I think that consulting is not great. We have this image of the high paying consultant who comes in, takes the big money for no work, while the day-to-day employees suffer, do the real work, for a small pay.

I think that's because most employees can't count. If you are paid a salary of 20$/hour, you think that the consultant who comes in at 80$/hour is making four times your salary.

But that is not true, of course. The consultant at 80$/hour may only have billed 10 hours in the week, while he spent the result of work on accounting, marketing, networking, training and so on.