Smaller Consulting Firms Stand To Poach Top Talent Early In 2012

19-Jan-2012 - Smaller consulting firms and niche practices are looking to steal a march on their larger global competitors in 2012, according to an assessment of the market by Top-Consultant co-founder Tony Restell. Ever since the Eurozone crisis started sapping confidence in the industry, many of the major global consulting brands have opted to clamp down on hiring activities. "There’s an understandable reluctance to overhire and then have consulting staff either on the bench or having to be let go" comments Restell. It seems consultancies have learnt their lesson from the wave of redundancies and bad feelings that followed the dot-com crash a decade ago. But the upshot of this is that at many of the major brands there’s been little or no hiring activity taking place since October 2011 (with some notable exceptions, see the Top-Consultant jobs board for listings from those who are still hiring).

The interesting scenario now playing out is that there are hoards of consultants who had mentally prepared themselves for a change of consulting employer and a new career trajectory, who have literally found their career ambitions put on hold out of the blue. Read the forums and you’ll see candidates agitated at recruitment activities having been shut down more or less overnight, with no clarity or conviction in communications about when more active hiring patterns might resume. Candidate enquiries on this subject have dwarfed all others during the last months, Restell cites as an indicator of the anxiety that is being caused.

From activity so far in 2012, it seems clear that niche firms are the ones most likely to capitalise on the situation. Many have continued to thrive in spite of the changing economic headlines and significant numbers are increasingly active in the consultancy recruitment market. Thus far in 2012 they’re the most obvious place to turn for any consultant wanting to change their career prospects. From Top-Consultant soundings of candidates it seems that many will turn their attentions to opportunities at smaller firms rather than wait for the global brands to resume hiring once again.

Ironically there are tentative signs that some of the major brands are warming to the idea of restarting recruitment once again, so the window of opportunity for niche firms to capitalise on the situation may prove to be short lived. This all comes down to how much longer the Eurozone crisis drags on for – and how severe the repercussions are on consulting clients’ demand – which given the uncertainty attached to both explains why larger firms have found it hard to communicate a consistent and definitive message about when hiring is likely to resume.

Watch this space for findings from our annual survey of consulting recruiters, which we expect to provide greater clarity about likely hiring activity levels in 2012; and in the meantime expect to see increasingly numbers of niche firms actively hiring to take advantage of the uncertainty.