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Tips sought on what consultancy firms are looking for in recruits?

Thanks for all the extremely helpful replies & messages - there's a lot of really great ideas there which I will consider further over the weekend. One thing thats clear to me from the feedback here is that perhaps BD seems a more appropriate route to head for than consultancy, based on what I've read here and what I know of my strengths and interests.

Definitely a lot to work through, and I'll try and come back coherently post weekend.

Cheers,

Jim
 
I personally wouldn't go anywhere near LinkedIn. I know some people swear by it but it's not the safest way of getting you and your CV better known.

You'd be much better using LinkedIn in to identify organisations and individuals that you're interested in and contacting them offsite.

Incredibly there is a chap on LinkedIn with a similer background, same Quals, same area of experience and same bloody name.

When I turn up for a job I've got people googling me and Linkstalking me and finding this guy.

I'm not on linkedIn. I set up a very basic profile and just got spammed up and couldn't be arrsed to manage any decent content so binned it off
 
Incredibly there is a chap on LinkedIn with a similer background, same Quals, same area of experience and same bloody name.

When I turn up for a job I've got people googling me and Linkstalking me and finding this guy.

I'm not on linkedIn. I set up a very basic profile and just got spammed up and couldn't be arrsed to manage any decent content so binned it off

It's mind-boggling, the information that people put on LinkedIn. There is nothing that I like about that site.

True story: I set up a LinkedIn account with a fake e-mail address on a device that wasn't attributed to me and not with my real name. I soon started getting spam emails from LinkedIn asking me to hook up with people that I had worked with in the past but had never communicated with outside of work and also had never stored their phone numbers or emails addresses on any of my devices.

So what? The website has some very intrusive methods by which it harvests your data and establish who you've come into contact with in the past. No matter how you look at it, this is not a good thing if you protect your privacy nor if you intend to work for companies that are frequent targets for scammers, hackers and other assorted ne'er do wells electroniques.
 
Jim, your problem would be if you swallowed the "broadly deployable" B2 mantra...

If you have niche expertise leaving should be fine - but there is a queue a mile long to sell services to MOD.... if you have hung around sales and made some good o/s contacts that could be ok, but it's BD and for a civvy if you are out of that game people move on. Quickly. And frankly, people used to be plucked from those jobs by a direct offer.

Your OP shows the dreadful Icarus syndrome MOD has created, with accelerating people to a plateau in their 30s with very limited experience in managing people, with, for the majority, zero career progression thereafter with retirement many decades off. Inevitably, this dawns on them and their reports reflect the situation - and they fall away. The removal of annual increments makes this all the worse.

This might sound odd - but in the past, you might have been more fulfilled with slower progression, but managing people in increasingly bigger teams with the old increments?

It's sad for MOD that someone who is defence barmy is wanting to jump ship - but with the midiot scheme and the way in which internal talent is mismanaged, I expect it is the future.
 
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Going off topic I know, but you don't need a watch as a consultant.
  1. You borrow a watch from your client.
  2. You use it to explain the concept of time.
  3. You hire the watch back to the client as a service.
Consultancy in a nutshell.

Wordsmith :smile:
 
Consultancy means a major ability to BS. I've met many consultants who can BS for England and relatively few who've added value to a business. Are you strong on the BS front?
Spot on.

I dunno how old/senior you are, but my experience as an independent consultant is that senior consultants from the big houses are not employed to be good for the client, but to generate more income for the house, preferably charging the client for the time they spend persuading the client to spend the additional dosh.

Any real work is done by bright young grads. All the time, the goal is not to resolve client issues, it is to generate revenue. I have heard these people refer to it as 'farming', and it is repellent, to me, anyway.

Chances are you are not seen as having the potential to manage clients in a way that would generate the desired additional revenue. This being so, you might want to ask yourself if you really want to make money that way.
 
Run away from London, come to Scotland where disposable income exists, 9 to 5 is a standard concept, middle class people can still privately educate their children and the financial sector isn't populated by those who thing Wolf of Wall Street is an instruction manual.*

You just have to put up with the weather, the 1950s attitudes towards religion and the concerns about what the 1850s attitudes towards race will be like if the locals ever actually see an ethnic minority.

