Consultants Being Asked To Take A Pay Cut

When you charge out at $150 an hour and bill 40 plus hours a week -- you make a pretty nice living.

Oh, should I say you made a pretty nice living?  The days of enviable day rates could be coming to a crashing halt.

Is the downsizing of the consultant's day rate the latest victim of the economic meltdown?

A friend of mine has had a wonderful consulting relationship with a major corporation for over five years. During that time she has worked almost full-time at the corporation-- billing around $150 an hour. It was not unusual for her to work 60 plus hours a week.

Needless to say she had a lovely lifestyle and the best of both worlds -steady work and a great day rate.

Unfortunately for my friend,  it looks like that gravy train is about to come to a screeching standstill.

Recently the corporation notified all its contractors/suppliers/consultants/freelancers that from now on  the company was offering  a one size fits all consulting fee of  $65.00 an hour. Take it. Or Leave it.

My friend will take it. She doesn't have a choice. And that's really the point -- in this dance between corporations and consultants, corporations are now the ones who can fill up their dance card in a matter of moments.

 Several years ago the consultant pool was not as competitive.Good consultants could name their price. We had a boom boom economy . Now that we are in a NoVa economy , the pool of qualified/smart/hungry/sad/competitive/desperate/laid-off/professionals turned consultants is exponentially larger.

This is great news for corporations looking to cut costs. It's not so great news when you are the cut-tee.And so as 2008 is about to end, there are many who will look back to the early innocent days -- the $150 hour days of January 2008 --and think "Those Were The Days."