If you’re into crypto, you probably spend a lot of time looking at charts — I know I do — but sometimes watching your net worth swing like a see-saw can get a little tiring.
With this in mind, I decided to look at a different part of the crypto market today: the job market.
It doesn’t get talked about much, but the blockchain has added a TON of jobs. It’s impossible to know exactly how many, but a quick look suggests most of these guys are into consulting and advising.
I’m getting 20–50 networking requests per day, and it seems like every other connection on LinkedIn has something related to blockchain consulting or advising in their bio.
But what is blockchain consulting?
Well, it certainly sounds impressive. The title “consultant” has a certain weight to it. After all, no one would hire you to consult them if you didn’t know what you were talking about, would they?
But then again, you can’t take anything at face value when it comes to crypto. Let’s dig a little deeper.
Blockchain Advisors vs. Blockchain Consultants: Which One Is Right for You?
My investigation starts on LinkedIn. While not the most official place for research, the site is a treasure trove of online employment-related information.
First, I searched the term “blockchain consultant.”
It brought up 4,375 results. Basically, we have around 2.6 blockchain consultants for every cryptocurrency currently listed on Coinmarketcap.com.
And I’m sure most of you would agree that there are many useless tokens (Dogecoin, I’m looking at you) floating around the cryptocurrency universe.
But are these blockchain consultants the Dogecoins of the job market?
I guess that depends on your definition of useless. But to be honest, it’s hard to tell what these blockchain consultants actually do.
And that’s not just because many of them are “self-employed” (a euphemism for unemployed in most cases). There is no consistent checklist of criteria that makes someone a blockchain consultant. Basically, anyone can claim the title.
Next, I typed in “blockchain advisor.” 1,700 results came up.
There are more than two times as many blockchain consultants as blockchain advisors, and that’s a little bit surprising.
Advising sounds a lot easier than consulting doesn’t it?
There is no barrier to entry, and you would expect to see more people doing the easier job than the hard one.
Let’s be honest. Anyone can give advice, especially when it comes to crypto.
Come to think about it, some guy on YouTube advised me to buy Einsteinium right before it crashed.
Does he count as a blockchain advisor?
I searched for his name in the LinkedIn results. But unfortunately, his profile was nowhere to be found. Maybe a recruiter scooped him up. If so, I wish them the best of luck (this is a joke of course, I never owned Einsteinium).
Despite not finding my elusive advisor, I did notice something interesting in the results. The blockchain advisor profiles were very similar to the blockchain consultant profiles.
This taught me something important.
Blockchain consultants are blockchain advisors who know how to make their profiles sound more impressive.
So, if you are a hiring manager who is debating whether to hire a blockchain consultant or a blockchain advisor, I suggest you go with the consultant. If nothing else, they will interview better.
What About ICO Advisors & Consultants?
Just like startups, 90% of new cryptocurrencies fail within their first 12 months of operation. And the ones that haven’t failed by then, could still fail in their second or third year.
Those are pretty terrible odds.
But there has got to be someone out there who can give these companies the knowledge and experience they need to succeed in such a daunting market. Blockchain consultants are good at making impressive LinkedIn profiles, but this calls for something a little bit more specific.
I typed ICO consultant and ICO advisor into the LinkedIn search bar.
There was a relatively large number of these guys compared to my earlier searches, 9,800 and 7,078, respectively.
This is a little bit surprising because you would expect a more specialized niche to have fewer profiles.
But what do ICO advisors do?
From what I can tell, they do a little bit of everything. In addition to doing all the things the blockchain consultants/advisors do, many of these profiles offered writing services, ICO reviews, and even legal assistance.
One profile even offered “spiritual guidance”. I wonder how much he charges per hour.
Next, I narrowed my search to the more technical jobs.
I racked my brain for the most hardcore blockchain-related job imaginable. I was looking for something so intense and technical that it would put those measly advisors and consultants to shame.
Finally, I found something that sounded brainy enough: “Blockchain Architect.”
I typed this term into LinkedIn. To my surprise over 25,000 results came up.
That’s more than double the number of ICO consultants, five times the number of blockchain consultants, and almost fifteen times the number of blockchain advisors.
The job certainly sounds hardcore, but apparently, lots of people are qualified to do it.
Next, I decided to figure out what blockchain architects do.
But instead of sifting through the profiles to get an idea of the job description, I decided to take a more objective approach.
I looked up job postings for blockchain architects and found a position listed by Oracle, a publicly-traded technology company based in California.
The job description is as follows:
“The candidate will work with global expert teams and product management on one side and customer departments both from technology and business side to define customer centric blockchain use cases.”
That’s certainly a word sandwich. But to my amazement, it doesn’t sound very technical.
I scrolled to the bottom of the page to get a better idea of what category Oracle listed this job under.
My jaw dropped when I read the word “consulting.”
Blockchain consultants, blockchain advisors, and blockchain architects are all doing the exact same thing.
About the Author: Kirill Bensonoff is a successful entrepreneur with multiple exits, blockchain investor and advisor. He’s also the host of the Boston Crypto Meetup, founder of the Boston Blockchain & AI Angels and leads the Blockchain + AI Rising Angel.co syndicate. Learn more by visiting www.kirillbensonoff.comand follow him on Twitter @prankstr25.