Hi All,I was interviewed on late August for the position of Supply Chain - Fulfilment consultant in their London's officeAfter the interview, their HR contacted me stating that they were impressed with me etc etc and that i should wait for their official offerHOWEVER, to my amazement after a month, they came back to me saying that the position i have applied is no longer available!! Fortunately i was tired waiting and went for another offer. Imagine if i had turned down all the offers i had waiting for ACV!Anyway, they told me that they would be looking at opening the recruitment process again in Jan / Feb 2012Just wondering if anyone else had the same experience or had any latest news on this?Thanks

It's not my place to comment on Accenture specifically, but I would say I've heard this kind of situation described at most of the major consulting brands over the last months. Our own client survey about hiring intentions for the rest of the year was conducted at the end of August / beginning of September and the overwhelming feeling in the industry was that hiring would be stronger in the second half of the year than the first half. The reality has actually been that within weeks of that survey the economic outlook and general business confidence was dented by the Eurozone situation taking a turn for the worse.In the aftermath of this, I've heard of most major consulting brands (with the exception of the strategy firms) having implemented a massive slowdown or freezing of hiring. In some instances hundreds of candidates part way through the interviewing process have been put on hold. I would say this is pretty commonplace across the industry right now. There are some exceptions and within firms there are some positions that are so critical that they are still being recruited for, but overall there's been a loss of momentum in hiring activity exactly along the lines you've described.I would suggest that this situation will be reversed - and hiring back on the agenda - just as soon as confidence in the market returns. Consultancies now run what you could describe as "just in time recruiting", so any worsening of expectations about project wins feeds through almost immediately to hiring activity; but similarly any turnaround in market sentiment will quickly feed through too. The Jan / Feb timeframe you've referenced is therefore quite plausible provided there is an improvement in the economic headlines and eurozone situation in the coming weeks.Tony RestellTop-Consultant.com