Starting up the tech blog...

Thought I try to give it a go and post on more nerd/geek topics here.

So, due to another conversation, in another blog, I thought I start off with the following age old debate.
Contractor vs. Consultant.
(o.k. not a tech thing but, it does matter.)

I'm a consultant... specifically I work for an IT Consulting company (Magenic) and my title says "Senior Consultant". But... in another post somebody alluded to the idea that when they were out of work they became a "consultant" for a while...

Well here's where I have an issue... I don't agree with that. So here are my definitions...

Consultant - an individual, independent or part of a firm, that is hired to aid and/or lead project based work. In other words, work that has a beginning, middle and end. In addition this person is brought on due to a specific set of skills to aid in the project. Analysis, design, project management, QA Testing. They have a skill set that makes them an asset to the project.

Contractor - an individual, independent or part of a firm, that is hired for the sake of getting work done. In other words staff augmentation. You have a project and you only have three developers and need three more due to the size of the project. The only qualifications, for example, are that they know how to program in the target language and have 3 to 5 years of proficiency. In other words warm bodies to fill seats to get stuff done. But... you do not expect them to add value to the project beyond that.

So that's my thoughts on the two roles... yes they can blur together. But I generally see a consultant as having either a better skill set, or a targeted skill set vs. a contractor.

So want to be a consultant? Want to work for a company that actually views it's employees as investments? Like to work in the world of Microsoft and .Net?

Then check out www.magenic.com