Gautam Ghosh has both a good find and interesting comments on management consulting recruiting in the current environment. A few themes permeate his post: 1)laser-specific recruiting, 2) hybrid experience, and 3) focus on productivity. I can't really comment on #1, but as for #2, I have known a number of ex-consultants return to their prior consulting firms after having left once for operating companies (in some cases, the returns have been even more numerous than once). For whatever reason, returning to your prior firm (or even to the consulting field again for that matter) used to be much more rare. On #3 regarding productivity experience, this has been confirmed by account executives that I work in conjunction with – the turndown in the global economy has really created a stronger demand for those with operations or cost reduction experience (over other areas such as growth managers).
Update 2/20/09: An older post of mine that may be interesting to reflect on in a down market … "Don't Become An 80s Rock Drummer"
Actually, #1 goes with #2. I’m seeing much more focus on experienced hires in the industry, including top-level rainmakers. Thus, if you want to get hired as an unexperienced graduate, the selection has become even fiercer than it is in the first place. Hiring back people who have been with a consulting firm and then left for the industry, then, has the advantage that they already know the drill and can start bringing in new business from day 1 (at least that is the desired outcome ;->)
Florian,
Great perspectives. I was looking at #1 separately, but they can definitely go together as well.
Separate comment. Getting top-level rainmakers from the industry often requires good due diligence. Whereas consultants often tend to develop contacts with many folks and those that one might be able to sell engagements to (simply because of the project-orientation of the job), those from the industry may develop contact networks that are different. For example, when I use to work in the enterprise software area in industry, I developed lots of contacts with business development, account execs, and channel people. These contacts, while great, did not lend themselves as well as I would have liked when I shifted back to consulting (at least to the areas of consulting that I wanted to focus on).