As management consultancy recruiters we are rarely asked to find ‘raw’ graduates for management consultancies. But we take a keen interest in them because, two or three years later, they start to appear on our radar when our consulting clients seek Analysts or Junior Consultants.

After the dotcom bust of 2001, consultancies severely reduced their graduate intakes in 2002 and 2003. The consequences were felt from 2004 onwards. Business picked up, but there weren’t enough of these ‘Grinders’ (lower-ranking field staff) to do the data gathering and analysis. The effect is still being felt today, as competition for five-year experienced ‘Minders’ (mid-ranking project managers) is intense.

But it seems that the mistakes of the earlier years are not to be repeated. Graduate hire numbers - despite shakeouts in the City – are holding up. Accenture is maintaining its target of 500 graduate hires in the UK this year and, according to research company Trendence Institute, is the firm most highly ranked by students interested in a career in management consultancy (followed by McKinsey, Deloitte and PwC) [For the UK Graduate Recruitment Review as a PDF, click here] And as investment banking falls out of favour amongst students (although the banks too are keeping up the entry-level hire numbers) the consulting firms will have more candidates to choose from.

Accenture is reported to be offering a new, higher starting salary of £31,000 for 2008 graduates, an earnings figure similar to that which most junior consultants with twelve to twenty four months consulting experience earn at small-to-mid-sized firms in London. Just what that will do to salaries in these smaller firms remains to be seen. But it is an indication that new graduates are being keenly sought in the consulting industry, and that the mistakes of the past are not to be repeated.