| Recruiting in a downturn: how to grow your team and your business |
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| | By Mindbench
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page 1
2) Capacity
building
In the short term,
consulting firms need to
think about whether they
need additional skills
to adjust to changing
client demand – by
enhancing their
operational consulting
or cost reduction
capability, for example.
They will need to change
the ideal target profile
to reflect this. They
may also want to improve
their own development
capability – in a more
challenging business
environment, they may
need to hire seasoned
business developers in
order to grow or sustain
business levels.
Longer term, the
market for consultancy
services is highly
cyclical and is
therefore likely to
return to growth in
2010. Fiona Czerniawska
of Arkimedia comments:
“Looking back over the
last 20 years, I think
that the consulting
industry works on
five-year cycles: three
years or so of
relatively high growth, | |
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| | followed by two years of
lower growth.” Firms
which can sustain lower
utilisation and
profitability through
2009, but retain
consultants or build
capacity through hiring
will benefit once growth
recovers.
The recession is a
great and rare
opportunity to build
capacity
cost-effectively due to
the increased
availability of good
consultants. Whilst
during normal times
consulting firms often
exit under-performing
individuals through an
up-or-out approach, the
quality of the talent
being released to the
market during the
downturn is often very
good or exceptional, as
firms often cut
indiscriminately when
restructuring areas of
their business. The
“switch premium” or
increased package that
firms need to offer, to
lure consultants away
from their existing
employer is also lower
due to fewer competing
offers. Faced with
potential redundancy and
dwindling promotion
opportunities, | |
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Maintaining high
consultant utilisation
levels will be one of
the key challenges over
the next year. Firms
which have multiple
service lines including
existing operational and
cost reduction
consulting should plan
in terms of who they can
transfer from their
growth and strategy
areas. Firms which have
international offices
could also consider
relocating consultants
from the UK to overseas
markets which have
better prospects. We
have already seen
transfers occurring to
Germany and Dubai, and
expect this trend to
continue with
consultants being
offered relocation to
Asia as well.
Developing and
utilising a pool of
contractors will provide
a useful variable
component to the
resource mix for
consulting firms, as
they are paid on an
as-needed basis. They
also can offer
flexibility in terms of
hiring the contractors
permanently once the
market improves.
Contractors can also | |
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| | provide specialist
skills which are in high
demand during the
downturn. Firms will
need to think about how
they develop their
contractor consultant
network and may want to
partner with a
specialist recruitment
firm to assist in the
search and engagement
process. When we founded
Mindbench in 2003,
contractor support for
consulting firms was the
first area of resource
management that we
addressed. At the time,
clients had made
significant redundancies
and were looking to
deliver projects
effectively without
significantly increasing
their fixed costs. At
the same time a
significant number of
good consultants wanted
more work flexibility.
We built a network of
the best contractors who
had excellent consulting
pedigrees and engaged
this talent on a project
basis with our
consulting firm clients.
Continued on page 4
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| | consultants are also
more flexible and
pragmatic in terms of
their career
aspirations. For
example, we have seen
good strategy
consultants becoming
interested in
operational consulting
work. These operational
consulting firms have
been able to tap the
analytical skills of
consultants who, under
“normal” circumstances
wouldn’t have considered
working in non-strategy
firms.
There is also an
excellent opportunity to
acquire superb talent
from outside consulting.
Within financial
services and industry
larger scale cuts are
taking effect and career
opportunities becoming
scarcer. At least one of
the Big Four is actively
exploiting the softness
in the recruitment
market as part of its
general strategy to
build scale over the
next two years.
3) Effective
resource management
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