techgirl

It can be part of several departments. In some orgs the training department is a subset of the HR department (particularly if someone is doing new hire orientations and that sort of thing). In consulting, training is often implementation and it requires both the presentation skill and a good understanding of what the company does. I do a lot of implementation work so I take work that our consultants have done and go out and explain to the high-level folks at the client (typically the C-levels and board folks above our usual client manager leve) what we did and how to manage the process internally. Of course, I consulted in that arena prior to doing implementation so I've got a good case knowledge base.

davem4

I have 9 months to go

Also vacationed alot (family overseas) plus had a internship overseas

I picked longer flights to be on specific planes

Whenever someone needs to be dropped off or picked up i allways offer to do it. Finance + International Business Strategy

Ya Holy crap i'm David too



Wow thats scary :-/ I actualy came to the forums today to search for some relivant posts as i need to start applying in the next 4 months.

So keep up the suggestions as its helping a few of us

techgirl

Amen. Until about 16 months ago, we were owned by a big firm who micromanaged most of our consultants to death. For example, we had to be in home office on Monday morning and could leave after 1 pm to travel to client site. Our travel department frequently booked us on connections and some of our clients were rural so it wasn't uncommon to arrive at the hotel at midnight and have to report to work at 7 am on Tuesday morning. We would work 7 am to 7 pm runs Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday and then we would drive back to the airport hotel (again, clients were often two hours from an airport so we got in around 10 pm) were expected to catch the 6 am flight home on Friday morning AND then report to work and work until 5 pm. Then we were expected to show up on Saturday morning and put in 3 to 4 hours of "face time" if we were in management.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

They put our division up for sale and we were all so freaked about potentially getting into another bad situation that our senior group all pooled our existing stock and other cash together and bought the firm ourselves.

The first thing we did was enact a quality of life initiative with rules about reasonable travel, liberal time off policies (we can earn seemingly unlimited vacation based on billable hours), paid catered in office meals when we had to be there, and a ridiculously casual dress code when we weren't in front of clients.

I'm a happy camper now and can continue traveling indefinitely. In the old situation, I was about six months away from a meltdown (after seven years of being on the road nonstop).

michaelcoyote

wow, that situation is bordering on abuse as far as i'm concerned. I'd imagine your turnover was very high.

At my former position, i was essentially running my own show for a year and a half. I managed and scheduled my own engagements. Then we got an engagement manager.. he was ok, but not really as aware of all the issues. also, when working 3 separate clients in a week because I planned it, was different than having it planned for me. :-)

The office hours policy was relaxed towards the end of my tenure, but then i was expected to train people, so i ended up back in the office more often than not. and don't get me started on vacation planning.. "all vacation planned 45 days in advance" :-p

wow, that's awesome. good for you! Back at my old company, i thought of going solo, but now i've found my new company which is much better with time off.

The only problem is that we're in a bit of "startup frenzy", and as one of the senior consultants, I feel the need/desire to step up and fill in where needed.

hopefully I'll get over that feeling soon :-)

_m

shawbridge

I would caution you against taking a job that causes you to travel and instead try to do something that you are passionate about. If that is travel, get a job related to travel. Consultant to the airlines industry, travel writer, etc. Even if you love the traveling aspect of your job, if you hate what you do 10 hours per day, being able to travel won't make up for the crappy job.

Then I'd work to build some differentiable expertise that would cause people to want you to be in a variety of places. I think the standard IT consulting life of flying for a full week to the same place for months on end and staying in hotels is not that great compared to having clients all over the place. In contrast to someone who flies to Cleveland every week for a full week, I've been in London 6 times this year, the Hague (a few times), Paris, New York, Kuala Lumpur, Calgary, Toronto (vacation), Nicaragua (vacation), San Miguel de Allende (vacation), and I just returned from that garden paradise, Newark, Delaware. I've got work trips planned to Mexico City, Geneva (twice), Sydney, Newark (DE), and Budapest. Probably more trips but they don't all come to mind. Maybe others would disagree with this, but I'd prefer that to spending each week in the same place in the US. With differentiable expertise, you may be able to control your destiny somewhat more.

[I guess I like international travel, but maybe others would prefer domestic. I could probably gear my business more towards domestic travel if I wished, but probably not entirely].

I hope this is useful.

elektronic

Great advice. No job is good enough to take it just for the fringe benefits. You will be gone in a year when things aren't new anymore and start disinteresting you.

michaelcoyote

I agree.. while travel is nice, you shouldn't have to hate life the rest of the time.

I'm fortunate in that i really do like my job (most of the time).. heck, some days I even love it..

I'm also fortunate in that i've found work that allowed me to do just that.
my longest time on project has been about 2 months.. mostly i'm 1-2 weeks and out.. Most of my travel has been domestic, but that is changing. I finally made my first international trip for business to Ireland, and there are jobs that come up from time to time in Brazil, England, Japan, Etc.. After 2 solid years of stateside travel, I'm definitely ready for the expanded horizon..

