Accenture this week reaffirmed its strong growth expectations for the UK market with the launch of a major new careers initiative that will see the company hire 2,700 new consultants this year.
March 2005 has been dubbed Accenture’s "careers month" and will see the firm run a series of five spectacular careers events across the UK as it gears up to hit these lofty recruitment goals.
Careers events are something recruiters often associate with booming recruitment markets. They are costly and time-consuming to organise, so often one of the first things to be dropped from a recruitment strategy during a downturn. In a tighter candidate market, however, meeting prospective candidates face-to-face can prove a very successful strategy.
So the return of the careers event is certainly a welcome development for all those hoping the boom years are back again. It’s certainly striking that Accenture has chosen to organise five major events in the space of a month – a huge undertaking and a tangible sign that the mood in the UK consulting market has well and truly turned.
The events are not small affairs either – the finale will be a careers event on board the London Eye, with several hundred candidates and consultants expected to be in attendance.
Commenting on the "careers month", Accenture’s head of recruitment Antonia Johnston said:
" Our business is our people. We have to recruit the best talent and the highest performers. We need technologists, consultants and industry experts, who have the technological and business insight to work with our clients. The market is competitive and we need to show people what they can get from a career with Accenture. March is about showing them our organisation – letting them touch and feel what it would be like to work at Accenture through a number of different events around the country."
A potted history of Accenture’s last 12 months explains the need to ramp up recruitment. Readers will recall the firm’s 2004 annual results revealed that the UK business had enjoyed strong revenue growth of 30% last year, with UK revenues breaking through the £1billion barrier to reach £1.3billion. The recent Q1 2005 results show there’s been no let-up in this momentum with Accenture UK actually highlighted as a growth engine for the whole firm. Yet there’s only so far utilisation rates can rise when consulting businesses experience growth of this magnitude and recruiting en masse quickly becomes business critical. The only question now is whether the recruitment team can achieve their targets and prevent resourcing from becoming a brake on growth.
http://www.top-consultant.com/UK/career/appointmentstwo.asp?ID=9422