When someone joins a consulting firm, it creates the inevitable day when they will leave the firm.  It may be after just a few months or several years.  We wanted to speak in this week’s podcast about the steps a consultant should take to leave professionally on good terms.

What are the major considerations a consultant should think about when leaving a firm:

It often depends on why you’re leaving a firm. I’ve seen people leave on good terms and bad terms and I’ve seen it have ramifications to their career years after they’ve exited the firm.
People leave a consulting firm for any number of reasons.  They may decide to leave consulting altogether.  Maybe they’ve decided that a consulting career is not for them or that they’re just burned out on it.
Consulting can be a launching pad for a successful career in some other industry. We’ve talked in the past about how people get a few years of consulting experience serving clients in a specific industry such as Healthcare consulting or financial consulting services.
Consulting provides excellent experience for them to move into a company in that industry and allows them to be far ahead of people with the same number of years of experience that have been with that company for the same amount of time.
Some people leave to go to another consulting firm.  When this happens, the firm you’re leaving wants to know the reason or reasons you’re leaving.
Did a competing firm just make a better salary offer?  Often, a consulting firm will offer you a higher consulting salary to steal you away. If that’s the case, some firms will make a counter-offer to match or exceed the other firm’s offer.
I’d advise against accepting this.  If you tell a firm that you’re leaving, you should leave.  I don’t believe in bluffing the firm just to get a higher salary.
I’m also not a big proponent of leaving a firm just because of the money.  There are so many other factors that influence how happy you are at a job.  For instance, the amount of travel, work hours or opportunities to move up and work on more interesting technology.
You may also leave a firm for another consulting firm because of its size.  Perhaps you’ve been at a boutique firm for a couple of years and would like to give a top tier firm a chance.  Or the other way around.
People who work for the large firms can feel lost in the shuffle after a while and want to move to a smaller firm or even start their own.

How do firms usually respond when someone leaves the firm?

It always depends on the situation.  For instance, if you’re in the middle of a critical project, the timing may put the firm in a real bind.
You can’t always control when you’ll get an offer from another firm, but if you want to leave on good terms, it’s always a good idea not to leave when your current firm needs you the most.
It also depends on whether you’re leaving to work at a competitor or for other reasons.
I worked at a firm once where, if you left to go to a competitor, you were asked to leave that day, regardless of how much notice you had given them.
If the employee left to go to another industry outside of consulting it was usually another story.  They often want to stay on good terms with you because your new company is a potential client.
I’ve also seen consultants leave their firm to be hired on at their current client.
Most firms have agreements with their clients that they won’t hire each other’s employees, but when a client hires a consultant, the firm usually allows it to happen in order to stay on good terms with that client.
I once saw it happen that the client I was working on hired one of our team members.  The consulting firm’s partner had a going away party for him at his house, inviting employees from the firm and the client.

Some firms make it difficult to leave on good terms.  How does one consider that situation?

Yes.  There are some, what I would consid