Hi,Had 3 rounds of interview already (skills, HR, Case study/exec fit with an MD) for experienced hire at the operations practice in the energy side of their consulting business. Since the position is based away from london, ACN wants me to meet the local office lead (another MD) as well. In the invite it says type of interview as 'meeting'. Wondering what to expect (technical, potential offer discussions etc.)?? Could this be a normal chit chat type conversation or a proper interview?Any thoughts?

From your perspective it doesn't make any difference - those chit chat types can disguise a very in-depth interview. Go prepared for a rigorous interview regardless. All interviews are called 'meetings' in these enlightened times. It's about putting the applicant and interviewer on a level field. It's a classic error to relax at this stage (assume the role is won) and blow the critical stage.Every contact with a potential employer - until you have an offer in black and white - is an interview. Even calling reception with a query.

[quote]From your perspective it doesn't make any difference - those chit chat types can disguise a very in-depth interview. Go prepared for a rigorous interview regardless. All interviews are called 'meetings' in these enlightened times. It's about putting the applicant and interviewer on a level field. It's a classic error to relax at this stage (assume the role is won) and blow the critical stage.Every contact with a potential employer - until you have an offer in black and white - is an interview. Even calling reception with a query. [/quote]This is great advice. Ignore at your peril.

Wise words indeed. The oracle has spoken!

Thank you for your advise. I plan to go prepared without complacency just like I did for other interviews. Especially when ACN seems to have frozen all hiring in their energy business due to low oil prices.

Hi,Completed my fourth interview and the second with a MD last week.I received an email just now from the recruiter that he would like to speak to me tomorrow with an update on my application. Could anyone please shed some light what this means? (+ve / -ve)

In this model, ACN does not target specific segments such as e.g. youth, online, ethnic markets as the ACN Independent Representative targets their contacts who could be from all types of traditional market and customer segments.

@ anushiI meant... could it be to propose an offer? If yes, is it normal to call and propose an offer for a job or emails are the norm?

You guys must be terrible before a birthday or Christmas. It's possible they are offering you the job or informing you that you have not got the job. Or there is another step in the process.

Energy,What happened?

I got an an initial offer over the phone for a top end consultant and i was pitching myself for a 'manager' level position. With 9 years of experience and an MBA, I thought i will get it.Just negotiated with the person who opened up the position and he mentioned that there is only a consultant position open. However, he said that there could be a possibility to address the financial side of it for now to match my expectations and then agree on my promotion path for the future.I was also thrown another alternative of considering another geographic location where manager is a possibility. Still thinking about it, what should I do?

How much of a hassle would the other location pose (moving, long commutes,...)?Career wise I'd say it's much more interesting to start at manager level, especially considering you have 9 years of experience. Much more possibilities to take on responsibility and grow as a professional compared to a senior consultant position.

@nocticulus.... hassle!!! maybe. the locations i was told were Australia, South Africa and US with clear demand/supply of personnel in my favour and to some extent middle east. I prefer middle east and australia. I don't mind moving away from UK as its been really long working in the industry here and its best if I get some outside air.

I've heard positive things about consulting in Australia, quite a few colleagues who went there several years ago still live there. Apparently amongst others, the work/life balance is much better than in most other geograpies.Not sure about the Middle East, several consulting firms have pulled out and are only supplying that market with resources from other regions.

I worked at Accenture Australia because they were my only job offer, but I knew I'd have to find another job before I even started, because I wouldn't relocate to other cities or countries. Accenture may be different in other countries but from the perspective of an Australian employee my advice is that even if you start working for Accenture, you will soon have to leave. Accenture's attrition rate is 2 years and colleagues said they believe it's less than that! Working at Accenture is horrible. Accenture employees are overworked and expected to be experts in technologies they've never even heard of, or very quickly become experts by teaching themselves. I'm not lying when I tell you that the man who interviewed me for my job at Accenture resigned in my first year and the woman who ran my Analyst induction training resigned six months after him. And they both said they were relatively new at Accenture themselves! This sounds like an exaggerated story, but it's true. It's hard to be fired from Accenture Australia and I've heard of employees who waited months to be offered a redundancy but eventually resigned. I think Accenture tries to avoid redundancy payments and employees resign at high rates anyway.If you want honest advice for your interview with Accenture- although it probably sounds cynical and unbelievable- you should focus more on having a "smooth," good looking and neat appearance, having a charming personality (as in duplicitous and manipulative) and most importantly, being thin or as close to thin as possible. Accenture loves their male stars who are about late 20s to early 30s in age and who have a cookie cut personality that (for want of a better description) I'll describe as charming and good-looking. Overweight people need not apply. Talk your skills up in the interview. Anyone who says Accenture offers better work/life balance is not a genuine employee or is just regurgitating Accenture's advertising. Accenture overworks and underpays their employees.

In the US you have not job protection and the MD leaders can fire you fast for whatever they want and HR is absolutely useless against the MD thugs. I would first suggesting that you run from this opportunity period and go anywhere else. But if you still have a choice, do not go to the US. AU has better leadership and better employment protection. UK has the best protections and ACN would love to get you out of the UK because they don't like the protection laws that they have if an MD does not like you.

Thanks for the feedback. I have still not joined ACN. Unfortunately, september is like the month when they review their requirements against their resources and readvertise vacancies. I am waiting for the process to complete and then see if there is a fit for me in UK itself.E

Why do you say that "september is like the month..." ?

As I have been told, they freeze their recruitment in the month of august as its the end of the business plan year. They review their project pipeline in the first/second week of september and then release new positions based on fresh requirements. Have you heard of this before?

I've many years experience of working in this space and I've never heard of this before- any of it.In such a large company it doesnt make sense that recruitment is planned only once a year. Things change quickly- there are a large number of new projects coming in all the time, generally starting within a month or two. Its my experience that the review of pipeline and recruitment plans are done on a monthly / quarterly basis.I suspect that if you monitor the ACN advertised positions you'll notice no more significant change over the coming quarter than any other.

Actually there may be some truth to it, I had a similar experience, ACN does review its positions at the end of the year and if you noticed-most of its positions are advertised with a closing date of end of August. Once the new FY starts by the time the groups get their budgets against demand etc. add a month or so , parallel to this the groups will continue reviewing their demand and allocate budgets to headcount accordingly. So its a mix of year end timing as well as demand based.

Perhaps. I can only re-iterate, I've served 10+ years with ACN Consulting, leading more than one skill group in that time, and I've no experience of a September recruitment freeze (or indeed the processes that you describe). It is a large organization though, perhaps other groups/workforces operate different processes.I expect that the end August closing dates you refer to are largely +1 year. These will then be reviewed regularly and extended well before year end is reached (all efforts are made to minimize work at YE).Hopefully for Energy there is no freeze (theres a joke there somewhere- anyone?).