Hi. Was wondering if everybody could put forward the best consulting firm or the one they'd most like to work for and why? Im curious to see the outcome

Friendly, professional, growing....

Currently work at ACN. Would seriously consider a move to Delloitte - want to move away from IT stuff!

Left Deloitte for PwC - it's a much better atmosphere. One that hasn't been poisoned by the Anderoid Business Consulting prejudices. No 'nearly men' here!

Are you in the strategy group at PwC. I thought they were an accounting firm and sold their consulting arm to IBM?

Not all of the Consulting function was sold to IBM - just the techie bit. In the UK PwC has a thriving 'Performance Improvement Consulting' practice covering all the markets and skillsets that the old PwC Consulting had. Business is brisk, and the group is increasing in size. Within 2 years we will be back to the size of PwC Consulting prior to the IBM transaction. Work/life balance is a genuine priority, and is taken extremely seriously. As a result the atmosphere is progressive and enjoyable, and the view of the River Thames ain't bad either...

PA are the only entirely employee owned large consultancy in the UK, and it shows. Staff morale is extremely high, and personal honesty and ethics are key. I came from IBM BCS. The move has been like moving from Hell to Heaven !!

Thank you for that. Does the performance improvement consulting service oine take on graduates or only experienced hires?

The work is traditional, old style consultancy i.e. interaction on a human level with the client, with no IT architecture work. As a result there is no business need for the relatively inexperienced to 'gain experience' spending hours filling in excel spreadsheets. Hence, I have only seen experienced hires taken, but although no Grads have joined my business unit doesn't mean that they're not taken on elsewhere in Consulting. The experience levels needed are not gauaged in terms of eons though, a year or two client facing experience gained elsewhere, along with the requisite personal qualities, should be enough to get you a shot at gettin yourself through the door on a permanent basis.

PwC is starting to build up its performance improvement group, however, it will no longer be the same as traditional consulting work due to independence issues (subsequent restrictions on type of work engaged) and lack of appropriate capabilities within the firm. It is possible for them to build up this area of their business but I do not foresee this happening in the next 3-5 years. Whilst saying that, PwC is a good place to work at if you're looking for a good work/life balance.

Depends what you mean by best, but would certainly echo comments made by P1. Technically a lot of them are much of a muchness, so it all comes down to culture and what it's like to actually be on the team. Atos will be an interesting one to watch, as they are definitely positioning themselves as being culturally different.

Just wondering whether PWC PIC are recruiting at the moment? How do I apply into them? I couldn't see any PIC vancancies within the "job board" in PWC's site. I'm very much interested in working in this area of PWC and would appreciate your advice.I have 3 years experience in business development role within an aerospace blue chip and have experience in process improvement programmes (LEAN, witness modelling etc)

You paint an appealing picture. In the early and mid 90's I worked for a Canadian multinational promoting Personal Performance consulting and Life Balance which was an increadably rewarding part of my career. Having run several businesses myself over the interveaning years until joining my present company 3 years ago as a syetems user interface specialist I now find myself wanting to move into more main-stream consultancy without sacrificing life balance. I have no formal qualification only experience to recommend me. Would I fit the PWC profile do you think?

PwC recruits discreetly. Try Woodhurst (formerly Huntswood) who advertise on this site - they were certainly engaged to recruit for PwC PIC last year....

All consultants go by the flavour of the day/week or month/year.The unfortunate part is they ultimately donot deliver the results and make many strategic mistakes.In 70% of the cases the consultants advice does not work in the clients best interest.I can give hundreds of recent examples. After that it is a cover up and rationalisation to look gookY2KLines of bussiness structure in developing markets.Applying the European Standards of manufacturing and costs to Asian tigers. Clients left saddled with very high capital expensesin a low cost/low price markets.The petrolem prices? and trendsPrediction on technology eg CDMA versus GSM success.Internet adoption time phase?etc etc. Each of the big consultancy firms have a few skeletons for every success they talk about.

Simone,I was at ACN and have moved to Deloitte. If ever you want to make the move then get in touch. Deloitte are a true consultancy.darryl_peters@yahoo.com