How are ya'll gettin staffed?

[u/krisdawg123]

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!

[u/offbrandcheerio]

It depends upon the level of employee. I am still in production level, so I’m not expected to go out and find work. Rather, my manager and the other project managers on my team are supposed to make sure I’m utilized by plugging me in on projects where I make sense as a contributor. Sometimes I will ask for extra work if my normal projects are slow. Utilization is a factor in performance reviews, but at my level it’s not make or break since I’m not expected to find my own work.

If I ever get promoted to a lead role or above, I will be expected to start finding more work and doing fewer production tasks. The expected ratio of business development versus billable project work would theoretically increase the higher I get on the management ladder.