| Hiring update – how bad is it out there? |
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| | By Tony Restell,
Founding Director of
Top-Consultant.com
So how bad have
things got in the
consulting recruitment
space? In a nutshell I’d
say they’ve been pretty
atrocious of late – but
I’d add that there are
now an increasing number
of reasons for optimism
on the hiring front,
which should hopefully
spell good news for
consulting candidates as
we move into the second
half of 2009.
In the 15-odd years
I’ve been involved in
the consulting industry,
I’ve never seen hiring
intentions as bleak as
they’ve been in the last
six months. It’s the
paralysis more than
anything that’s been
devastating for those on
the lookout for a new
consulting job.
In the dot-com crunch
earlier this decade,
consulting firms were
slow to appreciate that
growth in demand for
their services was
faltering – and so
aggressive hiring
continued for a few
months longer than it
ought to have done. That
was followed by a swift
period of redress when
mass culling of staff
brought consulting
headcount back into line | |
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| | with the prevailing
level of client demand.
That made for some
gruesome headlines at
the time, but in reality
hiring activity was only
subdued for a short
period while this
rebalancing was taking
place.
Fast-forward to the
current crisis and what
we’ve seen is a
hesitancy to embark on
recruitment that has
dragged on and on for
the best part of a year
now. In fact, I can
think of one big firm
that initiated a
recruitment freeze 18
months ago, more or less
as soon as the Northern
Rock collapse took
place. Many firms –
perhaps even the
majority of the larger
brands – have had some
form of recruitment
freeze or recruitment
squeeze in place for
much of the last nine to
12 months.
This has all stemmed
from a fundamental lack
of visibility as to the
volumes of work that the
firms might have in the
months ahead. All the
while, firms have seen
order books shrinking
and clients pushing out
decision dates for
potential new pieces of
work. As a result there
has been a reluctance to | |
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| | hire resources who might
ultimately be left
sitting on the bench for
several months. This has
created the paralysis in
recruitment that I
referred to earlier. In
many firms there’s been
a desire to hire but not
the conviction that
hiring campaigns could
yet be embarked upon.
Where an ongoing
shortage of client work
has been pretty much
certain – most notably
in strategy consulting –
I’ve heard of numerous
firms that have
essentially written off
the prospects of any
further recruitment in
2009. So things have
been pretty bleak – and
nowhere more so than in
those strategy
practices.
This is so far
reading like a pretty
gloomy assessment of
where we’re at. It’s
more accurately a pretty
gloomy assessment of
where we’ve been in the
period since last
autumn. For now we are
starting to see definite
signs that things have
turned a corner (in the
consulting market that
is, rather than the
broader economy).
Continued on page
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