Management Consultancy

Recruitment Channel Report 2010

 Part I - Recruitment and retention trends 4
Recruitment trends 6
Retention rates 9

Part II - Recruitment channel use and Social Media 15

Part III - Historical trends in recruitment channel use 20

Corporate sites 21
Personal referrals 22
Newspapers 23
Recruitment agencies 24
Internet job sites 25

Part IV - Recruiter and media awards 26
Best individual recruitment consultants 27
Top 10 recruitment firms by reach 28
Top 8 recruitment firms by praise 29
Choosing internet job site suppliers 30

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Top-Consultant.com
 For most of the nine years that this report has been
produced we have enjoyed buoyant market conditions.
Understandably hiring sufficient consulting staff to
meet client demand has been the prevailing concern of
Consulting Partners and their recruitment teams.
Our thanks go to the 138 consulting employers /
recruiters who took part in our client survey and the
1,088 consulting candidates who participated in our
candidate poll, without whose responses this unique
data could not have been produced.

We publish this 2010 edition at a time when the UK We hope you derive valuable insights from this report
consulting industry has just undergone a savage and as always look forward to serving your needs as the
contraction. Within the last months market sentiment year unfolds.
suggests consulting has turned a corner and the sector
is growing again, albeit very modestly. But it’s also
acknowledged that 2010 will be another tumultuous
year, with post-election cutbacks in the public sector
bound to impact consulting practices and particularly
regional consulting practices.

As we publish this year’s report, the key concern of

our stakeholders is to understand the scale of hiring
we can expect to see in 2010 and how this will vary
from practice to practice. Only a secondary concern –
unlike in preceding boom years – is to understand how
consulting candidates can best be attracted, though for Tony Restell
our candidate readership this will be keenly watched Co-Founder and Director
again I’m sure. Top-Consultant.com

INTRODUCTION
Top-Consultant.com
Part
ONE

Recruitment and retention rates

Data collected from 138 management consultancy recruiters
 PAGE 5
Our interactions with clients over the last months, together
with the survey data collected in January and February 2010,
point to a number of significant factors that will shape the
hiring market over the coming year:
1. Hiring volumes will rise fourfold in 2010 compared
with 2009. Whilst this sounds like a dramatic change
in fortunes, we must remember that with 2009 as our
backdrop we are starting from a very low base. So the
anticipated fourfold increase could equally be described
as a market where hiring volumes will only be 60% of
what they were during the boom years of the last decade.
Overall the picture is one of a glass half full.
2. Hiring demand by practice area has undergone a sea
change in the last months and this is expected to
accelerate during 2010. The public sector practice areas
that kept many firms afloat during the downturn are now
scaling back significantly in anticipation of the downturn
that awaits them following the election – and indeed the
squeeze that has already been set in motion. By contrast,
private sector demand is increasingly buoyant and
SUMMARY
Recruitment Trends
Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010
Financial Services practices which languished in 2009 are
now looking to hire aggressively in 2010. Several other
private sector practice areas also anticipate a decent
upturn in hiring in 2010.
3. An expected deterioration in staff retention rates will
increase the demand for new hires; whilst an increase in
consultants looking to leave the sector will make it harder
for firms to replace these staff like-for-like with other
experienced consulting hires. Competition for candidates
will therefore increase more than the economic climate
might otherwise suggest.
4. The capacity available to support a hiring upturn – both
within consulting firms’ recruitment teams and externally
within recruitment agencies – has been dramatically
cut back in the last 12-18 months and shortages in this
area are likely to drive up the average cost per hire as the
market picks up.
PAGE 6 Top-Consultant.com

Analysis of key metrics for the UK consulting industry allows

us to produce an aggregate hiring profile for the industry. As
the table shows, required hiring volumes as a % of existing
headcount averaged around 33% during the boom years. This
figure fell to around 5% during the recent severe recession,
which explains why the hiring market has seemed quite so
morose in 2009. By contrast, it is rising sharply with every
month of 2010 that passes and for the year as a whole is likely
to have reverted to a hiring requirement of 20% of existing
headcount.

