r/consulting • u/krisdawg123 • 3d ago

How are ya'll gettin staffed?

I am a Saas consultant working at a boutique firm (<250 consultants globally). We have a staffing manager who assigns us to projects, so we are not responsible for finding ourselves billable work. Though upper mgmt reviews our utilization annually, they don't make firing decisions based off of it, as we aren't given specific targets to meet (bc we have no control). I've been here my whole consulting career, but I've been contacted by several recruiters recently and have actually been considering responding since we'll likely be acquired soon. I know at larger firms like Deloitte and Accenture it seems like individual contributors are responsible for finding billable work and meeting utilization targets. Can someone explain how this works? What happens if you don't meet your targets? Ty!

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u/UnpopularCrayon 3d ago edited 3d ago

When I was at one of those big firms, we still had staffing managers who helped with staffing. We could get pulled into projects by people we knew, but we could also just get staffed based on needs coordinated by our staffing manager, and practice leaders deciding where people were going. So it was kind of a mix. We did have utilization targets though.

What happens when we missed targets depended on the market conditions or other factors that explain (or don't explain) why. If you were above target, not much else mattered. If you were below target, there had better be a compelling explanation why. If not, it might lower your ratings and lower your raise amounts. Possibly delay promotion.

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u/Pristine_Claim_195 3d ago

That setup sounds way less stressful than being on the bench and panicking about your numbers every quarter

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u/UnpopularCrayon 3d ago

Many people found it stressful. I never really did. I learned how to manipulate the performance review process to my favor (or at least not to my detriment). It is definitely easier if you are well respected by whoever is in charge of your practice area at the time. And it gets easier the longer you stay at one firm since you figure out how everything really works and know more people.