Consulting??

When I was laid off, my company paid for three months of a job-search consulting service, to help each of us land on our feet. They've helped me rewrite my resume (for the first time in 16 years), and they host a lot of the training videos and live webinars I alluded to briefly here. And they assign to each of us a personal coach to help us through the process of finding work.

As I think I've mentioned, I've been slacking at this whole effort pretty badly. At this point I've got a little over a month before they shut off the service, more or less. And today I had a 30-minute check-in phone call with my coach.

My first question was, "Do I still get access to any benefits from this service after my time runs out?" (Answer: no more webinars, and no more live coaching sessions with her; but I can still access the research databases, and I can still shoot her an email with a quick question if I have to.)

My second question was, "Back when we started I said I was writing a book last year about the stuff I do." [I allude to this briefly in a sideways fashion here and here.] "You said you were going to see if anyone in your firm has some advice on publishing your own book. What did you find out?" (Answer: nobody seems to have any expertise in that subject, because the focus here is all on job-hunting. Sorry.)

Then she asked, "So what have you actually been doing, anyway?" And I told her that I had just gotten off another webinar all about how to start a consulting business.

"Oh, really," she asked. "How was that?"

Terrifying. I never wanted to start my own consulting business, and this webinar just convinced me of that opinion. The only reason I registered for it at all in the first place is that other people have told me, "Gosh, Hosea, with all the stuff you know about the work you do, maybe you should hang out a shingle as a consultant."

"What part is terrifying?"

Having to sell myself every day. Having to be always on the search for the next client. Having to be able to stand up and say, "Here's a list of all my competitors in this space, but I'm better than all of them because …." Then I paused long enough to admit that of course the whole job-hunting process is actually the exact same thing! It's all about pitching why you are the best one to handle this or that challenge. And I conceded that it won't do me any good to be terrified of that, because I have to find a job. So it's a problem.

But she asked a different question: "When you say it's terrifying, that might mean it's really not for you. Or it might just be the jitters anybody gets before doing something exciting. Which is it for you, this time?"

Huh. Interesting question.

And the short answer is, I don't know. I have always told myself that I didn't want to be a freelance consultant, that I didn't want to have to sell myself, that I just wanted to do the work without all that other bullshit. But to some extent the very fact that I have made this such a well-defined story should make me at least a little suspicious of it. To some extent, I'm well aware that this story is a reaction against my father's determination to be his own boss no matter how bad he was at it. To some extent, I understand that I watched how poorly his business career went, and decided, "If being your own boss means pissing away your time and talent like this, then I always want to have somebody else as my boss so I can avoid this."

But of course I'm not my dad. My strengths (and weaknesses) are different from his. I'm not nearly so extroverted, I have a lot more social anxiety, but I'm also better organized and more realistic. So -- for better and for worse -- his experience doesn't have to be mine.

And I thought about a guy named Buddy that I used to work with (until the recent layoffs). Buddy is currently working as a consultant for some small company an hour or two away from here. Years ago he was fairly critical of the kind of work I do, thinking it got in the way of more productive activity. (And, if you do it wrong, he's absolutely right.) But a couple of months ago I ran into him at a social event and he started describing the work he is doing. He said, "Hosea, you can't believe it. These people have nothing. I've tried to tell them the need to have some kind of system to handle [the things I do]. So far they aren't listening, but they really need it!"

The last time I talked to Buddy, the status was the same: he was still pushing that they need some system for the things I do, and they still couldn't hear him. But I wondered aloud to my consultant, What if I got a job through Buddy? What if he sold them on me, so all I had to do was the work and not the sale? What then?

And my immediate answer was, That would be great! The work itself sounds pretty interesting, especially because I'd have to tailor it all to fit a hostile audience. 😀 As long as the actual sale is handled by someone else, I could be all in. And all of a sudden I realized that the question of whether or not to try consulting is more complicated than I had realized.

My coach left me with the task to sit with this for a while, to think about it, and maybe to find people who are already in the consulting business to ask how they like it. And we'll talk again next week. Hmm.