Where did all the consulting jobs go?
"Where did all the consulting jobs go?" -- it's a headline I've had filed away to use whenever the current banking turmoil started to spill over into the consulting sector.
Yet after 2 days spent with 500-odd consulting recruiters, I have to conclude that the consulting sector hasn't yet been that badly impacted. With the exception of a few isolated hiring freezes and practice-specific redundancy programmes, there's been no bloodbath for the consulting industry thusfar. Indeed, within a couple of hours of the doors opening at our Consultancy Careeers Fair, word spread that one of the firms had already made an on-the-spot offer to a candidate visiting their stand. Towards the end of the event, a tour of the exhibitors confirmed each firm had earmarked dozens of candidates who were a perfect fit for roles they were currently looking to fill. So it's hardly all gloom and doom in the consulting market and readers would do well to remember that we've never experienced an absolute recession in consulting - only ever periods of below-average growth!
Clearly no sector is going to escape unscathed from the current economic turmoil - but it seems at least that the consulting industry has learnt its lesson from the dot-com crash and the over-expansion that necessitated mass-redundancies back then has not been allowed to occur this time round. And for now at least, new consulting jobs are still in relatively good supply...
Yet after 2 days spent with 500-odd consulting recruiters, I have to conclude that the consulting sector hasn't yet been that badly impacted. With the exception of a few isolated hiring freezes and practice-specific redundancy programmes, there's been no bloodbath for the consulting industry thusfar. Indeed, within a couple of hours of the doors opening at our Consultancy Careeers Fair, word spread that one of the firms had already made an on-the-spot offer to a candidate visiting their stand. Towards the end of the event, a tour of the exhibitors confirmed each firm had earmarked dozens of candidates who were a perfect fit for roles they were currently looking to fill. So it's hardly all gloom and doom in the consulting market and readers would do well to remember that we've never experienced an absolute recession in consulting - only ever periods of below-average growth!
Clearly no sector is going to escape unscathed from the current economic turmoil - but it seems at least that the consulting industry has learnt its lesson from the dot-com crash and the over-expansion that necessitated mass-redundancies back then has not been allowed to occur this time round. And for now at least, new consulting jobs are still in relatively good supply...
posted by Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com) @ 5:02 PM
23 Comments:
At 10:30 PM,
Sam said…
Well i hope i could have had the same opinion as yours. I believe that due to this recent turmoil on the wall street consulting industry is worse impacted because companies want to do the same job which consultants did internally or at a lower price somehow. Atleast i have this expereince. I am a recent MBA grad who got 2 offers for 2 consulting firms but both were put on hold because of market conditions.
I wish it would have been other way round.
Cheers
Sam
At 5:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
I have found myself out too, and the market is intensively difficult - more difficult than I have ever known it to be. There is great cost sensitivity it seems. What recruiting there is seems mostly to be for new graduates at low package costs. There are many more good candidates than vacancies.
It is hardly surprising with most companies having to cut budgets. The thing is how long will it be this bad and will it get much worse? Some are now looking for opportunities in Asia as the only viable route back into work.
At 3:20 AM,
Adam Durst said…
At times like this it may be best to focus on stringing together severeal small independent jobs.
This way you can undertake a variety of small projects.
This will give you more freedom..while you won't get the protection and employment safety of working for a big firm...your name will develop trust and you'll be more secure in the long run.
Consulting is all about trust and personal networks.
Adam Durst
www.mgmtpolicyconsult.com
At 10:26 PM,
Anonymous said…
I strongly disagree with the original post. There are a lot of consulting jobs that have disappeared...and for very good reasons. I am actually unemployed at the moment after spending the last 7 years in consulting (after business school). Additionally, I have a large network of people who work for many different consultancies, in various practices, and all tell me that bench sizes are rising quite fast. This issue has has everything to do with a very weak economy in the US. With stock prices tumbling in every sector, public companies have to cut costs in order to stay in business, reduce the risk of being a takeover target, etc. This means that many companies are not only cutting jobs, but they also are not paying for as many consulting projects. Fewer projects means fewer consultants needed as well as a reduction in both revenue and sales pipelines. Thus, there is every reason to believe that consultancies have greatly reduced job requisitions/hiring. That being said, it does appear that consultancies have continued to hire undergrads in the same numbers in years past. This is one group that seems to be immune to the reduction in consulting opportunities.
