Hi all,I recently applied for a MC role at Accenture. It was experienced, but low level. My background is not MC, it is internal strategy within professional sports.I received, within 24 hours, a generic retort saying I was unsuccessful. Annoyed, I wanted to speak to the recruiter who "composed" the email.I called the London office (as I applied to work in London) and was told the employee in question was located in Mumbai. Additionally, I found out their entire recruitment help-team, or entry gatekeepers more accurately are in Mumbai.I am curious, is this normal procedure across most leading firms? Additionally, do you guys feel, while not denying the efficiently, this is really an efficient way to screen prospective employee, outsourcing candidates to India? On a separate issue, can somebody please share some advice on what qualities and experiences should be mentioned when seeking an entry level role for Strategy?Many thanks,Tristan

*while not denying the efficiency, this is really an effective way to screen prospective employee, outsourcing candidates to India?

Accenture (mumbai) and Deloitte (poland) are the only ones I have come across who do this. Personally I dont think its a good idea. But I guess it depends how the organisation views recruitment; As an important strategic enabler worth investing in, or a cost centre and large process to be ryanaired.

Supertramp,Frustrating as this experience is, you need to set aside your ego (and we all have one, particularly when applying for jobs) and view the situation as follows.• Is it efficient – Yes, absolutely. It is probably the single most efficient way for a global-sized firm to filter out the 80% of CV’s that they get that are a waste of time.• Is it effective – Yes, very effective. It filters exactly as expected.• Don’t they miss some good CV’s? – Yes, but the efficiency with which they get rid of the 90% makes it worth the cost.• Then why do they advertise in such a way as to attract so much dross? They don’t do it deliberately, but it is a by-product of their brand which runs across both recruitment and client marketing – i.e. we’re Accenture, we’re the best at everything and you can trust us to do everything really well. • Are they truly a top consultancy firm? Not any more. Most of their work (and revenue)derives from IT delivery, outsourced system maintenance, IT projects with some business (operational) transformation, off-shoring and system solution build.• Does that mean they’re rubbish? No – it means they are more of an IT system integrator than a pure play management consultancy.• Does that mean their recruitment process is more like other system integrators and large IT shops? YES!!!Strategy at Accenture is and has been for some time, a very small revenue earner and is more important as window dressing than revenue generation. It positions the firm, but it does not drive growth.Now let me also play devil’s advocate. You ask what qualities and experience should be referred to in an entry level strategy CV. Why do you ask this? Surely if you simply write your CV to reflect what you have truly been doing, you will either be a match to the opportunity/specific firm or not? On the other hand you might feel that with internet access and careers forums, you could glean an insight that you do not have personally and re-write your CV to contain some “keywords”? That is exactly why many firms now employ fairly rigorous filtering activities – to separate those who have “done” from those who copy perfect template off the internet.

oops, 80%? 90% whichever.

oops, 80%? 90% whichever.