I joined a large consultancy firm as an experienced hire from industry last year.The pipeline for our team is pretty weak and a number of senior people are leaving.I'm feeling a little isolated. The future doesn't look bright and I have that negative feeling about staying, but I've been here less than six months and I know that I can't realistically leave for at least 12-18 months without it raising questions on my CV.Any advice for a lost soul?

I think you have three choices, all of which are acceptable and defendable paths to take.1-Stay where you are and try to improve the situation for yourself and the team. Can you find new work or clients and support the management? If you can do this, it would be a great achievement and should attract recognition from your employer.2-Move to another part of the organisation. It may be that you have skills that are in demand elsewhere in the 'large consultancy'-Project Management or Stakeholder Management, for example.3-Leave. But be honest with yourself and future employers. Why are you going? Is it because of the lack of work, or that consulting's not for you or you don't like the firm? Think this through and once you've decided to go, go!The worst thing would be to stay just for the benefit of you CV - you're not going to produce goo results if you're just killing time before you can leave. I've done it for a period and watch others doing it too. To managers, it's very obvious if your heart's not in to what you're doing. Good luck!

if its BAS youre leaving there will be no questions asked.

RL, please can you tell us more about option 1? How would you go about doing it for instance? How would your advice change if it were a small company he is working for?I'm in a similar position.... "should I stay or should I go?"

I am in exactly same boat as first poster.Is this common in consultancy or unique to certain firms or certain markets?Any old hands with experience in multiple consultancies care to comment?

Thinks it's about being in a the wrong place at the wrong time!

But am I slightly out of place e.g. joined IBM instead of Deloitte.........or completely out of place e.g. moved into IT just as the job market went to India.I am not sure how I can tell. The picture painted at interview was of a booming market. But that was last year.