We've just finished compiling the results of this year's candidate survey, detailing the recruitment agencies you've had the best experiences of using, the job boards and newspapers you read most often and so on. Tons of insights and useful data for both management consultancy candidates and management consultancy recruiters alike. The full report is now downloadable (details below), but in particular I wanted to give special recognition to 7 recruitment consultants who were highly rated by our readers. We're always being asked for recommendations of recruiters that candidates should speak with - so here's a definitive list as voted for by you the Top-Consultant readership!
The following 7 individuals consistently exceeded candidate expectations in providing a thoroughly professional interface between candidate and client. Congratulations to:
>> Chris Sale - Prism Executive Recruitment
>> Martin Hancock - Prism Executive Recruitment
>> Angela Heath - Beament Leslie Thomas
>> Andrew Bott - EM Consulting
>> Nick Coppin - Acumen Search (formerly @ Madison Maclean)
>> Karl Mann - The Cornell Partnership
>> Victoria Lack - Prism Executive Recruitment
Hats off to all 7 of you!
Tony
PS a full copy of the report can be downloaded from this page
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
Monday, February 6, 2006
Salaries in Consulting
Big £$ salaries and Management Consulting used to go hand-in-hand, back in the good old dot-com days. With the consultancy market having rebounded of late, our suspicion has been that firms would be forced to pay more - come the 2005/06 pay review window...
... and now at last we can prove that this has indeed been the case. Our salary benchmarking report has just been published, based on data from over 1,000 participating management consultants. What's interesting is the wide range in salaries, pay rises / promotions and bonus payments of late. There have been some real winners in the recent consulting upturn - and others that have fared much less well.
Which category do you fall into?
Well now you can find out, because this report is available as a free download to all Top-Consultant readers. You can get your copy (in PDF format) from:
http://www.top-consultant.com/salary_report_2006.pdf
Any feedback on this year's report much appreciated. Do post your comments below...
Tony
... and now at last we can prove that this has indeed been the case. Our salary benchmarking report has just been published, based on data from over 1,000 participating management consultants. What's interesting is the wide range in salaries, pay rises / promotions and bonus payments of late. There have been some real winners in the recent consulting upturn - and others that have fared much less well.
Which category do you fall into?
Well now you can find out, because this report is available as a free download to all Top-Consultant readers. You can get your copy (in PDF format) from:
http://www.top-consultant.com/salary_report_2006.pdf
Any feedback on this year's report much appreciated. Do post your comments below...
Tony
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Networking skills
Whenever you see the most successful consulting Partners in action, they seem to be natural networkers. People that can work a room, talk to anyone and everyone - and leave an event having made precious business contacts... that over time accumulate into an enviable business network and stream of new client leads.
Mention "networking" to consultants - or indeed any professional - earlier in their career and it seems to be a notion that fills people with dread. I for one love to be in a room of people that want to talk to me - but put me in a room full of strangers where I must make the first move: that's a totally different proposition! Are you the same?!
Having admitted to this, I personally loathe identifying a professional weakness like this and doing nothing about it. And so through some introductions via Ecademy I came across an organisation that specialises in teaching people how to network. We asked them to lay on an event especially for Top-Consultant readers and here's what they have devised for us. I'll feed back some of the gems of advice from the event on this blog mid-March time. But would be great to see lots of you there in person, so if you can make it on 10th March then do sign up for the event here.
And for those of you who are already experts at working a room, do please share your tips and your success stories by posting a comment here... Cheers, Tony
Mention "networking" to consultants - or indeed any professional - earlier in their career and it seems to be a notion that fills people with dread. I for one love to be in a room of people that want to talk to me - but put me in a room full of strangers where I must make the first move: that's a totally different proposition! Are you the same?!
Having admitted to this, I personally loathe identifying a professional weakness like this and doing nothing about it. And so through some introductions via Ecademy I came across an organisation that specialises in teaching people how to network. We asked them to lay on an event especially for Top-Consultant readers and here's what they have devised for us. I'll feed back some of the gems of advice from the event on this blog mid-March time. But would be great to see lots of you there in person, so if you can make it on 10th March then do sign up for the event here.
And for those of you who are already experts at working a room, do please share your tips and your success stories by posting a comment here... Cheers, Tony
Thursday, January 19, 2006
Recruiters adamant: 2006 will be a bumper year for candidates!
Here's some cheery news to share with everyone interested in the health of the management consultancy sector. For our forthcoming recruiters' event we asked the 250 attendees (a mix of HR managers and recruitment consultants) to assess the likely buoyancy of the consultancy recruitment market in 2006 - always a good indicator of how healthy the consulting market as a whole is looking...
On the back of a buoyant 2005, an incredible 81% of recruiters believe recruitment levels will be higher still in 2006. The remainder almost all believe the market will be as buoyant as it was in 2005. What other sector can boast that only 1% of executives believe the market will be quieter in 2006 than it was in 2005??
Here's to a bumper year for us all!
Tony
PS Here are those results in full:
Q. Do you envisage your company will make more hires / placements in 2006 than in 2005?
Significantly more hires / placements than in 2005
(35.53%)
More hires / placements than in 2005
(46.49%)
A similar number of hires / placements to 2005
(16.67%)
Fewer hires / placements than in 2005
(0.44%)
Significantly fewer hires / placements than in 2005
(0.44%)
Thursday, December 22, 2005
Recharging for the New Year
A short post to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and enjoyable break from work.
