| There's a fundamental reason top graduates choose the consulting career path - to be successful and to be seen as successful.
So why are consultancies failing to capitalise on this fact? |
| Time to reinvent the consulting career path? |
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| | By Tony Restell
Consulting as an
attractive career choice
is headed for a crisis.
The very reasons a
graduate might have
given for becoming a
consultant ten years ago
are now compelling
reasons to steer clear
of our industry
altogether. So why
aren't we doing anything
about this - and isn't
it time we did?
Let's take pay by way
of example. In the
nineties consulting was
a guaranteed path to
riches. Only banking
could claim to offer
better packages - whilst
any Uni chums opting for
a graduate scheme with a
blue-chip corporate were
clearly choosing
lifestyle at the expense
of earnings. Spend five
years in consulting back
then and you could
expect to leap-frog your
friends into the plum
corporate roles while
they were languishing
further down the career
ladder.
Getting ahead. Making
a success of your
professional life.
Herein lies the single
biggest weapon a
consultancy has for
attracting the best
graduates. It's an
as-yet unexploited
strategy in my opinion
and if you'll allow me
to explain I'm sure you
will agree...
But for the sake of
completeness let's just
finish looking at the
demise of consulting as
a career. Let's take
another major attraction
of consulting back in
the good old days.
Variety of work and
exposure to a huge range
of fast-paced
assignments. Well that
used to be the promise
and for many years
consultancies delivered.
But as our retention | |
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| | a stepping stone to
setting up in business
for themselves.
So why don't
consultancies appeal to
these desires, instead
of making promises we
can't keep?
Imagine this as a
recruitment strap line:
"Would you like to
become one of the most
sought-after telecoms
executives in just 5
years? We can turn you
into that high-powered
individual"
Could be taken
straight from the
recruitment pages of
Nokia, Vodafone or
T-Mobile couldn't it?
But wouldn't the claim
be more credible still
coming from a major
consulting firm? Isn't
that our real
competitive edge when
trying to beat corporate
recruiters? Turning the
individual into a highly
valued professional
whose skills will
ultimately be highly
transferable and desired
by the very clients we
serve?
You see we may not be
able to offer the same
stratospheric salaries
we could in the golden
years. And our client
mix doesn't lend itself
to promises of exotic
locations and
assignments in the same
way it used to. And for
sure any attempt to
compete on lifestyle
issues is doomed to
failure. But surely the
one thing we could
deliver on time and time
again would be a
commitment to staffing
consultants on a string
of assignments that
would guarantee their
success in their chosen
field for many years to
come. That's to say
re-establishing
consulting as the
fast-track career option
in the minds of
candidates.
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Take a graduate.
Promise them that in 5
years' time they'll be
be able to join
whichever telecoms
provider they choose and
then staff them
accordingly. Wow. Pretty
much a guarantee of
success. Appealing
because we all want to
be successful. Yet right
now we encourage
consultants to measure
their success by how
large their bonus is or
how glamorous their
assignments sound.
If we accept that
many candidates enter
consulting as a
stepping-stone to
something else then we
will find we are
uniquely positioned to
help candidates achieve
their longer term career
goals. That should be
our main selling point
this decade and beyond.
Anyone aspiring to a
long-term career in
industry or to running
their own business
venture should see a
consulting firm as their
ideal nurturing ground.
So what needs to change?
There are two things we
need to change to make
this happen.
1. A new staffing
process that puts
consultant preferences
ahead of utilisation.
Crucially the impact on
the bottom line will be
minimal if consultants
just stay in their jobs
a few months longer and
are marginally less
fixated by growth in
remuneration as their
measure of success.
2. A change in the
way consulting careers
are marketed. It's here
that guts are needed
because it requires us
to break from the herd
mentality and put our
necks on the line. It
requires us to
acknowledge that the
current way of doing
things needs fixing. | |
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| | That the industry has
changed and that we must
change with it.
Of course a return to
the golden years and
snowballing salaries
would make the need for
change less pressing.
But who would bet on the
days of consultants
naming their price
coming around again
anytime soon? And surely
even if those days
returned there'd be
financial gains to be
made by any consultancy
that shifted candidate
focus away from just
remuneration?
What prompted this
review of how we market
our profession to
potential recruits?
It was reviewing the
results of our retention
survey that made me "put
pen to paper" about this
issue. Reading pages of
consultant feedback it
struck me just how much
the industry has changed
in the last years - and
how we have failed to
adapt to the changing
times. By and large
consulting is no longer
the high-paying
jet-setting experience
that it was in the
1990s. Huge numbers of
consultants are
frustrated that pay in
consulting now lags
behind what could be
earned in industry; in
addition many are being
driven out of consulting
by the drudgery of
working on long-term
assignments that are
totally unrelated to
that individual's career
aspirations.
All of which made me
wonder if it isn't time
for a bit of
back-to-basics thinking
about consulting as a
career path and how we
market this to
candidates.
So who will be the
first to dare to
change?
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| | survey has demonstrated,
consultants today are
frustrated by the lack
of control they have
over how they are
staffed and regular
rotation on projects has
now been replaced by the
prospect of lengthy
stints on long-term
assignments. More often
than not these stints do
little to progress the
individual's career in
the direction they would
like their job to take
them. Staffing is
fueling the urge to
change jobs rather than
enhancing retention.
With consulting
clients having driven
fee rates down and with
the increasing
importance of
outsourcing and public
sector work it seems to
me we are wrong to
entice graduates into
the industry with the
hollow promise of high
salaries and dream
assignments. As an
industry we simply
cannot compete on this
basis any more. By
continuing to do so we
are simply sowing the
seeds of future
dissatisfaction amongst
our workforce. We are
setting ourselves up for
failure.
Here's a question for
you though. Why don't we
play to our strengths
and capitalise on our
weaknesses instead? We
know that a major reason
graduates enter
consulting is to make
themselves highly
desirable employees for
a major blue chip brand.
For others it is deep
knowledge of a sector
that is being sought as | |
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