This statistic explains why recruitment agencies have

experienced a rapid change in fortunes in the last months,
particularly when set against the backdrop of a sector that
has shed 1/3 of its pool of recruiters during the downturn. It Figure 1: Required hiring volumes
also explains why job board advertising volumes have been
picking up consistently during the last months. We must be Recent
measured in our assessment of these figures though – for past - Modest
whilst a fourfold increase represents a very healthy step in Boom severe economic
the right direction, it is also being achieved by an industry years recession recovery
starting from an exceptionally low base. To put it in its right
Market Growth 15% -12% 2%
context, we must look at the activity levels that reigned in the
boom years and see that hiring activity will still only be 60% of from fee rate
what it was during the most recent recruiting peaks. 2% -4% -1%
increases
from volume growth
13% -8% 3%
(billable days)
Growth that can be
fulfilled through Spare -5% N/A 0%
Capacity
Recruitment needed
8% -8% 3%
to fuel growth

Attrition rate 25% 13% 17%

Fourfold rise in hiring volumes Required hiring

Recruitment Trends
volumes as a % of 33% 5% 20%
headcount

Market growth
For much of the last decade the UK consulting industry has
enjoyed revenue growth rates approaching 15% per annum.
This has almost entirely been achieved by an increase in the
volume of billable days sold, rather than by fee rate inflation
– a consequence of the fact that procurement departments
have driven an increasingly hard bargain with consulting
providers.
Not every firm has yet released their annual figures for 2009,
but based on those already in the public domain it seems
likely that the industry will have suffered a revenue decline
of around 12% during the year. Some of this will have come
about through a reduction in fee rates but the lion’s share is
actually a product of a ~8% decline in the volume of billable
days sold.
During the course of this year, it is expected that consulting
revenues will see a very modest return to growth. A resurgence
in private sector client demand is likely to be weighed down
by reductions in the public sector spend on consulting
services, resulting in only 2% revenue growth for the year.
PAGE 7 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010
Spare capacity
In the boom years a modest volume of new client wins could
be resourced by drawing on employed resources currently
“on the bench”; but any sustained increase in demand
translated quickly into the need for additional hires. During Why not try advertising
the severe recession we have just endured, the situation was
rather reversed, with consulting firms needing to scale back for consulting
significantly on their consulting headcount to avoid a massive
ballooning in underutilised staff. An interesting feature of
the modest upturn we are now experiencing is that growth
candidates on
is unlikely to be able to be resourced at all by drawing on
consultants “on the bench”.
Top-Consultant.com?
Those whose public sector assignments have been drying
up and who find themselves lacking a billable client project
to work on do not generally possess the private sector
experience, sector knowledge and commercial acumen Our low-priced advertising
that is being demanded by the rebounding private sector
client base. Hence a growth in private sector client work is packages allow you to see
translating immediately into the need for new hires – and
hires with very specific skillsets at that. for yourself the types of
results that recruiters are
Staff attrition experiencing by placing
The last piece of the puzzle is the expected deterioration in
staff retention rates that the industry will face in 2010. Given
their job listings on
that career moves in the last 2 years have been challenging Top-Consultant.com.
to say the least, it is no surprise that as recruitment picks
up more and more consultants can be expected to start
assessing their prospects with alternative employers. One of
the biggest surprises of the survey is perhaps that employers
do not expect a greater deterioration in staff retention than
we have factored into the calculation table above. Any Click here to find out more
underestimation of staff attrition rates would translate directly
into the need for greater numbers of hires and that is a factor
we must keep in the back of our minds as the year unfolds.
PAGE 8 Top-Consultant.com

One of the questions we were most eager to learn the answer More compelling still is the trend over time, where recruiters’
to was how employers felt their hiring volumes in 2010 would expectations are more positive than they were at the
compare to 2009. At the beginning of 2009 this same question beginning of 2008. Now let’s remember that that poll was
had very clearly pointed to the impending hiring slump that conducted before the collapse of Lehman but after the
we could expect to see unfold, so any change in sentiments troubles at Northern Rock had caused us all to be more
for 2010 would be closely watched. cautious in our business projections. Let’s also not lose sight
of the fact that the results from 2007 – at the height of the
boom – were noticeably more positive than they are now;
Figure 2: 2010 Recruitment targets vs. 2009 and for completeness let’s also restate that the 2010 figures
Make slightly Target for the must clearly be set against a far lower base of hiring in the
fewer hires year is to make preceding year than any of the other data points. So this trend
than last year, considerably
6.52% fewer hires is in no way a prediction that mass hiring will unfold in 2010,
Make as many
hires as last Make than last year, but rather that a decent improvement on the preceding year
3.62%
year, 13.04% considerably can be expected. For what it’s worth, our own expectations
more hires than
last year,
are that hiring will not be back to boom levels until the 2012
31.16% Olympics have been and gone.

