I often recommend that my clients consider consulting – using their skills on projects for pay. There are at least 4 obvious reasons.
- Reason #1: You’ll have a reason to get up in the morning.
- Reason #2: You can make some money to pay bills.
- Reason #3: You’ll have actual work to do and keep your skills current.
- Reason #4: You can add tangible experience to your resume and reduce any gap in employment.
One less obvious benefit to consulting is that you get to look at what you really want to do, what skills you love to use and are really good at, and the value you deliver sufficiently to get paid for it.
Knowing exactly what you can and want to do is the key to finding your “right fit work” whether that is working at a job or being a consultant.
Think about yourself as a consultant. What would you do? What services would you offer? What could you do for a client that they would love to pay you for? How would you talk about what you do? What would be your 5-second pitch description of what you can deliver to a client?
Chances are those are the same things you want to do in a job, too.
So consider telling your network that you are looking for consulting work using the very skills, talents and abilities you want to use in full-time work.
