ConsultantNinja has an older but excellent post painting a picture of the prospect for jobs in the consulting market. The upshot of his annecdotes are that demand (for candidates) is down and supply is up. (Note: ConsultantNinja also has a later post that characterizes the current market as "the worst time in the last 20 years to try and get into consulting").
I'd complement some of his thoughts with a couple of things I've seen at the business schools and with clients:
- As a gross simplification, I think of many of the business schools (pre-market collapse) as placing roughly 1/3 of folks into each corporate, consulting, and investment banking positions. If you have talked to any of the b-school students receiving investment banking offers this past year, a ton of offers were rescinded after the global economic collapse. Those one third of students that were seeking i-banking jobs – now they have become competition for consulting jobs (although I am mixing apples and oranges and cutting some corners, that one-third has now become two-thirds). With that context, is easy to see why one of the BCG recruiters that ConsultantNinja captures in his annecdotes indicates that attendence at (presumably recruiting) events has doubled.
- Although the global downturn has probably affected more than double the number of countries as compared to the "typical" post-war recession, money still appears to be alive and well in the Middle East. My team has had some engagements and activity in places like Dubai/UAE, Egypt, and Morocco, and themes have been around launching new services and infrastructure upgrades (as compared to cost-cutting themes that seem to have top-of-mind in many other geographies). So I would concur with ConsultantNinja that those seeking consulting opportunities may want to look to the Middle East.