Help Deciding Offers: Infosys vs Cisco vs. Google

I've done my fair share of IT consulting. The killer is always going to be the travel. Ignore what they tell you, they will expect you to do it more than advertised and it gets really old, really quick. Another thing I found is that it ends up being a ton of solo work. I'm sure that's different with every company but when you think about it - a team of 4 consultants can cost a company, what, $30K/week + expenses? That's an insane burn rate at most places so most projects will try to do as much as they can with as few people as they can. We always used to say how it was, "we'll parachute you in and you gotta shoot your way out" because you're on your own out there. Finally, I couldn't imagine doing consulting straight out of college. I wouldn't have been mature enough or savvy enough. Of course you may be different, but the main reason they hire guys like you is because old fogies like me don't want the insane travel schedule :)

Thanks for the tip! I've heard from some peers in both Infosys and Accenture who do feel that IT consulting do come in to play.

I do know that with Infosys, teams hand off projects to teams staffed around the world which does alleviate some of the workload, unfortunately that constantly means phone calls during the night. Definitely curious if current analysts in other IT Consulting firms experience this?

Also interested to know if I should try to negotiate my salary since it is a lot lower than what I expected, was hoping for at least 65K.

Also given my expectations of only staying with this job for max 3-4 years, do you think a consulting experience is still worth the loss of roughly 10k per year for a less stressful less interesting job with less chance of burning out for a company like Cisco or Google?

I'm assuming that your infosys gig is in the bay area as well, which in that case I think shooting for 65K (especially in consulting) is reasonable. Not familiar with their pay structure/bonus/%increase, but I would suggest you show them your higher-paying offers and see if they would budge with the salary.

What are the positions you got offers for from Cisco/Goog?

I have a friend in Infosys and he absolutely loves it. He just closed a $15 million deal with Microsoft last month, and he's making MBB numbers. Then again he's a beast and got an Associate role right out of college, but he definitely tells me about the potential Infosys has in the future with you being a main facilitator of that.

For Google, it depends what area you're in. Is it the Associate Strategy or PMM roles? Those are gold. But are you talking about Adwords? Those are the lowest levels you can get at within Google and there's a definitive glass door for most people in those departments. I literally know 13 people that interned there and know about 7 full time employees at Google (I'm very, very Google connected). You can spin Adwords however you want, but at the end of the day it's account management and it's not intellectually challenging.

Meh on Cisco. Don't know enough to say. Feel free to PM or ask questions here if you want any follow-up info. :)

Cisco would most likely be Strategy related in Corporate or Consumer Marketing (don't get to choose until I accept). Google would be either for their Advertising and Enterprise Roles or the Associate PM roles. The Infosys gig won't be in the Bay Area actually.

Definitely interested in what you're saying about the glass door experience with Adwords Xepa. Also would love to hear more of your friends experience with Infosys. I heard they recently merged with their parent company so am a bit apprehensive with how the small company culture it used to have may change.

IMO you have a laser focus on the companies when your original query was to be in the consulting industry at all. But hey, do what you want, I'm just saying that you should focus less on Infosys and instead figure out if IT consulting (wherever it might be) is what you really want to do.