Forget about supporting the military full time, get a real job and rejoin the reserves. They'll have you supporting the military for only 20 hours a week.**

The grass is always greener. At least I think it is, I haven't seen anything green for a decade now.

* We don't talk about Gogarburn.
** Paid for 4 hours a week if you sign the pay sheet correctly.
 
Spot on.

I dunno how old/senior you are, but my experience as an independent consultant is that senior consultants from the big houses are not employed to be good for the client, but to generate more income for the house, preferably charging the client for the time they spend persuading the client to spend the additional dosh.

Any real work is done by bright young grads. All the time, the goal is not to resolve client issues, it is to generate revenue. I have heard these people refer to it as 'farming', and it is repellent, to me, anyway.

Chances are you are not seen as having the potential to manage clients in a way that would generate the desired additional revenue. This being so, you might want to ask yourself if you really want to make money that way.

As one of those senior consultants from a large firm, I'll respectfully disagree. My job when I'm on a client is to make sure we do the best job we can as a team. I review my juniors work, write my own stuff, and plan how we are going to meet not just the current set of issues, but also the next ones. I am my clients advisor - she (for she is indeed a womanladygirlperson) expects me and the team to be thinking ahead about how we make sure the next phase gets done.

Clients aren't stupid. They know what constitutes value, and what is BD. If I'm on site, I'm working on delivery. What that means is when the client is ready to buy, I understand what they need and am well placed to answer the question.
 
As one of those senior consultants from a large firm, I'll respectfully disagree. My job when I'm on a client is to make sure we do the best job we can as a team.

Well, in response I have three things to say.

The first is that you're seemingly a rare breed; the second is that our paths have never crossed (as far as I can tell), and the third is to quote Mandy Rice-Davies at the Profumo trial: "Well, he would say that, wouldn't he?"

No offence, of course. :)
 
I was a Director at a 'Big 4' firm...

...and I would urge you to look elsewhere for a job! From my personal experience, the Big 4, Accenture and McKinsey exist to make money. In order to make money you have to deliver value to the client (only fair), and on many projects this involves obscene working hours, and more time spent away from home than when with the Army. The Big4 also suffer from insane levels of office politics: too many people are spending a chunk of their time working out how to get to partner level, and the competition is extremely fierce. From what I've seen some excellent people make it to partner (and the 350k - 3M annual paycheck) but a lot of scum makes its way to the top as well.

On the positive side, provided you are making your sales numbers then they are typically great places to work in, provided you sign up to the whole "work together, play together" bullshit. I found my time there useful, partly because you do meet incredibly bright people and learn loads of stuff, and also there is a good chance of a client offering you a job (I was offered two roles, both extremely tempting, and without a young family I would have leapt at the chance).

The value of your contacts list is key - as has been stated in an earlier post. Build up your network: attend every piss-up and networking event you can in London (or elsewhere) and meet people. Don't be one of those who throws his business card at everyone in the room, but engage in conversation first, generate interest and then, before moving on (if the person hasn't already asked for your card), arrange to chat later or meet for a beer/coffee/etc. at a later date.

Apart from networking events, what extra-curricular activities do you do? Do you know any headhunters? If so, meet them for a chat. BTW: headhunters/recruitment consultants are only involved in about 30-40% of all jobs being offered, so don't be scared of applying directly to companies. A quick word of warning: the bigger the firm, the more stupid and shite will be their HR department. The quality of HR professionals in the UK is gutwrenchingly low: full-on PC retard.

Joining a Big 4 firm can be soul destroying: KPMG was ok (4 months from their initial approach to me to me sitting down in my office). PWC UK's recruitment process was so shit I walked away (almost exactly a year from first approach (by them), 6 interviews + exams to being told 'we want you to start in 3 months time'). Obviously though, a lot of people love it and thrive.

As for McKinsey and Accenture: I've friends at senior regional partner level, and they can be very good... however I just don't like their business style/flavour (especially the arrogance of Accenture, who in my region are robbing morons of little ability).

I know a headhunter who is an ex-sundodger. He's done a lot of recruitment into the Big4 (mainly in the ME). PM me if you want me to introduce you to him.
 

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