Did any one see Dragons Den this week? If so, did you see the management consultants trying to sell the idea of a website where people seeking jobs in a company are paired with employees of the company. The whole idea was based on the fact that employees get paid a referral fee and if they met a suitable job seeker they would make a referral.Anyone know which Firm these guys worked for? The dragons were not impressed with their idea.

did you see theo's reaction to their former careers?Great to see your entire industry derided and treated with the contempt it so richly deserves - a level of ridicule normally reserved for estate agents.

Cue ZB...IT Charletans...Accn....Giving the industry a bad name..so on and so forth.

Paul - you do realise both CareerMole.com founders are ex-Accenture SI consultants, so you're deriding yourself.

OMG! The judges on a reality TV programme didn't like something - that means I must not like it too. Quick - where's my copy of the Sun, I need some more deeply considered views I can adopt as my own.

To be honest it is not that bad an idea. Even if you dont get someone to refer you, you can get to meet people in the company you are targeting!

Ah what heck, fair play to them for trying to launch their own business. if it craps it'll fail anyway. But it still takes guts to do.

James Khan is the true professional. Even when he decides not to invest he is known to give out the sort of helpful business advice that you would normally expect to receive from a top management consultant.It takes all types though Paul. Dont let us put you off (despite the rather large chip you have on your shoulder regarding management consultants!)

But surely the key point is that all of these Dragons are hyper-successful, and yet none of them have an MBA from any, let alone a top tier, business school, or even I believe a first degree; and certainly none of them have any experience of Management Consultancy. So surely that leads to the question: why is it that these Dragons can succeed like this and yet no one who has been to business school (except perhaps Stelios) or has been a Management Consultant succeeds like this? The official propaganda has got to be wrong somewhere, hasn't it?

Dan u prat, the judges of Dragon's Den aren't the only people ever to have been successful - doesn't make sense for you to use them as your demographic.I'm sure there's loads of people that have done MBAs or worked in Consulting that go on to be successul in business.... I woudn't hold your breath though mate, I imagine tying your shoelaces poses a challenge.

The salient point is, why is it that successful people who own and run multi-million pound companies have such a visceral, immediate and negative reaction to the MC industry? Why did all the dragons support Theo’s reaction? What could their negative collective experience with the MC industry be? A massive gap between MC cost and actual value-add per chance?

I'm not saying negative sentiment towards MCs from industry people, particuarly self made, doesn't exist. It undoubtedly does. BUT, I think on this particular occasion their reaction was motivated by the 'irony' of the situation - so called business experts presenting this dreadful idea. I personally didn't read much negativity towards the MC profession from their reactions.

Come on, the dragons were being negative towards MCs. Like most people, it is the fees charged and perceived money that is earnt by MCs that makes them hated. This is because MCs are perceived to do a job that the clients team could do and MCs are known to use business jargon and bullsh*t every now and again.MCs are 80/20, 20% are good and really deliver benefits and value to the client but 80% are just average or rubbish. It used to be tough to get into a good MC. You needed to have a good degree, be <b>fluent</b> in english and have some impressive extra curriculars..<br>Accenture were very good at setting and maintaining this standard but lately almost anyone can get into an MC.

Accenture were very good at setting these high standards? My perception was that big IT orientated consultancies like Accenture are precisely why there has been a dilution in the quality of consultants. Now 90% of people representing themselves as consultants are IT &apos;charlatans&apos; rather than the high flying brain boxes that ran the consulting world 10+ years ago.

If you did a quick analysis exercise and looked at the backgrounds of the CEO&apos;s of FTSE 100 I suspect you would find a reasonable % had previously worked in strategy consulting and an even higher % had MBA&apos;s. The proportion would no doubt be higher in the USA. One of the problems in the "Consulting industry" is the wide range of jobs that now allow people to say they are a &apos;management consultant&apos;. The other major problem is the lack of formal qualifications, allowing every 50 year old chap who has been made redundant and charletan to proclaim they are a management consultant. You can&apos;t run around saying your accountant without passing a bunch of technical exams...you can in this industry!

"You can&apos;t run around saying your accountant without passing a bunch of technical exams"Not trueThe job title accountant is not protected. Any joker can call themselves an accountantEven some of the accounting bodies (CIPFA, in particular) are sh*t

i did 3 years in a top strategy arm. then moved to IB, where i realised i knew NOTHING. IT consultants at least are a skilled trade, MC consultants are worth less than the shoes they wear.

Pirlo, Thanks for your honest post. It is so true that you learn nothing in Strategy. I worked on a strategy project and all I could tell you afterwards where some stats that we had about the industry. As stats change over time, I realised that a few years down the line I would know nothing of value that can be transferred from that project.

Anon - I suspect you will have picked up more than you think. Whilst experience in strategy will certainly give you specific industry knowledge, which clearly does erode over time, the learning broader. The main transferable skill is the toolkit you build up to allow you to pull apart complex business problems.

Some useful data:1. Nearly every FTSE100 board has at least 1 (and often several) ex MCs represented2. FTSE100 firms that proactively use consulting as an extension to their business model consistently outperform those that dont (or only use MCs in a crisis)3. Even those hardened CEOs / Chairman who say they despise MCs (aka Leighton when he took over Royal Mail) actually recognise the value of content rich MCs. Royal Mail as the example continue to spend £ms on MCs every year.4. MC PR may not be great, but then our job is not to have great PR but make sure that through our inteventions our client do (after all we arent the ones who make the final call and have the shareholders / employees / clients to answer to)