Thought I would pen a few career-related pieces to help readers with securing a new job in today&apos;s tougher market. First one is now live - "<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=5687>How to secure job interviews in today’s tough economic climate</a>".Would be interested to hear your thoughts about this article - and in particular any suggestions for other topics you&apos;d like us to cover around the theme of job-hunting in this market.Do post your suggestions here and we&apos;ll use this input as the basis for future articles.CheersTony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Hi Tony,any thoughts about the graduate hiring market this year? (for start date June &apos;10) Will it be substantially harder to get into the top firms compared to previous years or will they anticipate an improvement in 2010 and modify their hiring targets accordingly?

That&apos;s an interesting question Du - could be one for a future article, though I suspect consultancies will not take a firm view on this until October / November time so it&apos;ll be hard to give a definitive answer until then.However, what I would say for now is that there are a lot of consulting firms who&apos;ve either forced this year&apos;s graduates to defer their start dates, or are encouraging them to do so. In essence then the firms will already start 2010 with a wave of graduates due to join who have already been hired in the last months, have deferred their start dates and who will therefore lessen the demand the firms will display for hiring next year&apos;s crop of graduates...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

How about a piece on working with recruitment agencies - finding a good one, pitfalls to avoid, controlling how your CV is marketed by them, etc? Reading this forum it seems there&apos;s plenty of material could be covered in such an article?

I can think of a lot of material I could share on this that would REALLY help readers out. Will craft a piece and publish in the coming days.Any other hot topics you&apos;d like me to address?Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Hi Tony, Do you have anything along the lines of "How to really know if a company / job offer is the right one for you?"For many people, accepting a job offer is a life-changing event. Your financial security, career, happiness and social life depends heavily on it. Yet, so often we make this major decision with only a few scraps of information we&apos;ve managed to grab off the web and the impressions we formed of the company when sitting through a few hours of interviews.So... What questions MUST we make sure we ask during the interview, or get answers to elsewhere, before accepting an offer if we&apos;re to really make sure it&apos;s the right one for us?Many thanks!

Related to the above... how about something also along the lines of "Should I stay or should I go? How to know when to move to new pastures."My thinking behind this is that many people may be fearful of the old "last in first out" approach to redundancies, and are hence staying put in this climate (keeping their head down until the storm blows over). There are a lot of highly experienced consultants out there that have mortgages, families and other commitments, and who have virtually zero tolerance of risk. They think that they would be nuts to change job in this climate... if something&apos;s not broken, why fix it? Yet, they may also know that they&apos;re under-paid and want to do something about it, but are nervous of change. Because let&apos;s face it, changing jobs when you&apos;re anything other than a fresh grad with no commitments is a BIG decision. What do we need to honestly ask ourselves in order to make the right decision when thinking "should I stay or should I go"?

Thanks Fred - these also look like interesting suggestions for another piece. Can see I&apos;m going to be busy in the next weeks!Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

OK - just finished writing my piece on where recruitment agencies fit into the puzzle and what you need to consider when working with them to get the best results:<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=5714>http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=5714</a>.Will turn my attention to the other topics next week.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Thanks Tony - I&apos;ve just read the article and it&apos;s a great no-nonsense piece.

Agreed, great article Tony. I&apos;m very happy to read a non satrical thread for once.

Are you able to actually suggest some good recruitment consultants to approach, as part of the challenge is just distinguishing the wheat from the chaff...

As a good starting point I would suggest the 5 recruiters who came out top in the 2009 awards we published just recently. I&apos;ve worked with them all for several years and think readers have definitely picked out some of the best recruiters you could turn to in this year&apos;s votes:Don Leslie (BLT)Chris Sale (Prism)David Lancefield (Selecture)Jason La Bastide (Aaron Millar)Rakesh Pabbi (Consulting Point)The full report by the way is available now for download from the <a href=http://www.top-consultant.com/recruitment_report.asp target=_blank>Recruitment Report page</a>Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Regular advertisers one and all... yawn.The best way to identify a good recruiter to talk to is ask people you know and trust personally to recommend who they have had a good experience with: in the current market it is likely everyone in MC knows at least ONE person who could recommend a recruiter.Fact of the matter is, if you look at the agency ads on TC, many of them are quite vague: I would suggest potential candidates shy away from adverts which are too broad/generic - often these are simply to attract CVs with no jobs behind them. Best way is to get your CV into the public domain and network: good recruiters will find you.

Mars - allow me to yawn back re. the suggestion that these recommendations are all advertisers on T-C. For 2 of the 5 that&apos;s not true. It&apos;s not my intention to back-scratch but to help readers - so allow me to recommend some other top recruiters who aren&apos;t Top-Consultant clients: Nick Coppin (excellent recruiter at Holker Watkin); Paul Blunt (ditto at Madison Maclean); Sam Gordon (ditto at Harvey Nash, for technology oriented roles); Keith Evans (ditto at Grosvenor Wright, for senior roles).As regards the comment that the "Best way is to get your CV into the public domain", I&apos;m assuming by this that you mean readers should get themselves a LinkedIn profile so that headhunters can easily find them? I&apos;d concur with that but would have to warn readers against getting their CV into the public domain by registering it on multiple CV databases. That&apos;s the sure way to make yourself look desperate and to have it end up in the hands of people you wouldn&apos;t want seeing it!Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

If I may share the good vibes a little, have spoken with half a dozen consulting recruiters in the last 48 hours who&apos;ve tentatively spoken of "green shoots" in terms of the new recruitment activity they&apos;re seeing coming through the business. I&apos;m not talking a champagne-popping change in outlook as yet, but it&apos;s encouraging to hear at least some modest signs of an upturn in consulting...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Thanks Tony, it&apos;s reassuring to hear that. Some of us consultants are feeling pretty battered by the recession and lack of job security at the moment. Knowing you can find another job without major problems is in my opinion key to getting a good night&apos;s sleep.

Have just published the 3rd piece in this series:<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=5732>"7 Tips for writing a compelling CV"</a>Hope this provides some practical ideas for tweaking your CV and getting some more interviews in the diary...Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com

Just posted the last in this series of job hunting articles, containing most notably our predictions for the likely hiring activity levels in the next couple of years...<a href=http://news.top-consultant.com/UK/news_story.aspx?ID=5874>The Consulting Candidate Reality Check</a>Enjoy.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com