Impacts of covid-19 on future opportunities

This is very difficult to answer, however, I can tell you that at the moment most consulting and non consulting firms will at least hold recruitment until they can better gauge the situation.

If your internship got cancelled, don't worry too much because it is not about you. Continue to prep for interview,keep in contact the company that cancel the interview and network with other companies.

Hello!

What seems clear by now is that this is truly harming economy, and in the next weeks we will see whether we are heading to a global economic recession.

If this is the case, and we indeed face a global recession -even if not as hard as the previous one-, this will have an impact in consulting. Why? Simply because there would be less clients, less engagements with the usual clients, and an overall freeze in spending.

This, for sure, will impact recruiting, reducing the classes of BAs and Associates for a couple of years, hence, different scenarios: 

• Once the offer is extended, it would be EXTREMLY rare that it gets rescinded. If so, I see more feasible that it gets postponed
• If you are interviewing, it will mostly keep running but only in VC
• If you are not yet in the interviewing pipeline, it very much depend on different geographies, but it´s likely that it will be postponed until further notice, when we all know more about this

Hope it helps!

Cheers,

Clara

Hi there,

it is difficult to make hypotheses on what will happen in the next 6 months given the current volatility of the markets; on the other hand, I would expect things to be better next year, assuming that for next recruiting season you mean 2021.

Right now some companies are still recruiting, but it depends on the company, practice area, geography and seniority. At this stage I would recommend that you work on networking, finding people in the company that can help you to understand if the firms in your target office are hiring.

If that doesn’t work, your best option would be to find an internship in a sector attractive for consulting companies to improve your CV (eg banking or strategy roles for big brands).

You can find more on internal connections and referrals at the link below:

https://www.preplounge.com/en/consulting-forum/hey-everyonehope-all-is-well-3176

Best,

Francesco

Hi A,

Regarding your first question, I would recommend you to contact with HR and ask whether their internship can be rescheduled to a later point of time. 

Secondly, now there are many people, who missed the opportunities, and there're not that many openings. In the future, it may result that competition for the limited amount of job offers will even further increase in the bar and become even more tough to get into the industry. So, you need to leverage your networking skills and be very well-prepared. 

I'm happy to help you in this process. 


Hope it helps.

Good luck!

Best,
André

I don't think anybody can answer this question, I feel though it's very likely that the interships can get cancelled (with an offer to do an internship next year).

Best,

Daniel

Hello,

No one can really know about the new hiring targets until we won't see which will be the impact of the corona virus on the economy. So far consulting companies are trying to move forward with the hiring process using the videocalls.
Yet, even if a global crysis doesn't mean that you don't have projects (think about cost cutting or restructuring process and about all business plans that have to be reviewd) it's likely that they will slow down (but not freeze) the recruitments until they won't understand what is the real impact of the corona virus.

Best,
Luca

Hi,

I don't think anyone has any insights here.

• For the full-time roles during the financial crisis MBB companies are still recruiting, however, the acceptance rate will be much lower
• For the internships - they will either get canceled (if we see the travel ban in summer) or the offer rate after internships will be lower

Best

Hi,
unfortunately, nobody now is able to predict the precise effects on each business. The 2 true facts today are that interviews are taking place regularly but online instead than face to face, and that many new consulting projects are being paused. Therefore if this lockdown continues for long it can cause a shrinking in new hires.

Best,
​Antonello

Hi,

Sorry to hear if you internship got cancelled. That's unfortunate but also not something in your control. It shouldn't affect your full time recruiting though. 

For the meantime, a few things you can try to do:

(1) See if you can find another internship (even if unpaid) that can add value to your next recruiting

(2) Do some pro-bono work or volunteering work. Such experience could potentially give you good stories to tell during the PET/FIT interview

(3) Stuy and practice case interview so you get a head start on the next recruiting 

Hope it helps,

Emily

Hi,

It highly depends on your location, company preferences, position. I can explain it in the following way:

Firms:

• MBB: less affected, interviews are still conducted, offers are issued for Q3 and Q4 2020 and Q1 2021; companies still have business and enough liquidity to survive; some offices expect to grow in terms of revenue for 2020
• Tier 2: highly affected, the general trend is that interviews are postponed, the majority of firms do not issue offers, some firms experience liquidity gaps and cut FTE or ask employees to take an unpaid leave
• BIG 4: less affected, advisory business experiences problems, but recurring revenue from Tax and Audit allows to manage through temporary uncertainty

Geographic coverage:

• USA: the strongest market for consulting, interviews are conducted, offers are issued, consulting revenues might even grow
• Europe: consulting is affected, but is expected to recover in Q3 and Q4
• CIS: consulting is affected, MBB and BIG 4 will survive, as well as Accenture, but boutiques have liquidity problems
• Asia: consulting revenues begin to recover, but Hong Kong political crisis still creates uncertainty around Financial sector and transportation (that affects consulting revenues from these industries)
• Middle East: MBB firms still conduct interviews, consulting business starts to recover slowly, low oil prices still slow down the economy
• Latin America: no info
• Australia: no info

Positions:

• Interns: affected, interns is a long term game for consulting firms (as well as a way to handle “monkey” tasks) and consulting firms at the moment are not super focuses on long term investments
• Junior and middle management: less affected, hiring is in progress across MBB and Big 4
• Principals & partners: less affected, consulting firms still look for experienced leaders

Programs:

• Summer programs: the majority of programs are cancelled, bad news
• Full time: highly depends on other factors

Career tracks:

• Generalists: generally affected as consulting firms currently have more demand towards digital and data driven projects
• Industry focused experts: depends on the industry, but oil and gas industry is affected
• Digital experts: almost not affected, high demand for digital projects and the supply of experts is weak
• Data scientists: not affected at all, consulting firms are heavily hiring data scientists

Hope this helps!

Anton

Hi there,

I suggest you ask HR about internships and will it be cancelled or postponed. 

No one knows how covid-19 will affect the job market. It's a huge competition now and it will even increase. 

Do you need any further help?

All the best,

GB