GUEST COMMENT: Banks are bursting to hire management consultants

Management consultancy is an industry that's much maligned and much misunderstood. 'A consultant is someone who tells you the time after borrowing your watch' is probably the oldest one in the book.

There are plenty of management consultants out there who have deep hands-on experience of working in banking. Many of them have worked with three to four different banks in a single year, giving them a rare perspective on norms across the sector. Equally, although consultants tend to be focused on a particular industry (eg. Financial services), they have typically been exposed to other industries too, enabling them to implement best practice from across the economy.

Banks clearly value this expertise. Consultants offer scarce skills and experience which they don't have in-house. It's not uncommon for the larger management consultants to charge clients 1-5k a day for their time.

It's fortunate, therefore, that there comes a time in the lives of many consultants when they want to bring their accumulated expertise in-house. Work life balance when you're offsite with different clients for many months can be poor, particularly when you have a young family. Equally, many consultants feel a lack of 'ownership' for the work they do, and wish to remedy this by moving in-house and working for clients.

Banks therefore have a valuable opportunity to make the most of consultants' experience. In consultants, they have a driven community of professionals who are used to working in an international environment with complex products. Many banks are unsurprisingly keen to hire them.

Rakesh Pabbi is Managing Director of Consulting Point Executive Recruitment, a specialist recruitment firm operating in management consultancy and the provision of management consultants to the Banking and Finance sector.