Consulting straight out of school is a really tough sell. Consultants are most often considered valuable by their employers because of their experience in a given industry.

I would not want to try to pitch myself as a consultant as a foreigner with little to no American work experience. If you’re doing it yourself, sales will be a challenge.

To speak more strongly, it’s going to be impossible unless you’re a rock star.

My first gig out of school was consulting.

Heck, I did consulting in school to support tuition.

I think there are a few factors to consider.

(1) Ability isn't one-dimensional. Consulting is a different skillset than full-time work. It's not harder or easier -- you just have to be more of a package deal -- finding business, contracts, billing, etc.

(2) Interest. Most people are happier in a full time job not because consulting is hard but because they'd rather not do all those things. If you don't want to deal with contracts and billing, consulting isn't for you.

(3) Consulting goes all the way from cheap Indian contractors, through boutique UX shops, through Caltech professors consulting on esoteric issues.

You definitely don't need to be a rock star. Companies hire consultants for a variety of reasons. Some need some particularly hard technical problem, but plenty simply need a talent for a short amount of time. It's the same difference between in-house counsel (which is good for ongoing legal issues) versus law firm (which is good for one-off issues). Or if you're worried about a tree falling down on your house, you might bring in a random arborist to consult.

I picked up the skillset because I needed to pay tuition, not out of any innate interest or talent. You might not have the skillset for it, but it's not rocket science. You could pick it up too pretty quickly if the situation arose.

Now double the age, I find I don't actually like consulting very much. I need to charge about double to triple my salary to cover overhead, and overhead is all stuff I don't actually enjoy doing. It does have upsides. I do like the variety. The boom/bust of consulting works well if you have a bit saved up and a low cost-of-living -- booms are intense, and busts make for nice vacations. I also prefer not having to worry about things like overarching employment agreements and an employer owning me. But that doesn't outweigh the hassle of having to sell myself, send invoices, negotiate contracts, etc.

But not necessarily a technical rock star… If you’re really good at sales and you can somehow procure the technical talent elsewhere, you might be able to pull it off.

I am no rock star but my first three gigs after my MS were consulting gigs. 1 software and 2 network consulting jobs, including a high speed metro area network.

It is fun and flexible but not as nice as a steady job. Plus, I have no people skills. :)

"Smart and skilled" are only loosely correlated to success as consultant and small business.

This is not meant to be sarcasm. There are many other characteristics necessary and better indicators. I am smart skilled and successful. But I made a lousy consultant when I tried it too early in life - (self)salesmanship, business skills, tenacity and courage, people skills, and a specific view on risk acceptance are far more important. Relationships and a full Rolodex and branding / reputation don't hurt either.

(A specific view on integrity and ethics too. I'm not saying no integrity or no ethics. But the salespersons / deal closers in my area are all honourable truthful people whose job I couldn't do because my view of truth wouldn't necessarily correspond to theirs)

Finally, if we grant your last statement that most people want renumeration and happy life, for many smart and skilled people, stress and risk that comes with consultancy business does not contribute to happiness.

I used to work for a small tech company in the suburbs outside of St Louis, which is definitely not a HCOL area. When I left (to move back to a HCOL tech hub), probably about half of the engineering staff were H1-B visa holders. This was because we often had trouble finding qualified candidates that were either already local or willing to relocate to the area. Visa sponsorship was a much more compelling reason to relocate than anything we could offer US citizens.

The office was near Mastercard's global operations headquarters and it seemed like they also employed a lot of visa holders. So I don't think we were particularly unique in our willingness to offer visa sponsorship in a LCOL area.

>This was because we often had trouble finding qualified candidates that were either already local or willing to relocate to the area. Visa sponsorship was a much more compelling reason to relocate than anything we could offer US citizens.

Seems rather unlikely. What I guess you might mean is that you couldn't find qualified candidates at the pay ranges you were offering.

No, speaking from the Midwest there is in some areas a real shortage of experienced/qualified candidates. Even if you pay $200k, $300k, more, there are a lot of Americans who will not move to the Midwest. Folks from overseas, though, don't have the same preferences or prejudices. If you're coming from China, India, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Colombia, what does Minnesota vs Missouri vs Maryland really matter if you're coming for a job? Iowa vs Ohio? As long as you can find a suburb with good schools it's interchangeable. People who are attached to San Francisco or Seattle or the Northeast though do not harbor the same openness to moving to Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, etc.

I'd love to see any midwest company paying those numbers, for a non C-level role. Hell, even trying to get above 100k/annum in the midwest is nearly impossible. Remote work options have made this a bit better; if the company then doesn't offer you "local market rates" bullshit.

Having driven through St. Louis (and Missouri) quite a number of times, I would be not be willing to relocate to the area. Maybe if the job paid really well AND was a really close match to what I wanted to do I might consider it. But for just pay, it's not even on my list of places I'm even looking for jobs.

That H1-B workers are "taken advantage of" is a myth. Yes some of them are but it isn't the case that if you hold such a visa you are being underpaid. Source: was an H1-B holder.

Depends on the industry and profession. A lot of professional healthcare workers are hired well below competitive market rates.

Source: partner was one, doubled salary after, is friends with dozens more who went through the same exploitation now making significantly more.

1. I think you are mixing smart with courageous, starting a business requires some courage.

2. Nope. At least those working for FANGs aren’t. You can see so many cases of folks were for low paying consultancies in India getting masters and then getting a job at FANG.

3. Getting an education loan for STEM is really easy and people are willing to put their parents house up for collateral.

I think with a FANG or good tech job you can be done with your loan in an year or two. Some people go to state schools and don’t get into any debt, or pay it off via internships. The US in most Indian people’s head comes with a better quality of life, a lot more money and better infrastructure. Perhaps some status too.

> Assuming you're actually smart and skilled

as an interviewer, I see many w/ masters degrees who are neither.

Right - I think a lot of people hope that by being more educated they'll get "smarter". That's not really how it works. You just get more educated.

In software, you DO need a lot of skills. But I think more important than that is having the ability to learn new things/skills quickly (being smart). The industry is always changing and evolving.

College is only going to get you the skills - maybe, a lot of times they teach you things that aren't that useful in the job market and don't teach you the things that are.

Nobody gets paid if you're an autodidact.

No, they're also abused in MCOL and LCOL areas. And they might be smart and skilled, but most of the ones I interviewed are lousy software engineers.

If we were talking about people with master's degrees from MIT or Stanford, it'd be a different ball game.

But I can't tell you how many candidates I've seen with something like a "Master of Science in Information Systems from the University of South Central Appalachia".