working in a consultancy at the moment but definitely ready for a change. Good time to brush off the resume or total madness? thinking of looking at the Big 4 advisory practices

If you can find the right opportunity, go for it. It's always going to be a risk moving in this environment, but as long as you do your DD it's at least a managed risk :-)Big 4 (accounting) may be a little riskier than most given recent redundancy announcements, but patterns will vary from practice to practice.

No firm is any safer or riskier than any other, and longevity in your current firm is no guarantee either; if you are committed to a move this can be a good time to do it - plenty of consulting firms will be looking for make opportunistic hires of good people, and despite the redundancies most firms will continue hiring through the remainder of 2008 and through 2009.

longevity may imply a good pay off if you do get the chop though

True, but the danger in that thinking is that you hit the market alongside many others from the same firm, similar or same experience... The point here though is that J is ready for a change.

If you're applying from a position of employment (rather than after being made redundant), you're at least in an advantaged position.If I'm hiring, I tend to think that redundancy covers a multitude of candidate sins (as well as some complete innocents). However, candidates from a position of solid employment is at least employable.