Make slightly
more hires than
last year,
Figure 3: Recruitment targets 2008 - 2010
45.65% 50%
45%
40%
35%
30%
25%
2008
20%
Top-Consultant.com’s survey of 138 recruiters clearly shows 15% 2009
that over 3⁄4 of organisations expect to increase hiring this 10% 2010
year whilst 1⁄3 expect to do so aggressively. Again we must 5%

stress that this is against the backdrop of a very low level of 0%

Make Make slightly Make as many Make slightly Make
hiring in 2009, so for firms not to expect an increase at all considerably more hires hires as last fewer hires considerably
would be both surprising and worrying. But the findings do more hires than last year year than last year fewer hires
than last year than last year
very much validate our impression that a corner has been
turned.

Expectations point to a hiring upturn

Recruitment Trends
 PAGE 9 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Fundamental to our assertion that incremental project wins that in public sector spend. Whilst numerous private sector
will not be able to be staffed by consultants on the bench is practice areas show encouraging expectations of hiring
the expectation that public sector demand is tailing off and growth including Energy & Utilities, Telecoms, Media &
private sector demand is on the up. By asking employers Entertainment, Technology and IT practices.
to identify the areas they expect to be undertaking the
most hiring we have been able to prove that this is indeed
the expectation for 2010 and also to identify some other Figure 4: Recruitment activity by practice area
interesting growth projections by practice area.
Leisure / Lifestyle
A score close to 1 in our chart indicates firms expect to make
Science / Research
little or no hiring in that practice area; while the greater
the number the more hiring is anticipated. Two significant Facilities Management
changes leap out at you from the above chart. Firstly we can Chemicals
see that at the beginning of 2009 there was a minute amount
of hiring in Financial Services expected to take place; yet one Automotive / Aerospace

year on this has leapt to being the single biggest area of hiring Transportation
activity. As the largest source of private sector consulting
Distribution / Logistics
spend, this change of fortunes in FS is particularly welcome as
we look to 2010 and hope that the year will produce modest Education
growth for the consulting industry as a whole. Engineering & Manufacturing

Retail / Consumer Goods

Equally stark though is the collapse in hiring expectations
within the public sector practices. The single largest area General Management
of growth in the 2009 survey, this has slumped in 2010 and Purchasing & Supply Chain
is almost the mirror opposite of the trend seen in Financial
Services. It explains why growth expectations for consulting in Public Sector

2010 are not more buoyant, with the very real fear that public Technology
sector spend on consulting will be hit by the impending
Information Technology
general election. Putting a positive spin on this, the possible
reality that politicians discover they cannot make the massive Healthcare & Pharma
savings in public sector expenditure needed without the Telecoms, Media & Entertainment
involvement of external advisors may actually mean these
Energy & Utilities
cutbacks are nothing like as bad as is being feared. But
nonetheless, the possibility that this picture is borne out Financial Services
cannot be ignored.

Likely hiring patterns by practice area

1 2 3

Recruitment Trends Elsewhere we see other interesting changes. Consulting in

education shows an expected drop in demand to mirror
2010 2009
PAGE 10 Top-Consultant.com

For the second year in succession Business Process Figure 5: Recruitment activity by type of consulting
Improvement consultants are expected to be in the great
demand from a hiring requirements perspective.
E-Business

