Hi, after being a relatively successful recruitment consultant for a small firm in Manchester, I am looking to move into business consulting. I have worked in recruitment for 3 years and account manage client relationships. My academics are good (2:1 etc). I would like to work as a business consultant to blue chips / government. Where should I start looking? And what ££ could I expect.tnx

I'm afraid your chances are less than none. I'm sure your academics are fine but if you wanted to go into management consultancy you should have been looking at it as a grad rather than recruitment. It is not a transferrable skillset, recruitment consultants are ten a penny and many of them have dreadful reputations as "wide boys" with very little between their ears. I think you will struggle to get an interview with a reputable firm, although their are some consultancies who evidently take people on without interview.

That was a hilarious response but oh so true. There is no chance of you joining Accenture Deloitte PA Detica or any other top 10 consultancy.

Nothing is impossible. I was a recruitment consultant for three years earlier in my career and now work for a top ten consultancy. So na na na na na to the previous two respondents!You do need to reinvent yourself. First step is to get an MBA from a leading business school. However there may be quite a lot more steps beyond this....so you will also need enormous tenacity, the ability to cope with rejection and a sense of humour. Bit like recruitment really. Worth a try though.

Having made the move after two years in recruitment, my advice would be to look at graduate schemes. The general work experience in a service business is fine, but it is not very transferrable to business consulting. It is a positive disadvantage on your CV in most cases.I would advise emphasising the work you did internally rather than your recruiting experience. For example, since you were working for a small firm you might well have had line management or functional responsibilities. Also, if you worked as a industry-focussed researcher, some of the knowledge and experience you gained may be relevant to business consulting in that field. Although relationship management and business development might seem relevant, the approach in recruitment and business consulting is very different.I think there are only two exceptions to the rule of recruiting looking bad on a consulting CV and both rely on experience in executive search & selection specifically, rather than recruitment.If you work in one of the top executive search firms (i.e. one of the few with a decent reputation) then you may be able to get a foot in the door with business consulting.If you are a senior seller of consulting services and already have the business/consulting experience on your CV, executive search can broaden your network.As a side note, in the move from recruitment or executive search to business consulting, I would strongly advise avoiding recruitment agencies when you are job hunting. There are two reasons for this. Firstly, our fellow recruitment consultants (even those who specifically recruit for management consulting) get uppity at the suggestion someone might think business consulting is better than management consulting. Secondly, most recruitment consultants will pigeonhole you into HR consulting (which may be what you are interested in) but displays a massive lack of understanding of the cultural differences between the sectors.