Conversations with Consultants, FTSE clients, HR managers and recruitment agencies alike all seem to point to 2006 being a very hectic year for those of us working in the consulting industry. So do have a great break and come back in the New Year fully recharged and ready for a really busy year and sky-high utilisation rates!
Season's Greetings, Tony
Conversations with Consultants, FTSE clients, HR managers and recruitment agencies alike all seem to point to 2006 being a very hectic year for those of us working in the consulting industry. So do have a great break and come back in the New Year fully recharged and ready for a really busy year and sky-high utilisation rates!
Season's Greetings, Tony
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
Consultants - have your say!
It's that time of year again... it's the season to be merry...
... or equally it is the month each year when we give you the opportunity to have a right go at that recruitment consultant who's been totally unprofessional and hopeless in helping you get a new consulting job. Or to praise one that's worked miracles for you. And - on a more serious note - to identify the best strategies and recruitment partners for finding a consulting job in 2006.
So if you've done any job-hunting in the last year and want to have your say click here now. Our annual recruitment channel survey is published in February and this is your chance to both contribute to the findings and receive a free copy in due course. 1,000+ management consultants take part every year, if you've got 2 minutes to take part then head over to:
http://www.top-consultant.com/rc_questionnaire.asp
Many thanks & wish you all a fantastic run-up to Christmas. Tony
... or equally it is the month each year when we give you the opportunity to have a right go at that recruitment consultant who's been totally unprofessional and hopeless in helping you get a new consulting job. Or to praise one that's worked miracles for you. And - on a more serious note - to identify the best strategies and recruitment partners for finding a consulting job in 2006.
So if you've done any job-hunting in the last year and want to have your say click here now. Our annual recruitment channel survey is published in February and this is your chance to both contribute to the findings and receive a free copy in due course. 1,000+ management consultants take part every year, if you've got 2 minutes to take part then head over to:
http://www.top-consultant.com/rc_questionnaire.asp
Many thanks & wish you all a fantastic run-up to Christmas. Tony
Tuesday, December 6, 2005
Sign of the times...
It's an interesting sign of the times to see the consultant survey we've just been asked to run...
With the market for candidates getting ever tighter, what this survey tells me is that consulting firms are increasingly anxious to keep their existing staff happy and to maximise the chances of readers like you staying with your existing firm rather than moving on. You see the survey is all about gauging how Management Consultants like you perceive their work/life balance, career development... and all those other soft factors that make you decide to either stay with a firm or quit.
The results of this one are going to be examined in quite some detail by the vast majority of the top consulting brands. So if you'd like to make your thoughts known and would like to see a copy of the end report then click here to take part in the survey now.
This sudden angst to keep consulting staff happy ties in to a recent meeting I had with HR Managers & HR Directors from the world's leading consultancies. All spoke of their desire to grow their consultant headcounts by double-digit figures in the next year; yet none were prepared to stretch their hiring criteria to accept a wider pool of candidates...
... well no prizes for guessing that if you all want to employ 10% more staff but the pool of potential hires hasn't grown at all - well that's a lot of firms that are going to be left shy of their recruitment targets in a year's time. Or more likely, many will have had to compromise on their entry criteria - just as they did in the dot-com boom.
This explains the heightened concern about retaining staff and the industry desire to have this survey undertaken. If you're worried about hitting the recruitment targets necessary to grow 10%, the last thing you want is a chunk of the workforce moving on that must then also be replaced (and where will these replacements come from if entry criteria aren't relaxed?). Ergo, firms are acutely aware of the need to keep employees happy - and want these survey findings to tell them what they need to change to achieve this.
With the market for candidates getting ever tighter, what this survey tells me is that consulting firms are increasingly anxious to keep their existing staff happy and to maximise the chances of readers like you staying with your existing firm rather than moving on. You see the survey is all about gauging how Management Consultants like you perceive their work/life balance, career development... and all those other soft factors that make you decide to either stay with a firm or quit.
The results of this one are going to be examined in quite some detail by the vast majority of the top consulting brands. So if you'd like to make your thoughts known and would like to see a copy of the end report then click here to take part in the survey now.
This sudden angst to keep consulting staff happy ties in to a recent meeting I had with HR Managers & HR Directors from the world's leading consultancies. All spoke of their desire to grow their consultant headcounts by double-digit figures in the next year; yet none were prepared to stretch their hiring criteria to accept a wider pool of candidates...
... well no prizes for guessing that if you all want to employ 10% more staff but the pool of potential hires hasn't grown at all - well that's a lot of firms that are going to be left shy of their recruitment targets in a year's time. Or more likely, many will have had to compromise on their entry criteria - just as they did in the dot-com boom.
This explains the heightened concern about retaining staff and the industry desire to have this survey undertaken. If you're worried about hitting the recruitment targets necessary to grow 10%, the last thing you want is a chunk of the workforce moving on that must then also be replaced (and where will these replacements come from if entry criteria aren't relaxed?). Ergo, firms are acutely aware of the need to keep employees happy - and want these survey findings to tell them what they need to change to achieve this.
It's not every day you get to tell your bosses what's wrong with your job (not unless you're giving them a resignation letter at the same time anyway). So if you'd like to take the opportunity and take part in the survey then here's where you need to go.
We are in a candidate-driven market make no mistake about it. Long may it continue!
Tony
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