Strategy consulting, often the quickest to be hit in a downturn

Marketing & Sales
can also be amongst the last to recover during an upturn. In
many respects it’s the most discretionary type of consulting
IT / Software Development
spend there is – and this has spillover effects on the hiring
trends within strategy consulting. Given this, it is therefore Economics & Environmental
heartening for the industry as a whole to see a general Consulting
consensus that strategy consulting hiring will gather pace this
HR Consulting
year – one of the strongest indicators that as an industry we
perceive the worst to be very much behind us.
CRM
IT consulting entered 2009 having struggled with an
unsustainable growth period where revenue growth was
Finance / Accounting
far outpacing the industry’s ability to increase headcount
through quality hiring. This imbalance – and the total lack of
Technology
spare capacity at the time – explains why the sector entered
2009 perceiving there to be a massive hiring requirement
Outsourcing
in 2009. With that imbalance having been rectified – in
part by hiring successes and in part by a curtailing of client
Project / Programme Management
demand – it is no surprise to see the significant dip in IT hiring
expectations for 2010.
Strategy

Business Process Improvement

1 2 3

2010 2009

Likely hiring patterns by type of consulting

Recruitment Trends
 PAGE 11 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Looking at the data for 2008-2010, it is clear that over the

preceding 12 months firms have consistently seen their staff
attrition rates getting more subdued. The proportion of firms
only losing 0-5% of their consulting staff in the year can be
seen to rise over the period; whilst correspondingly the
proportion losing more than 10% in the preceding year has Recruiters – available
been falling. This fits with our opening analysis showing that
improved staff retention rates had accelerated the decline in
hiring activity that we have seen within the UK consulting
for a limited time only!
market.

Figure 6: Staff attrition rates 2008 - 2010

35%
30% At the time of publication,
all premium job listings
25%
20%
15%
10%
appearing on Top-
5%
0%
Consultant.com will be
Staff attrition
rates will
Staff attrition No change in Staff attrition Staff attrition
rates will staff attrition rates will rates will
added to Jobsite for you at
worsen
considerably
worsen a little rates expected improve a little improve
considerably no additional cost.
2008 2009 2010

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Staff attrition expected to deteriorate
Retention Trends
PAGE 12 Top-Consultant.com

When looking to the future, employers’ expectations are that Figure 7: Staff attrition rates 2010
in the coming year we will see a modest deterioration in staff 40%
attrition. The only surprise here is that the consensus view
The Consultancy
35%
is not for a more marked deterioration than this. Maybe this 30%
is a reflection of the fact that candidates turning down job 25%
offers has become a pronounced factor in the hiring market
these last months. A significant number of candidates appear
20%
15%
Careers Fair 2010
to be risk averse when it comes to leaving an organisation 10%
where their reputation is established and where they are 5%
clearly valued having generally avoided culls in the last 12 0%
months. But whether this can be expected to continue as the
Taking place on 24th
Staff attrition Staff attrition No change in Staff attrition Staff attrition
rates will rates will staff attrition rates will rates will
market further improves and job opportunities become more worsen worsen a little rates expected improve a little improve
extensive, that is a matter for some debate. We have kept in
September, this year’s
considerably considerably

our calculation a modest deterioration in staff attrition rather

than anything more pronounced, but any worsening of staff
attrition beyond this during the year would clearly give rise careers fair is expected
to the need to increase our expected hiring projections for
the year.
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and 2,500+ consulting
candidates. A discount
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 PAGE 13 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Two interesting findings from this year’s survey are i) that
consulting firms want overwhelmingly to make their hires
from the ranks of the experienced consultant. Whilst in
parallel ii) there’s a reduction in the number of experienced
hires who’ll be looking for a new job within consulting – with
increasing numbers planning to either stay put or to look for
a new role outside of consulting.
Figure 8: Desired hiring profile 2010
5
Taken in combination, these statistics paint the interesting
picture of an industry where not all firms will be able to hire
in the volumes they need – or will have to compromise on
the backgrounds of those they hire and open their hiring up
to a wider range of prospective candidates. Recent history
teaches us that the latter outcome is the more likely and it is
our expectation that hiring “must have criteria” will soften as
the year progresses and these hiring difficulties become more
pronounced.

