Are things picking up? Recruiters / job hunters, keen to hear your thoughts / experiences

Robbie - we&apos;ve just completed a survey of 122 of our client contacts (predominantly consulting firms with a minority of recruitment agency responses). Will be posting an editorial about the findings in the coming days but the headlines in terms of your question are:- only 7% of recruiters believe a hiring upturn in consulting got underway earlier this year- 45% believe a hiring upturn is getting underway now or started earlier this year- 79% of recruiters believe a hiring recovery is underway already or will be by early 2010- 21% therefore believe it will be mid-2010 and beyond before a hiring upturn gets underwaySo essentially what we&apos;re seeing is a decent pick up in firms&apos; expectations of their hiring activity levels, but with a segment of the consulting market clearly much harder hit and not able to foresee a return to hiring anytime soon. This pretty much correlates with the activity levels we&apos;ve been seeing at Top-Consultant and the new assignment levels that recruitment agencies have been buoyed by in recent weeks.Hope this helps - and if you&apos;d like more input re. your career options it would be great to see you in December at <i><a href=http://events.top-consultant.com/UK/careerconference.aspx?ID=421>Your career at a crossroads – which way next?</a></i>Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

I think these are very optimistic forecasts considering the global economy still faces a real possibility of a double-dip recession

I understand your caution, but these projections must be set against the backdrop of the consulting industry having been declining at 10% p.a. in recent quarters and the recruitment taps having been all but turned off across the industry.With that backdrop it would be pretty shocking if there were not some upturn in the hiring activities of firms, even if that&apos;s just because a few more people decide to move on from their current roles and replacement hiring therefore needs to be restarted.The respondents are envisaging hiring volumes next year being less than half the levels seen in the recent boom years, so there are no rose-tinted glasses suggesting all will be fine. Just a modest improvement from what we&apos;ve seen in the last year...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

As some one who&apos;s been keeping an eye out on the market for the past 6 months I&apos;m definitely seeing an upturn in the job market. However this may be a seasonal peak in between the lows of summer holidays (Sept) and end of year (Dec). Certainly in IT oriented roles, particularly Financial Services. Mid tier consulting firms are only hiring to fill specific roles as the client/project pipeline is still challenging, but the benchrates seem to be declining which is a good sign. According to some agents, the larger consulting firms are targeting quality candidates who may be disgruntled at the lack of roles/promotions/salary increases at their current employer.

Hunter, what is your usual prey? Milfs?

Bass?

Crap! I knew I&apos;d get some flak for the alias. Maybe i should have suffixed it with " & Gatherer". E - yes Milfs, and your mum is on my list ;-)

The full write-up of these findings has just been published:<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=6216>Consulting market shrinks by 10% but is now primed for hiring recovery</a>Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com