Consulting companies take a cut and and working for one company closes more doors that it opens.
Businesses usually have a handful of preferred suppliers they source consultant from, as well as black lists.
One thing a consultant has to figure out is how the procurement works in places they want to join. Some things are surprisingly public, like many tendering websites. You do not have to answer to a tender directly, but you can always check who is winning and who is likely to need more people aboard and apply using that knowledge.
They do “take a cut”, but signing up and managing relationships with big companies is extraordinarily difficult, time consuming and expensive.
If you are working through one boutique consultancy you aren’t actually doing too badly. Sometimes you’ll be working through a system integrator, through a boutique consultancy, and through a staffing agency. And to some degree they are all delivering some value, simply because working with big corporates is so painful and getting direct relationships is so difficult.
Businesses usually have a handful of preferred suppliers they source consultant from, as well as black lists.
One thing a consultant has to figure out is how the procurement works in places they want to join. Some things are surprisingly public, like many tendering websites. You do not have to answer to a tender directly, but you can always check who is winning and who is likely to need more people aboard and apply using that knowledge.