Figure 9: Candidates’ career intentions for 2010

4
0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

3
Most likely to accept a job with a
consulting employer
2
Not looking to change jobs in the
next 12 months
1
Experienced Experienced Experienced Experienced MBA finalists University
hires from hires from hires from hires from the leavers / Most likely to accept a job with a
other industry Government City Finalists client organisation
consulting or Public
firms Sector bodies
Most likely to secure some other kind
of role outside consulting

Most likely to accept a job in the City

Most likely to accept public sector/

charity job

2009 2010

Market will feel tighter

Market Trends
Part
TWO

Recruitment channel use

and the role of Social Media
 PAGE 15 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

An overview of the candidate pool participating in this survey

The following candidate job search trends we will be

presenting are based on data collected from 9,000 Are you a Management
management consultancy candidates over the past nine
years. Candidates from all the major consulting firms have
participated, together with consultants currently working at
Consultancy Recruiter?
niche consulting firms and potential industry hires looking to
move into consulting.
Once a month the Top-
Profile of respondents:
Most this year were Business Transformation / Change Consultant.com team
Management consultants (23.6%), Strategy consultants
(21.4%) or Project / Programme Management consultants update recruiter contacts
(19.3%). The sectors that candidates this year had most
experience of working in were Financial Services (40.0%), regarding all the new
then Public Sector consulting (31.8%), Telecoms, Media &
Entertainment (26.7%) and Energy & Utilities (23.5%).
initiatives we’re planning,
Survey responses this year were generated via direct mailshots
free reports we’ve published
to the Top-Consultant.com readership; an invitation sent to
all screened consulting candidates on the Get Headhunted
and any forthcoming
CV database; promotions via Twitter, LinkedIn, Google News
and Yahoo News, Forum posts and by invitations sent to
promotional offers they
candidates by recruitment agencies. could benefit from. If you
Overall 63.7% of candidates have changed jobs within the last would like to be added
three years.
to our recruiter contact
list please email Graeme
Underhill.
PAGE 16 Top-Consultant.com

Let us now look back at candidate activity over the last 12 When looking at which application channels candidates used
months and specifically the channels used to look for new during their last job hunt, it is striking to see three of the
career opportunities. Every year we ask candidates to record recruitment channels being used by a far greater proportion
the channels they used and the number of applications of candidates than the others. Personal contacts / referral
that they made through each. Collating that data allows us schemes had been used by a greater number of candidates
to analyse the penetration performance of the channels than any of the other channels; with recruitment agencies
(how many candidates have used each) and the share of and internet job boards also scoring highly.
applications achieved from each of the six major recruitment
channels: Figure 10: Application channels used last time to apply for a job
80%
• Corporate websites
70%
• Personal referrals
60%
• Newspapers
50%
• Recruitment agencies
40%
• Internet job sites
30%
• Social media
20%
Personal Recruitment Internet job Corporate Social media Newspaper
contacts / agencies sites websites sites adverts
referrals

Candidate activity over last year

Social Media
 PAGE 17 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Despite consulting firms’ best efforts to drive up their share Figure 11: Share of applications generated in last job search
of direct applicants, only a little over 40% of candidates 35%
have submitted any applications this way – a statistic that
30%
has proven remarkably difficult to raise above this level as
25%
our historical data will later show. Social media sites and
newspapers generated applications from barely 1 in 5 of the 20% Why not try advertising
candidates surveyed. The latter is not really a surprise given 15%
the demise of print media and the low volumes of print
media job advertising that have prevailed in the last couple
10% for consulting
candidates on
5%
of years. The lack of impact of social media is quite a finding
0%
though, particularly as we will see in subsequent pages that Internet job Recruitment Corporate Personal Newspaper Social media
consultants do make significant use of sites like LinkedIn. They
use these sites, but just don’t seem to use them as a place to
sites agencies sites contact
referrals
ads sites
Top-Consultant.com?
hunt for jobs.

When the number of applications made by channel is factored

in, the lack of impact of social media becomes even more
pronounced. Social media sites in total produced less than Our low-priced advertising
5% of applications, compared with the 1/3 of all applications
generated by internet job boards. Personal contacts and packages allow you to see
referral schemes – whilst popular with candidates – are limited
as an application channel by candidates’ ability to apply for yourself the types of
to all the firms of interest this way. Sites like LinkedIn may
strengthen this route in coming years by extending people’s results that recruiters are
networks further and more importantly by making candidates’
existing networks more transparent to them. Corporate sites, experiencing by placing
meanwhile, have stagnated with an application share of
around 15%. their job listings on
Top-Consultant.com.