At 4:38 AM,
Jana said…
Certainly the big consulting firms are feeling the pressure. Look to see an exodus of staff from the big names in the months to come as firms, especially those with financial services practices, squeeze out headcount. There was a large wave of layoffs in the wake of the 2001 crash, and it won't be any different this time.
I've posted on this and similar topics at my blog, www.strategynut.com.
At 3:15 PM,
Anonymous said…
My interview with a significant firm in Australia was cancelled due to financial crisis.
Article is a thinly veiled promotion piece of job fair.
At 3:42 PM,
Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com) said…
"Article is a thinly veiled promotion piece of job fair."
I'm not sure why I'd want to promote a careers fair that had just happened. Neither candidates nor exhibitors have the use of a time machine to my knowledge, so nothing to be gained by that!
Rather the piece was then - and remains now - my view of the UK consulting market in what are undoubtedly quite exceptional economic times.
Speaking with one of the major consulting brands in the last week, it emerged they have both a redundancy programme and a hiring campaign underway simultaneously. Across the industry redundancies are selective and modest compared with what we all witnessed during the dot-com crash...
...so firms have learnt from past mistakes and not allowed themselves to become so over-resourced. Equally it is true that quite a lot of recruitment is still taking place - and I've met numerous firms who've hired people following the careers fair last month, so I'm not referring to just the pretence of recruiting here but to actual new hires that have been made and continue to be made.
Now of course there are roles being put on hold - and firms delaying decisions as a result of everything we're seeing unfold in the wider economy.
But had you recounted to me at the beginning of the year the raft of bad news and statistics that would befall us this year, I'd have been predicting a recruitment meltdown in consulting. And in this light I think the ongoing recruitment activity across a wide spectrum of consulting firms is to be seen as very good news indeed.
None of which is to detract from the nasty surprises that some employees will have faced in the last weeks, or the greater competition for places that undoubtedly awaits those about to embark on a new career search. But it's not all doom and gloom out there people - new openings are far more plentiful than they were back in the dot-com crash and for this we should take some considerable consolation.
Tony Restell
At 2:43 PM,
rob said…
Hi Tony,
I'd like to get in touch about something I think you'll find interesting.
Sorry for being cryptic - but I have to be for now! (Could you email me? rob {at} nonsenselondon {dot} com).
Thanks,
Rob
At 10:01 AM,
Anonymous said…
Quit nice blogs going on
these so so informatic also so intresting.
regards
kimmy
http://www.keystar.co.uk/
At 8:52 PM,
Anonymous said…
You are correct Tony in observing that there is both layoff and recruitment going on at the same time; but with your experience I would have thought that you would have been aware of why this is, from knowledge of previous downturns?
What occurs and is now occurring again is that outfits lay-off their more experienced and more expensive staff, and take on novices. This enables them to cut costs immediately and also to increase mark-ups and profits. They then effectively rip-off clients by fobbing them off with "consultants" with no experience, who are learning as they go along, at the client's expense!
This is extremely good for consultancy business, but not too good for clients.
At 6:13 AM,
Anonymous said…
Be interested to see if there is an update to this one Tony.
Down here in Australia it's a bit grim. I know we only have a relatively small work force, but all consultant level recruitment has been put on hold till late 09 or 2010.
All in all, it's probably the worst time in a generation to be graduating with an MBA.
At 6:22 AM,
Sam said…
Hahahaa...And i just did graduated with an MBA looking for consulting....So i guess i have missed the train now. :-(
At 10:54 AM,
Anonymous said…
Sam, it seems if you "just did graduated with an MBA" then you sure have missed it. I dread to think where you must have acquired that MBA.
At 3:41 PM,
Anonymous said…
That was a bit harsh! There was simply a comma missing between the "I did" and the "graduated with an MBA".
