Ask Me Anything - Federal Consulting at a Tier Two Firm

"habu987"

bballer4life999:
habu987:IHaveAQuestion:

Thanks for doing this.

Have you seen anyone in the federal practice transfer into the commercial side of big 4 consulting? Is the path to making such a transition networking + picking up some work on the side from commercial projects?

Personally, I haven't seen anyone make that transition. That being said, it should be a fairly reasonable process. The biggest hurdle would be networking and getting a partner/director/principal on the commercial side willing to sponsor the switch. At the end of the day, it comes down to one leader being willing to give up your revenue and take that hit to his pocketbook.

That being said, my current engagement is about 60% federal/40% commercial practitioners. I've got a good working relationship with my commercial counterparts and their leadership, so if I wanted to make the switch, I think I'd have a decent shot.

Great, detailed response. Thanks! @habu987u987"u(This was very helpful)

Final Questions- Why are you transitioning back to the Boutique Firm? And what are the advantages/disadvantages of working in a smaller, boutique firm in the federal space?

There are several reasons for wanting to make the switch back to a boutique firm, but I'd say the two biggest ones for me are:

1) At a Big 4, I'm one of several thousand in the federal sector and one of several tens of thousands of employees in the US, combining all the tax/consulting/etc employees. I'm a number on a spreadsheet and it is hard to see myself making an impact on the firm at times. At a boutique firm, I will be more positioned to make a direct impact on my firm, its bottom line, and its growth prospects.
2) Desire to take on more responsibility. At a smaller firm, it's easier to take on the role of an engagement leader or other type of leader, whereas the Big 4 are very regimented in their roles and responsibilities.

The advantages of working for a boutique (in my opinion) are that you can potentially make a direct impact on the bottom line of the company. That's something you can't say at a Big 4 unless you're at the very senior levels. You can also experience much more rapid growth in responsibility and salary (obviously depending on your performance) at a boutique than under the Big 4 regimented career path, but that can vary based on which boutique you're working for. Salary might not top out any higher than at a Big 4, but the path from point A to point B can be traveled much quicker if you put the work in. I have a friend who went from a Big 4 to a boutique a few years ago and recently got promoted to VP at his firm, which brought him up to about 300% salary growth from his last B4 salary in just under 5 years, along with now leading up a practice area for his firm. That progression would have taken him about 12 years if he'd stayed at his B4, according to him.

One big disadvantage, also in my opinion, is that you stand the risk of getting pigeonholed. I know of several boutiques that only do software implementations, for example. They've carved out a lucrative niche of the federal consulting market for themselves, but man, you gotta hope you love implementations! Another disadvantage, for some of the really small boutiques, is that they are entirely dependent on government largesse. If the government pulls a contract, you can say goodbye to your job (there was a subcontractor on my last engagement who had that happen--his firm lost their main contract and folded). A third disadvantage is that it can be hard to win a bid when you're going up against the big boys, although with the government increasing its small business set aside provisions, that disadvantage is starting to lessen.

All in all, I've evaluated the situation and gone through all the pluses and minuses, and think it'll be a good move for me.

I wanted to circle back on my response to this. There are a TON of federal boutiques, I'd guess way more than commercial boutiques out there. They range from mid size business with ~1000 employees down to hyper-specialized firms with only a handful of employees. Some focus on particular areas (government financial management, for example), while others are basically just smaller versions of the big firms and have more of a generalist focus. Some are more focused on pure consulting work, others are purely staff augmentation focused.

In the federal space, if you're looking at a boutique, take a hard look at it. There are several areas (besides the actual project work and your role) I'd especially investigate if I were to look at a federal boutique again:

• What kind of work do they do? Especially for smaller firms, it's hard to easily understand if they do true consulting work or are a butts in the seat staff aug firm, and they'll likely tell you they are consultants, whether or not that's what they actually do.

• What's the outlook for the firm? Past projects, what their current book of business is, what the outlook is. No one can know for certain, but if all their projects are nearing the end of their POPs and they don't have new work lined up, that's a big warning flag.

• What is the clearance situation? Most federal jobs require a clearance of some sort, and if you already have one, make sure the boutique can hold your clearance for you.

• What is the career path? Some boutiques have rigid models like the big firms, others don't have career models at all, and you keep the same title the entire time while just (hopefully) advancing in pay and responsibilities.

• Do they know what they're doing? A lot of times, boutiques (usually the really small ones) are formed by SMEs who are experts in the work they do, but don't have a good grasp of how to actually run a business and/or don't hire a good admin team, and that can negate much of the satisfaction you get from working on a good project.

I got burned by the small boutique (50 employees) I joined due to them not having their administrative act together. Got brought on as the project lead for a business transformation/modernization project at the client and discovered after a month on the job that my employer hadn't transferred my security clearance when they hired me despite their assurances during my interviews, actually had no way to transfer the clearance, and that I couldn't continue to work on the project until I got a brand new clearance, which could take upwards of 6 months. They had a whopping 1 week bench and no other projects I could switch to (they had a few other projects, but they were all very technical implementations, way outside of my wheelhouse), so I was out about a month and a half after being hired. I hadn't done enough due diligence ahead of time, otherwise I would've turned down their offer, and it came back to bite me in the butt.

Lesson learned the hard way, thought I'd pass that on to anyone looking at federal boutiques.