"Sometimes just to take on some work that you might not be sure if you want to hire someone full time or it's possibly temporary work.

IMHO tempoary employees (those hired for a sudden increase in work or to deal with a short term project < 1 year) are not consultants. While these individuals may be experts they are seldom involved with issues that have a major impact on the organization as a whole. For example you might hire programmers to develope a new application. (Tempoary employees). If you are planning a major change in your IT infrastructure you might want to hire a consutlant to help design the overall system and develop change programs that will insure that the new technology is adopted by the organization.

"I've seen people with less than a year or of experience billed out at $200 as consultants." $200 per hour or $200 per day? If I'am paying $8000 a week he had better be real good. On the other hand $200 a day equates to a $50,000 a year FTE.

Mike