To all you consultants, wannabe consultants, recruiters, and anyone else out there....If you had to describe the 'dream consultancy firm', what would it look like?Looking forward to all your responses!

As a former consumer of consulting services (of the Big 4 + Acc, CG, IBM variety rather than MBB) I'll give you the buy-side perspective:- delivers value not just bodies- manages their business on margin nor utilisation so is not trying to load me with so called free heads to improve internal stats- has genuine industry expertise, not just a 'consulting toolkit'- has genuine insight into what leading edge looks like from other clients, not just a Gartner subscription- has the same people selling and delivering, not vapid account managers- recognises that the client's timeframes and needs are more important than their forecasting and availability schedule (we can't start till next month because that's when Fred rolls off Megafee Inc)etc etc

excuse my typo and I meant to add:- never says in a proposal guff along the lines of "we're really different" and "we've got the best people"

-Adds actual $ to the bottom line of its clients-Spends a proportion of its time on pro bono/community work-Pays staff well

Employee owned (>50% owned by 10 partners)High bonus focus - base salary well below market normsBrings private sector best practice to Exeter City Council and other local government tier 5 clientGives staff few holidays than any other consultancy company in the UKGives staff an extra day's leave after 10 years in the companyCloses overseas offices without notice to clients or staffCompletely mishandles redundancy processesCompletely mishandles sensitive client dataCompletely mishandles bags at T5