Networking skills

Whenever you see the most successful consulting Partners in action, they seem to be natural networkers. People that can work a room, talk to anyone and everyone - and leave an event having made precious business contacts... that over time accumulate into an enviable business network and stream of new client leads.

Mention "networking" to consultants - or indeed any professional - earlier in their career and it seems to be a notion that fills people with dread. I for one love to be in a room of people that want to talk to me - but put me in a room full of strangers where I must make the first move: that's a totally different proposition! Are you the same?!

Having admitted to this, I personally loathe identifying a professional weakness like this and doing nothing about it. And so through some introductions via Ecademy I came across an organisation that specialises in teaching people how to network. We asked them to lay on an event especially for Top-Consultant readers and here's what they have devised for us. I'll feed back some of the gems of advice from the event on this blog mid-March time. But would be great to see lots of you there in person, so if you can make it on 10th March then do sign up for the event here.

And for those of you who are already experts at working a room, do please share your tips and your success stories by posting a comment here... Cheers, Tony

Recruiters adamant: 2006 will be a bumper year for candidates!

Here's some cheery news to share with everyone interested in the health of the management consultancy sector. For our forthcoming recruiters' event we asked the 250 attendees (a mix of HR managers and recruitment consultants) to assess the likely buoyancy of the consultancy recruitment market in 2006 - always a good indicator of how healthy the consulting market as a whole is looking...

On the back of a buoyant 2005, an incredible 81% of recruiters believe recruitment levels will be higher still in 2006. The remainder almost all believe the market will be as buoyant as it was in 2005. What other sector can boast that only 1% of executives believe the market will be quieter in 2006 than it was in 2005??

Here's to a bumper year for us all!

Tony

PS Here are those results in full:

Q. Do you envisage your company will make more hires / placements in 2006 than in 2005?

Significantly more hires / placements than in 2005
(35.53%)

More hires / placements than in 2005
(46.49%)

A similar number of hires / placements to 2005
(16.67%)

Fewer hires / placements than in 2005
(0.44%)

Significantly fewer hires / placements than in 2005
(0.44%)