Click here to find out more

PAGE 18 Top-Consultant.com

Candidates were asked to score the likely channels they would
use when next hunting for a new job, both to allow them to
change their bias to allow for dissatisfactions with their most
recent job hunt and also to factor in new developments
they’ve seen affecting the market like LinkedIn.
As you can see from the chart below candidates clearly intend
to modify their job hunt strategies only marginally during
their next job search. What is particularly striking though is
the next chart where candidates’ past activity can be cross-
compared with their intended future activity – the correlation
between the two is unmistakable! Given this, it seems likely
that the share of applications employers’ will receive from
each of the hiring channels is likely to remain fairly constant
for the foreseeable future.

Figure 12: Channel most likely to be used now

5.5

4.5

3.5

2.5

2
Personal Recruitment Internet job Corporate Social media Newspaper
contacts / Agencies sites websites sites adverts
referrals

Looking forward
Social Media
 PAGE 19 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Figure 13: Channel matrix 2010

80% 5

70%

60% 4
Recruiters – available
50% for a limited time only!
40% 3

30%

20% 2

10%

0% 1
At the time of publication,
Internet job
sites
Recruitment
agencies
Corporate sites Personal
contact referrals
Newspaper ads Social media
sites
all premium job listings
% of applications penetration future use appearing on Top-
Consultant.com will be
added to Jobsite for you at
no additional cost.

Take advantage
by registering for a
trial advertising package
Part
THREE

Historical trends in recruitment channel use

Data collected from 1,088 management consultancy candidates
 PAGE 21 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Let us now look at the penetration performance of the Figure 14: Penetration - Corporate websites
channels and the share of applications achieved from each of
50%
the five major recruitment channels. Data on the use of social
media as a recuitment channel has been collected for the 40%

first time this year and as a result the historical trend data is 30%

omitted for this channel. 20%

10%
0%
Over the last few years we have seen a fall in the number
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
of candidates making applications directly via corporate
websites. Free text survey responses have suggested to us
that much of the reason for this fall is that the perception of
corporate websites is that they were primarily designed by
the firm to streamline the application process rather than to
maximise direct applications. This year, we’ve seen a slight
drop in the use of corporate sites and now little over 40% of
survey respondents report that they made direct approaches Figure 15: Shares of applications - Corporate websites
last year.
20%
Corporate sites seem stuck in a rut of being able to generate
only 14-16% of application volumes. 15%

10%

5%

0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Corporate sites
Recruitmentchannels
PAGE 22 Top-Consultant.com

For the last eight years, bounty schemes have consistently Figure 16: Penetration - Personal referrals
achieved high market penetration generating applications
from ~2/3 of all candidates. What’s more, as we shall see 80%
later, they have also been the most highly-preferred way for 70%
candidates to make recruitment applications in management 60%
consultancy. 50%
40%
Personal referrals will never be able to generate a massive 30%
share of applications – few consultants are so well-connected 20%
to be able to leverage many approaches through their 10%
networks – and indeed this year the share of applications 0%
achieved through personal referrals has fallen to just 11%. 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
However, it would not be wise to discount entirely the impact
that the continued growth of online social and professional
networking may make to the effectiveness of this channel.
Figure 17: Shares of applications - Personal referrals
Consultancies that are able to mobilise an effective internal
referrals scheme will be at a distinct advantage over 20%
competitors who cannot.
15%

10%

5%

0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Personal referrals
Recruitmentchannels
 PAGE 23 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Figure 18: Penetration - Newspapers In the main, the historic newspaper advertisers (direct
employers and recruitment agencies) have continued to
50%
switch spend to online solutions - newspapers have suffered
40%
most in the last 8 years with candidate penetration levels
30%
having fallen very considerably indeed down to just slightly
20%
above 20%.
10%
0%
Some newspapers are countering this and looking to
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
maintain what remains of their share of applications by
offering a number of agglomerated industry special editions
to advertising clients. Despite this initiative, newspapers are
now responsible for only 8% of applications from respondents
to this year’s survey.

