (or experience in the field) to be able to effectively do it but product consultancy... actually sounds a lot like some design projects I've taken on? I've worked preproduction a bit, and it's something I enjoy but that is very hard to break into if you're an utter artistic sinkhole like I am, product consultancy feels like it'd be the kind of thing where I could put my nascent producer skills into use somehow.

On top of being good with the words, I'm actually not-terrible at project management. I just have zero interest to be some kind of a manager b/c it simultaneously an utterly useless made-up position that nobody takes seriously but if you do end up taking it seriously, it's... a lot of responsibility. And too much responsibility is literally the whole reason I dislike leading other people.

[snake_socks]

lol, nice - glad to help! I guess I have a lot of career-themed words in me these days.

Idk about outside the tech corner, but from what I've seen the trend for allowing people to grow in their job without becoming people-managers is definitely catching on. And in my org, we differentiate project manager and consultant as roles, but I know many places that don't.

Actually, if you like I can tell you a bit more about my own background and concrete examples or whatever, but maybe DM me for that ^^°

[yvannairie]

I'll do that :D

[yvannairie]

I can't say you didn't get me curious. My mom and adoptive dad are both entrepreneurs -- they work in finance, doing private banking and investment consultation. I think that might be affecting how I feel about the idea of "consultation" in general, b/c what they do has a big marketing component in what kind of investment services they end up taking on and offering to their clients.

And I am a terrible salesperson. A big part of the appeal of directing is getting to execute on a vision, and a big thing that put me off actually going to film school was that I'd have to keep selling my ideas instead of getting to really focus on making them.