Dave8481

Shawbridge what exactly do you do and/or who do you work for? I of course would rather fly to a bunch of different locations and I would love the opportunity to fly internationally for business as opposed to domestic, but I could do domestic with no problem. I would never take a job just for travelling...I would only do the job if I really liked it and was passionate about...I love working with people/clients/customers and that is why I am looking at some of the consulting companies like Bearing Point, Ernst and Young, AT Kearney, Accenture, RSM McGladrey, Deloitte, and KPMG because they would allow me to do work related to my degree and the areas that interest me and allow me to work with people on a daily basis...Also with my wife finishing her PhD in International Studies with a Focus on Security Studies and Nuclear Non-Proliferation(spelling??) I figure working with one of these large companies with a world wide presence will allow me a good chance of being able to find work where she ends up (Washington DC, New York, London, Brussels, Moscow, Geneva, Paris, or Chicago are the most likely destinations) or she can teach where I end up just depending how things work out...My main reason for looking for a job requiring substantial travelling is that I don't want to actually have to move to DC or Charlotte or somewhere even further away from Norfolk until my wife is ready to move and I am hoping a job with a great deal of travelling will allow me to keep my residence in Norfolk...I just feel like I have a natural disposition to travel and that it honestly doesn't wear on me that much...I still can't believe my originial post has generated this much discussion let alone any...I think I have peaked I should hang it up now

tjl

Obvious jobs that require travel include airline pilot and airline flight attendant. Also, many jobs as an enlisted or commissioned member of a branch of the military can take you all over the place. Air marshal also.

Where I work, the travelers are typically sales, marketing, and customer support people, although technical staff tend to go to alpha and beta test sites. However, relatively few are traveling all the time.

kingalien

I "used to be" like that . The traveling takes a toll on you eventually. I can still fall asleep before take off but now that splash of water on the face is just not enough to get me going anymore .

I enjoy reading this thread.

ContinentalFan

If you are planning to get your CFA, I have to believe that you have some background already in securities analysis. I suggest getting a position as an analyst. I would also suggest selecting a technology industry as your area of expertise: biotech is a good one. If you're selecting a company, find a firm that believes in sending its analysts on the road to meet and interview the company. You will be traveling a lot, but it can be a fun life. I think that jobs in the consulting--or auditing--business are tough. I'd go the route of being a financial analyst.

jpatokal

Err, when exactly are you planning to work if you're flying ORD-IAD-LAX-ORD all day? (Seasoned road warriors know the answer: forget workouts and sleeping, substitute room service and midnight oil.)

You might want to stick around long enough to learn the magic of the paragraph break.

Tyler Durden

Is an unwillingness to spend really the Knicks problem?

Topic? I got nuthin.

OK, OK. I'll add though that journalists _ especially sportswriters and international correspondents _ sometimes travel a whole hell of a lot, although that doesn't seem to be a field the OP is interested in. Marriott Rewards probably cashes millions of points just to BBWAA-card holders from November through January.

Dave8481

jpatokal,

The summer after my first year of college I worked as a document courier for the company my dad worked for...there were 2 of us doing it...we essentially were transporting sensitive documents that they just didn't want to trust to FedEx/UPS and such...it was a great summer...I was only at home a handful of times and even though my home was in Iowa I was essentially based out of the ORD Marriott for that summer.

As far as the paragraph break goes, yes, that has been addressed...after posting that last large mass of incoherent ramblings I was thinking I should break that up but in my condition I couldn't find a good place to break it, but I will be more careful from now on

shawbridge

Dave8481,

I co-founded a small firm that gives advice and provides capability building services to companies and governments around the world in complex negotiations. A tiny little niche, but it keeps us interested and busy. We have the good fortune of working for relatively senior folks at companies and in governments and, for better or worse, that implies that we fly to them. We have our own, relatively unique slant on how to think about complex negotiations in a way that gives our clients leverage, and it does actually seem to work.

Over the years, I have built up what I think of as differentiable expertise and much of my adult work experience has been aimed, intentionally and not, at building up expertise that would be in demand around the world. I worked as a professor, a niche investment banker, a merchant banker, and then as a consultant. I helped other people start a couple of investment firms. I'm on the boards of a couple of companies. But, most of my travel these days comes from the consulting firm.

I am a firm believer in investing in the development of differentiable expertise/intellectual capital. In the past, I've advised job-seekers who are doing the networking thing to spend the time they spend on "information interviews" and the like to develop real and useful expertise in some area, preferably one of interest to the world and that they like. It is actually rare that I see people follow that kind of advice. But, that probably requires having a sense of what they are or might be passionate about, and I'm not sure they knew. That's where I'd start -- I'd probably go beyond working with people and traveling and get to the kinds of work that seem likely they'd be deeply fulfilling to you -- and let the travel follow.

Good luck with your search.