Figure 19: Shares of applications - Newspapers

20%

15%

10%

5%

0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Newspapers
Recruitmentchannels
PAGE 24 Top-Consultant.com

Recruitment agency candidate penetration has held up much Figure 20: Penetration - Recruitment agencies
better during this recession than it did during the dot-com
100%
downturn. Back in the dot-com crash, minimising cost per 90%
hire became a real focal point of consulting employers – 80%
which played into the hands of low-cost sourcing options and 70%
harmed the recruitment agency sector. 60%
50%
40%
Noticeable during the last year has been a change in employer
30%
emphasis. Driving down the absolute cost-per-hire has been 20%
seen as less imperative than ensuring that recruitment costs 10%
are only incurred when a successful hire is actually made. In 0%
some respects consulting employers have been able to use 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
contingency recruitment agencies as an insurance policy
for their businesses. Pipelines of prospective new candidate
hires have been sustained by recruitment firms at no cost
to consulting employers - until such time that is as a hire
is actually made. Where hires have been made they have
Figure 21: Shares of applications - Recruitment agencies
30%
typically resulted in consultants being brought on board who
are then immediately billable on client work - and so the cost
25%
of the hire has been far less of a concern to the consulting
employer than tying the cost of the recruitment activity to a 20%
successful outcome.
15%
Of course recruitment channels live or die based on the volume
of attractive roles that they are able to offer to candidates; and 10%

so it is no surprise that if a greater proportion of vacancies

5%
have come to recruitment agents during this recession that
candidates should have migrated to using them more also. 0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Recruitment agencies
Recruitmentchannels
 PAGE 25 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

Internet Job Sites enjoy the highest share of candidate usage. Figure 22: Penetration - Internet job sites
Internet Job Sites achieved just under 70% market penetration 80%
this year having taken share from other channels consistently 70%
for the last eight years. It is possible that their use is plateauing: 60%
time will tell. 50%
40%
Whilst there has been some volatility in job boards’ share of 30%
total applications, they remain the single biggest source of 20%
applications accounting for over 1/3 of all applications made 10%
by candidates. 0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Figure 23: Shares of applications - Internet job sites

50%

40%

30%

20%

10%

0%
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Internet job sites

Recruitmentchannels
PAGE 26 Top-Consultant.com

Part
FOUR

Recruiter and media awards

 PAGE 27 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

By polling 1,088 management consultancy candidates, we are We asked candidates to help us identify the best recruiters
able to recommend suppliers on three different grounds: based on their own experiences. We asked them:

“If you have been particularly impressed with an individual

1. The best individual recruitment consultants in the UK recruitment consultant you have worked with in the past,
please provide their name & company so that we can give
market them special recognition”

2. The recruitment agents that have the greatest Eight individuals received the most praise. They are listed in
penetration or market reach amongst consulting no particular order.
candidates

3. The recruitment agencies that receive the most Figure 24: Best individual recruitment consultants 2010
praise (and the least complaints) from management Consultant Agency
consultancy candidates
Don Leslie BLT
Chris Sale Prism
One caveat we should state at this point is that selection
firms are for more likely to feature in this section than search Mark Pierce Michael Warwick Nicholls
firms. The former interact with huge volumes of candidates, Peter Nicholls Michael Warwick Nicholls
whereas the latter target specific individuals. As such, a search
firm that does a lot of work in the consulting space would not Angela Heath BLT
necessarily feature in the following sections. David Lancefield Selecture
Simon Trott Michael Warwick Nicholls
Richard Stewart Mindbench

Best individial recruiter

Awards
PAGE 28 Top-Consultant.com

As part of the poll analysis, we also track the applications that

the respondents have submitted to the various management
consultancy recruitment firms. This allows us to chart the reach
of the different suppliers. The Top 10 firms by candidate reach
are displayed below. As more than 60 firms were mentioned
The Consultancy
by candidates again this year, all firms appearing within the
Top 10 listings are in the top third of suppliers in terms of the
Careers Fair 2010
reach they have in the marketplace.

