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"