At 11:18 AM,
JULIET said…
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alena
www.sunscreenstips.com
At 3:13 PM,
Anonymous said…
I'm not so sure that I agree Tony. Shutters on experienced hires have come down early this Christmas across a majority of Management Consultancies (This coming from a 13 year eveteran in exec search in this market). Fear and hesitate tion are creeping in and slowing down the natural convection in this market place.
End-users appear to be cutting their budgets for change with many only interested in cutting costs. This isn't really helping IMHO.
At 3:19 PM,
Tony Restell (Top-Consultant.com) said…
A couple of months have elapsed since I wrote this post and some things have definitely changed in the intervening weeks. I'm going to write a new post now with an update, as things aren't so rosy any more...
Tony Restell
At 11:29 AM,
globaltruth said…
I think the original post is a typical bit of consultancy fluff - so facts to support (or disprove) the statement would be useful.
How many people have the big firms taken off/laid off in the last 12 months? last 3 months?
I realise that size of order books won't be quite such an easy set of facts to find...but facts are what is needed to assess the state of the market, personal experience is, of course, relevant, but doesn't help diagnose trends
At 5:40 PM,
Anonymous said…
How amazing is this. McKinsey has this reputation but it's all smoke and "translucent green mirrors" - a popular decor in their offices. While interviewing, I could hear the interviewers exchange jokes about me and other candidates right outside my interviewing room. Did they think I couldn't hear. I guess this is what they mean when they say they have a "fun" culture.
To be honest I wasn't too impressed with their consultants. While explaining to them my mathematical reasons for one of my answers, the interviewer, a partner I believe, seemed dumb-founded. Perhaps a little above his head. They later said that I didn't have the mathematical skills for the job. Oh McKinsey, please tell my Columbia math professors who I think would whole-heartedly disagree.
I give a solid "A" to their marketing department for creating this reputation of theirs. Probably explaining how they can charge their exorbitant consulting fees - well above the mean but not indicative of their number crunching abilities - which they tout. They certainly go overboard with displaying the pedigrees of some of their consultants on their web-site. But I can say that having that pedigree, it just merely conjures up popular notions about some sort of superiority. The pedigree has some great brand equity though, which McKinsey seems to pride themselves on, and sells to the highest bidder. As I said, I guess there's one born every minute.
At 4:40 AM,
James said…
There are still some good opportunities out there. I know of a number of people getting sales leads through a new Consulting Marketplace, worth checking out...
www.ExpertMagnet.com
Best of luck.
At 8:16 PM,
Anonymous said…
I've come across a good new website that helps place consultants with specific expertise to offer...
paretocentral.com
small but growing site that's all about connecting consultants and companies in need...
At 3:06 AM,
Anonymous said…
I have read this article with great interest. I have been in this business for many years and have been working in many countries. It is no wonder to me (now living in Thailand) that the consulting business in Europe and maybe especially for the UK is facing hard times. The reason is simple. Too many of the so called consultants have a very impressive degree from a respectable university and they know a lot about nothing because they only learn from books and from professors, who have deep insight in the theoretical world but they lack the knowledge about the real world. Many owners need assistance but from persons, who can fully understand them and speaking their language. Example: The banks only see the world from their own views having very little insight in the circumstances under which many of the customers are working. They pull the break when the figures get red, but why not start constructive dialogues with the client before this happens? The lack of this simple exercise has been the cause of many looses on both sides. No party benefits. All consulting companies ought to have this as a condition for employment: 3 years of practical experience in the real world.
At 5:58 PM,
Successful-Consultants.com said…
Too many people who call themselves consultants go from one full-time contract to the next. That's actually contracting.
A smart consultant will market themselves using a process. They will ensure that they have a pipeline of clients and regardless of their current situation, they will never stop marketing themselves.
The biggest mistake of consultants who struggle is that they do not effectively market themselves. In many cases, this is because they don't know how to do it properly.
Once they learn how to market themselves, it gets so much easier.
Post a Comment
<< Home