The other factor to consider is that some firms will have

well-maintained candidate databases that enable them to
proactively approach more candidates than this data would Taking place on 24th
suggest. Therefore this chart should mostly be viewed as a
barometer for how effective the firms have been at attracting September, this year’s
candidates via recruitment advertising over the last couple of
years. careers fair is expected
to attract 40+ exhibitors
Figure 25: Top 10 recruitment firms by reach 2010 and 2,500+ consulting

Recruitment agency
2010
rank
% of
applications
candidates. A discount
Michael Page 1 8.6 of 30% is available on all
BLT 2 8.5 exhibitor bookings received
Mindbench 3 3.8
Prism 4 3.8
by 28th May.
Hays 5 3.4
Consulting Point 6 3.0
Michael Warwick Nicholls 7 2.9
For a brochure call the
Reed 8 2.5
Top-Consultant.com team on
Selecture 9 1.9
Hudson 10 1.6 +44 (0)207 667 6880
Top 10 recruitment firms by reach
Awards
 PAGE 29 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

The penultimate question in the candidate poll is: Figure 26: Top 8 recruitment firms by praise 2010
“Are there any recruitment agencies you would particularly Rank Recruitment firms
praise, and why?” 1 Beament Leslie Thomas
And the final question asks candidates to record any 2 Michael Warwick Nicholls
disappointing experiences they may have had when working
with recruitment agencies. Taken in combination, we are able
3 Prism
to produce a league table of the Top 10 most highly regarded 4 Mindbench
management consultancy recruitment firms, as voted by
consultancy candidates. Our warm congratulations go to the 5 Selecture
following eight firms. 6 FreshMinds
Special congratulations must go to BLT as outright winners 6 PSD Group
in this category, candidate feedback about BLT was truly 8 Korn Ferry
exceptional.
8 Investigo
8 Rethink Recruitment
8 Timothy James
8 Wilton & Bain

Top 8 recruitment firms by praise

Awards
PAGE 30 Top-Consultant.com

Top-Consultant.com maintains a considerable lead over both

generalist job boards and other niche sites serving the sector.

… and also remains Consultants’ preferred site for finding

Management Consultancy jobs.

Figure 27: Regulartly review for consultancy job opportunities Figure 28: Best rated for finding a consultancy job

Twitter jobsearch Twitter jobsearch

MCA MCA

Consultantsboard Consultantsboard

Accountancy Age / Management Accountancy Age / Management

Consultancy Consultancy

ConsultingLadder ConsultingLadder

eFinancialCareers eFinancialCareers

Executivesontheweb Executivesontheweb

Totaljobs Totaljobs

Jobsite Jobsite

Monster Monster

Exec-Appointments LinkedIn

LinkedIn Exec-Appointments

Top-Consultant Top-Consultant

Choosing internet job site suppliers 0% 20%

2010 2009
40% 60% 80% 100% 0% 10%

2010 2009
20% 30% 40% 50%
 PAGE 31 Management Consultancy Recruitment Channel Report 2010

We’ve been involved in The National Online Recruitment

Audience Survey (NORAS) which polled 95,000+ candidates
in the UK, to assess the demographics of the 62 participating
job boards.
The conclusions solidified Top-Consultant.com’s market
leading position within the management consulting industry.

Other findings showed that the average Top-Consultant

reader has a salary of £75,100 with 56% having a postgraduate
degree and 27% having a professional qualification.
49% of our 115,000 unique monthly visitors work in consulting
/ strategy giving us far greater reach than any other UK jobs
board.

Figure 29: Job board reach NORAS ratings

NORAS Findings
Find out how your firm could attract consulting hires by:
• advertising on our websites
• advertising in our consultancy-focused publications
• accessing our CV databases
• running bespoke careers events
• participating in the annual Consultancy Careers Fair

CALL TO SPEAK WITH ONE OF OUR TEAM

For more information on Top-Consultant’s services or if you have any questions about the
data in this report please contact Graeme Underhill on 0207 667 6880 or email him on
graeme@top-consultant.com.

REQUEST A BROCHURE
Alternatively, please feel free to request a PDF brochure detailing our services. You may do
this online by visiting the following web links:

Top-Consultant.com – for management consultancy hires

http://recruiters.top-consultant.com/UK/clientcentre/Solutions.aspx

TopITconsultant.com – for IT consulting hires

http://www.topitconsultant.com/brochure.aspx

EMAIL US
Feel free to email our Customer Services team with any questions
you may have, using the address customer.services@top-consultant.com.

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