New Generation Consultants

Posted on April 16, 2007
Filed Under Consulting, Management |

This is an excerpt from Consulting Magazine. It talks about the generation gap that exists with the new crop of campus recruits (specific to consulting). The magazine points out that these recruits are starkly different from their predecessors. It calls on the leaders who want to attract and motivate new talent need to correctly identify the differences. And the differences are:

Old Age	New Generation
We get 98% of our hires from 3 B-Schools	20% of our workforce is in semi-retirement
I get 3 weeks vacation - but I never take it!	I want to work for 12 months - and then take a 3-month sabbatical.
I hope to be doing this in 10 years as a partner.	How will this prepare me for a career in industry?
What a great offer! Let me talk it over with my wife.	Your offer is at least intriguing. But I'll have to talk it over with my tribe.
If you don't come in on Saturday, don't even bother coming in on Sunday.	Sure, you can work from home.

Julie Howard, president & COO of Navigant Consulting, says

They view that they have greater opportunities and perhaps greater social responsibilities in this world than we did coming out of college. And, therefore, you know, they should be thinking about giving back to communities. They may think about trying a bunch of different types of work opportunities. They may think about going back to school in ways that we never thought about it. So we are facing a different generation that views how they work, where they work, how long they work, and those opportunities that this world affords them differently. And that’s okay. But then this behooves all professional service companies to rethink their strategies.

Howard goes on to suggest a rethinking of business model and recruiting strategies. I think it is bigger than just a model change. When there is a mix of old age consultants and the new cadets, there will be noticeable clash of habits and personalities. Habits mould the culture of an organization. Problems arise when the world changes (like new expectation of new age consultants) but the old habits stay. People need to change with the times, provide new set of responses that hold more promise to the future.

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