The Job Search Solution
What’s Happening in the Consulting and Industry Job Market Part I
Rich Lavinski Interview with Rich Lavinski: Rich discusses what’s happening in the consulting and industry job market.
Welcome. This podcast is sponsored by the jobsearchsolution.com. America is only 60 hour program of everything you could possibly imagine about how to find a job. The jobsearchsolution.com has successfully helped more than 100,000 people find a job as fast as possible. The jobsearchsolution.com. Welcome back and as we do every Wednesday evening, good night to welcome Richard Vinsky. He's a co-founding partner of East 57th Street Partners. He's been in the consulting business here in Dallas since 1981. He's their owner managed five consulting firms in that project management, talent acquisition, project professional staffing primarily send around financial and accounting consulting, but other types of business consulting. We're fortunate that he comes to us every Wednesday talking about what's going on in the consulting world. There's a lot of difference between permanent type of jobs and consulting type of jobs. The seed needs and he's seeking us about what's happening to the consulting industry and the job market. There's always a reason behind the reason which always makes it fun because Rich is so thoughtful about everything he speaks about. As always, Rich, welcome and what made you think of this particular topic? Tony, you're always so kind to ask. About two weeks ago I had lunch with two old friends who spent their entire careers in consulting. Now I've been in consulting a long time, but one of the two actually, as ancient as I am, has been in it even longer than I have. One of the two recently retired as a partner with one of the big four firms and then the other, who's been in this business longer than me, has had his own mid-size IT in accounting firm here in Dallas Market since the, oh my gosh, the early 1980s. He's been around a while and both of these people are really seasoned professionals. They've seen and traveled through a lot of ups and downs in the economy, just like you and I have. Like all of us, we work through the impact of these things and these two gentlemen work through the impact of their consulting practices as these economies have ebbed and flowed. What was interesting is each one of them had a slightly different perspective on what's going on in the market right now, while both agreed that the consulting industry is facing some slowdowns. We were old friends and a couple of us have slightly different political views, so we try to keep the noise of politics out of the conversation. But that said, we all agreed that the global and local economic situation has worsened a bit due to what we all know is high inflation and there's always this thing that we've been talking about for months and months, the potential of a recession. And so that certainly has led to many consulting firms reducing their hiring in 2024. And as we were having, or as I was getting ready for tonight's program, I went out on the internet and it's clear most colleges and business schools, especially the big name MBA programs, are reporting either a drop in the number of new grads being hired by consulting firms or deferral in start dates and more often than not, these MBA programs are reporting that both is happening. And then the other thing which was anecdotal in our conversation over lunch, but I've actually checked it on the internet as well, there is certainly a smaller number of turnover in the consulting profession. I think, you know, part of that is that, you know, unlike what we saw probably 2019 to 2023, where everything heated up so fast after the pandemic, where consulting firms were kind of pirating talent from each other and then of course their clients were also hiring away from them. Right now, people are tending to stay in place a little bit more. So, you know, the general consensus is, at least in consulting, you know, people aren't jumping ship and I think the three of us over lunch agreed that, you know, we saw this big growth, hyper growth, really, from 2019 to 2023 because of the pandemic caused lots of companies to navigate through disruption and that escalated the demand for consultants and probably other people in the job market. But now, you know, that's flattened out. It's not a bad market. I'd love to hear what you're seeing in the per market and regular industry. I don't think it's a bad market. It's just that it's slowed down and it only feels bad because we've had such hyper growth over the last three or four years. That's right. That's right. 2002, 2022 was so hyper right after the pandemic that we got used to it. We think, you know, we always have a tendency to think that whatever we're in is going to last forever. And we ought to have brains enough to know that nothing lasts forever. The upmarket, the downmarket, the nothing lasts forever. And we, and it's a good market. It's not a bad market. It's a good market. Could it be better? Yeah. Has it been better? Yeah. But if there's any place that's a good market that Dallas, Texas is a good market and it's still growing and it's still there. The jobs are a little harder to find. You've got to be more specific about your skills and your ability and you've got to fight a lot harder and you've got more competition for it, for them. There are many more people competing for the jobs. Most candidates don't understand, and I'm sure this is true in consulting too, that these folks are looking for a camo through their eye of a needle and they can get it if they want 3.5 years of experience, exactly that. And they can dictate the amount of money that they can pay. They'll, they can do it. And it's, it's there. It's not like it was a couple of years ago where a candidate can go out and demand the kind of money that they, that they were demanding. Hybrid kinds of positions aren't as, aren't as ubiquitous as they were. It's a lot harder. It's just, they're, they're positions that are there, but boy, it's a whole lot harder. So it's all relevant, you know. You look at these, you look at these markets and you've got to realize that this is still the best place to be in the country that I know of, but it's still, it's still tough, tougher than it was. And you've got to realize that you've got to go out there and work really hard, much harder than, than you thought you would have to. So time to take a break. That will do just that. Stay tuned. This is Tony. Be sure along with Richard Hinsky here on the Job Search Solution.