Straight answers to your questions
The IT Job Market
- What is the outlook for IT projects in the St. Louis market?
- With the IT job market under pressure because of the economy, why should I consider joining Ferguson Consulting?
- What types of positions are offered through Ferguson Consulting?
- Which skill sets best fit opportunities with Ferguson Consulting?
Working at Ferguson
- What is the skill level required to be a Ferguson consultant?
- Why do you require a face-to-face interview?
- When the economy is bad, aren’t companies more likely to cut consulting relationships than staff positions?
- What’s the difference between full-time and billable-hours employees?
- Why would anyone choose to be a billable-hours employee?
- How do you market me – and re-market me once I have an out date?
- Will Ferguson disclose my bill rate to me once I join the company and I’m hired to work at a specific client site? How and when do I get a billing rate increase?
- Are all Ferguson clients located in St. Louis?
- Do any of the assignments involve travel?
- What is the average duration of a project or assignment?
The Ferguson Difference
- Do consulting positions through Ferguson typically lead to full-time job offers from clients?
- How do the advantages and risks of being an IT consultant compare to those of a full-time employee?
- Does Ferguson offer any sort of training and/or training allowance? How do I use the allowance?
- How does Ferguson stay connected to its consultants when they’re working on clients’ premises for long periods?
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What is the outlook for IT projects in the St. Louis market?
The St. Louis market faces many of the same economic pressures and effects of corporate restructuring as the rest of the United States. The layoffs that accompany corporate cutbacks are producing a deeper talent pool of experienced and available IT workers, which means more competition for IT assignments. With credit tight and corporate budgets under intense review, IT departments are focused on mission-critical systems and technologies that reduce operating costs and improve efficiency. Managers demand skill sets that closely match available projects. Improving economic conditions will bring projects off the back burner, but in the meantime the IT outlook is sharply focused on essential IT support and relevant skills. -
With the IT job market under pressure because of the economy, why should I consider joining Ferguson Consulting?
IT has become a critical component of companies’ ability to conduct business, optimize resources, and improve performance. IT consulting is uniquely positioned to help companies achieve business goals because we provide flexibility, experience, and ready access to particular skill sets. Ferguson Consulting has developed strong relationships with our clients. Our track record of helping them achieve their IT goals means that they continue to rely on us even when the economy is bad. We have earned a place on the preferred procurement lists of nearly all of the major corporations and best firms in our market. We maintain those relationships by continuing to match their needs with the best people with the most appropriate skill sets. Making that match is especially important when companies are under pressure to scale back projects and concentrate relationships with their most productive vendors. Our experience has shown that when the economy begins to bounce back, our workload increases more quickly than full-time employee ranks expand. In addition, Ferguson’s female ownership and national certification position us for federal government projects. We are prepared to participate as new economic stimulus and infrastructure projects are introduced. -
What types of positions are offered through Ferguson Consulting?
The most common positions are as follows:
- Project Manager
- Development positions
- Data Architect
- .Net C# Developer
- Application Architect
- .Net VB Developer
- ABAP Developer
- Java Developer
- Data Warehouse Developers
- Network Designer
- Analyst positions
- Business Analyst-Application Development
- SAP Configuration Analyst
- Data Analyst
- Quality Control/Testing Analyst
- Compliance Analyst
- QA Technical Analyst
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Which skill sets best fit opportunities with Ferguson Consulting?
The approximate percentage of our work by skill set is as follows:
- Java Developer – 30%
- .NET C# Developer – 30%
- Business Analysts – 15%
- SAP – 5%
- Project Managers – 10%
- Testers – 10%
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What is the skill level required to be a Ferguson consultant?
Candidates must have very good to excellent skills in their core capabilities, a college degree, and at least five years of experience with excellent business references. As our clients raise the bar on IT performance, we continue to meet their expectations by carefully screening for the best match of IT and people skills for each assignment. IT professionals who expect to join the Ferguson team must submit complete and accurate résumés and handle themselves well in face-to-face interviews. -
Why do you require a face-to-face interview?
We have built our business by establishing long-term relationships with clients who trust us to provide only the most highly qualified IT professionals. We believe there is more to being a successful consultant than an attractive résumé and technical skills. We insist on face-to-face interviews because we want to be able to assess not only your technical skills but also your communications skills, how you interact with potential colleagues, and your ability to handle pressure situations. Our reputation reflects the confidence our clients have that we won’t send them a candidate whom we haven’t thoroughly screened. The face-to-face interview is especially critical in this economic environment with its deeper pool of candidates and rising expectations among clients. -
When the economy is bad, aren’t companies more likely to cut consulting relationships than staff positions?
We see more cuts in full-time positions than consulting relationships that involve critical projects. Clients count on specialists like our consultants to bring up-to-date knowledge and an efficient approach to these assignments. Times like these also make clients especially vigilant about personnel costs. A mobile workforce gives them flexibility. It also facilitates getting the best fit between personnel and projects, which is especially important in light of increased emphasis on predicting project costs and calculating returns. Our reputation and reach contribute to our ability to help clients meet their IT needs even as they look for ways to cut expenses. Our consultants can be part of available projects now and will be well prepared for additional assignments when the IT market picks up. -
What’s the difference between full-time and billable-hours employees?
