When Prestige Can Be a Curse - Terminated Consultants Face Harsh Job Search

"For those [management consultants] facing the exit, finding a new job could prove more difficult in the current market."  - Financial Times, February 24, 2023

The termination of about 700 consultants at KPMG could be just the beginning of major job cuts in that industry. The usual big clients such as banks just aren't buying, at least not as much as they had. For example, both Credit Suisse and UBS have reduced their use of consultants. 

FT reports that PwC is providing free services to some former clients in order to give consultants something to do. Professional anonymous network Fishbowl Consulting posts a question if PwC is conducting formal reductions-in-force and/or performance based cuts. Among the responses is that Deloitte might be embarking on swinging the ax. Here is the thread.

Most recently, a number of recruiters at EY have been put out in the cold. The hunt for talent has lost its pandemic heat. One of those former talent acquisition experts at EY  - Saira Sippy - tells her story on LinkedIn.

So much for the prestige of having been associated with a big brandname in management consulting. Once separated from that they will have to scramble, like so many in professional services who once had a good job and no longer do. 

Will they be forced to change careers? That could be part of the unraveling. Here is my article on career change, published in O'Dwyer's Public Relations. The transition is tough. That ordeal can be made worse, especially emotionally and socially, when the previous professional identity had been prestigious. 

We witnessed that in 2008 - 2009, for example, when elite law firms dumped lawyers at all levels into a glutted marketplace. Rare back then were law firms which didn't orchestrate massive reductions-in-force. Among those which hadn't had been Paul Weiss. Its new chair Brad Karp made it his mission to preserve the jobs of associates.

Some of those axed never made it back into practicing law. Among those I coached there were young lawyers with student loan debt who had to grab survival jobs. 

Currently a version of that continues to unfold when midlevel lawyers don't make partner in Big Law. The old saying usually applies: They have been to Paris, and now ...

The same phenomenon is playing out in media which, because of declining advertising, is cutting lots of talent loose. There you were at revered NPR. Now you have to hustle for work, often any work, in a glutted market. No longer unthinkable is a career change. AI Chatbots could make such a transition downright standard. 

Back in the mid-1970s I was a kind of early adapter in the crash from prestige to survival fundamentals. My doctorate was earned at a prestigious university. But the market for that knowledge base had collapsed. The experience was the shock of Paradise Lost. 

For several years I blundered badly in the search for a career path. That only gained traction after I embraced that my earlier branding - Ivy Leaguer - was a liability in the perception of many hiring. I removed that credential from the resume. 

Takeaway: Prestige belongs to the employer's brandname. It is not yours. Even if you aren't axed, as you move along in your career, such a credential is not likely in itself to open doors. It will simply be what you list on your LinkedIn profile. Meanwhile, one wonders if the listing is already a kind of anachronism. The reality of job search is this focus by those hiring: What results did you get yesterday and what results can you get today for us if we hire you.

Ah-Ha Moment: Maybe we always had been in The Results Economy but just didn't know it. 

Intuitive career coaching about your present and your next. Shut down the noise from that committee in your head and open to possibility.  In addition, Jane Genova is an award-winning writer on Human Resources issues.

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