What is the market impression of consultants who have worked in the public sector instead of commercial areas of large consulting firms (i.e. Booz, Deloitte, CapGemini, etc)?Is it looked down upon? Is there a particular stereotype?Does that issue change if someone is from the IT consulting vs. management consulting vs. strategy consulting practices?

'little fleas have smaller fleas upon their back to bite 'em' would sum it up for me - parasites upon parasites. Somewhat less tongue in cheek, public sector is perceived, rightly or wrongly, as a softer marketplace where it is easier to shine againt the client and where the experience is less readily transferable to other sectors..

I was working for a well-known public sector consulting company and was made redundant. what i have discovered over the last few months is that public sector experience does not excite recruiters and HR from private sector. it will not be an exaggeration to say that to some extent it is 'looked down upon'. Despite a good MBA and experience of working for a leading investment bank as MBA intern I am not getting good response from private sector because I think, my experience for last two years has been broadly in public sector. Now I think that I made a blunder to work for a public sector. I am struggling to get myself back on track. To be honest I am frustrated, depressed….

Jobseeker's unfortunate experience is instructive.I worked for PA for a number of years, and worked on large public sector jobs for most of that time. The sort of experience was working with very poor quality change resistant, civil servants who really had no interest other than getting out the door at 5pm.A complete waste of 3 years in my consulting career, and it took me almost a full year to find a job in a decent firm working on private sector clients

ex-PAercan you please shed some light on how you were able to move to private sector. do you think market condition has a role to play? there will be a tipping point where employers will start looking at people from public sector when there are not enough private sector consultants?

Had to trade off my pre-PA experience.Public sector consulting just isn't well regarded. The speed and pressure to change in the private sector is much higher, and poor performers are weeded out. Even with the budget cuts, the jobs for life mentality still prevails in the public sector.My advice is stay in your current firm and try to get some exposure to corporate or FS clients