Both full-time and billable-hours employees receive W-2s from Ferguson. Full-time consultants are paid an hourly rate for all hours worked and are eligible for paid vacation, holidays, sick leave, bench pay, training reimbursement, and profit sharing. Billable-hours consultants are paid an hourly rate for client billable hours only, until reaching 10 years of service, when 40 vacation hours are available. -
Why would anyone choose to be a billable-hours employee?
The costs of benefits and training, which are provided to full-time employees, are built into the rates paid to billable-hours employees. Some consultants – for example, those who get benefits through a working spouse – would rather have the cash to control themselves. In some cases, where we see limited opportunities for a consultant’s skill sets, we may offer only the billable-hours option. -
How do you market me – and re-market me once I have an out date
We market your core capabilities, and leverage your secondary skills wherever possible. We market current employees before new hires with the same skill set.We don’t wait until your current assignment ends to begin marketing you for your next job. Even in this time of IT cutbacks, we are working diligently to re-market employees whose skill sets match available IT opportunities in the St. Louis market. Typically the sales and operations managers will meet with you four to six weeks before the end of your assignment. From that point on, you’ll receive at least one written communication per week as to your status.
Our operations managers work with marketing reps to match new assignments with suitable consultants. We help consultants develop new skills to take advantage of opportunities on the horizon. We never submit your résumé without your permission. When you are re-marketed, we reassess your wage rate in light of current market conditions.
Because of Ferguson’s reputation for providing quality IT consultants and bringing a value-added approach to assignments, companies will continue to contact us when they have IT projects. We want our consultants to earn the available assignments, and we work hard to market their capabilities. At the same time, these are unprecedented economic times, and when we see skill sets that don’t match market needs, we think it is in our employees’ best interest to recognize that and focus their job search accordingly while working to refine their skills.
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Will Ferguson disclose my bill rate to me once I join the company and I’m hired to work at a specific client site? How and when do I get a billing rate increase?
Ferguson will disclose your billing rate upon placement and anytime thereafter. In fact, we respect our consultants enough to share with you the complete financial picture – including your costs and profitability – as a basis of mutual understanding and trust. Generally, we increase billing rates annually when it can be justified. To qualify for a rate increase, it’s essential you meet project milestones and take advantage of training opportunities. -
Are all Ferguson clients located in St. Louis?
Yes. Our clients are in Metro St. Louis, including downtown, the I-270 corridor, Clayton and Creve Coeur. If we place you with a client downtown, we pay your city earnings tax and parking. -
Do any of the assignments involve travel?
Occasionally, your client may require out-of-town travel. But we can’t recall a Ferguson consultant ever having to travel out of town for more than a week. -
What is the average duration of a project or assignment?
Projects typically have varied in length from six months to two years. Because we select consultants carefully, it is not unusual for them to stay on a client site for one project after another over a period of years. -
Do consulting positions through Ferguson typically lead to full-time job offers from clients?
On occasion they do, and we don’t stand in the way of clients who want to hire our consultants. But we’re not a permanent placement firm. We provide staff augmentation to clients, and we hire consultants who want to become part of our team at Ferguson. We’re looking for people who are passionate about their IT careers and don’t find the challenges they need as full-time employees at a corporation, where they might be on a single track and don’t have the opportunity to build a portfolio of marketable experience. -
How do the advantages and risks of being an IT consultant compare to those of a full-time employee?
If you’re a full-time employee in a corporate IT department, your professional development is determined by the dictates of their business rather than your career objectives. At Ferguson, IT isn’t our secondary business – it’s our only business. You choose the assignments you accept based on the ones that enable you to pursue your passion. The best way to protect yourself from unemployment is through training and client diversification to keep your skills current. And that’s what we provide our consultants at Ferguson. In addition, our consultants often develop relationships with clients who ask for them specifically, further ensuring continuous employment. -
Does Ferguson offer any sort of training and/or training allowance? How do I use the allowance?
Full-time employees accrue a $2,000 training allowance each year. The cost of training is integrated into the hourly pay rate of billable-hours employees, who are expected to cover their own training expenses. We attract the kind of people who want to invest in their sustained employability, and we’ll work with you – whether you’re a full-time or a billable-hours employee – to help you do that, even increasing your training allowance if necessary. While the training must be related to your professional career track, you can select courses that enhance “soft” skills such as communication or time management in addition to more technical training. Besides providing training reimbursement, Ferguson offers in-house classes and focus groups to all of our consultants on the latest technology when it’s new – even before we know if it will be adopted and by whom. -
How does Ferguson stay connected to its consultants when they’re working on clients’ premises for long periods?
We stay connected in part by providing the training and communicating the opportunities that allow our consultants to control their own destiny in the IT marketplace. In addition, we frequently acknowledge our consultants’ contributions to our clients’ success and we recognize our consultants’ service anniversaries every year. We also stay in touch through individual and team lunch meetings, discussion groups and social events. We’re always looking for opportunities to make our consultants proud to be on the Ferguson team.
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