Companies pushing out start dates

Question

It's all rumour but I've heard that:

Big name consulting firm #1 has pushed start dates to Jan or Feb of 2010
Big name consulting firm #2 is now pushing start dates to Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan with financial incentives for choosing Jan.

Don't know if its true -- anyone else hear similar stuff on their campuses?

fatb · Answer

After the trip this weekend
I can confirm that a certain consulting firm pushed back the starting date to be Jan 2010....

Also heard that consulting jobs, like most employment stats, lag the economy

Rubashov1 · Answer

I can't imagine that too many people agree to this willingly. It seems to me that pushing out the start date like that significantly increases the risk of the job evaporating before you ever start.

msday · Answer

rhyme are any of these companies part of the "Big 3"?

MGOBLUE2 · Answer

Yes, I heard the same regarding consulting firm #2.

I have heard nothing about consulting firm#1

3underscore · Answer

Rhyme - as you have heard. Not really my field or knowledge of strength, but word has got back to me that this has been happening. Last time they did this was 2001, and it did not work out pretty.

While it is difficult for any student with loans to want to do this rca, and most would like to resist, every company has an employment at will clause that they can invoke at any time. So compromising is normally the safer course of action, even if uncertain and unpleasant.

isa · Answer

Interesting. Are they pulling back on summer internships as well or just readjusting the dates of full time offers?

rhyme · Answer

You don't exactly have a choice in the matter. You can't just show up in July and be like 'Ok, pay me!'. Indeed it does increase the odds of job evaporation.

rhyme · Answer

Yes, both are.

Rubashov1 · Answer

I meant that I wouldn't be surprised if people with these offers start vigorously searching for replacements.

Are these uniform, across the board push-outs or do you hear of it happening on a selective basis?

Jerz · Answer

Have the current students heard anything about this happening at employers other than consulting? Or is it, at least for now, limited to consulting firms?

krispy · Answer

Oh man, this is really scary. I hope our summer internship recruiting holds up for us.

3underscore · Answer

Typically the banks like to just lay people off - I would think the last year has made it pretty clear how prepared they are to cut if necessary, without a huge amount of preparation for the fact it is going to happen.

JPM once was seen to offer people incentives to go away for a year, but I think that the tests as part of training might be a bit more important than normal. I wouldn't be surprised if some people turn up and find their job isn't there.

pu2003 · Answer

Tens of major law firms have been doing this the last few months. It is not surprising that consulting companies are, too.

riverripper · Answer

I know of a few of the top consulting companies are doing this, I think some of it is office specific since I know some people are starting when expected and others were pushed back. One company is paying 50% of your salary from when you were going to start until the new start date. I have heard one is also looking at doing the pro-bono route like some of the law firms have been doing...basically pay people a percentage of their salary to do work for a non-profit. I haven't heard of industry job offers getting pulled yet. The internationals having offers pulled from some banks is well known at this point.

I dont think the MC companies are going to be doing this to interns. A lot of this was being debated when companies were recruiting for internships so intern recruiting was done accordingly.

Companies pushing out start dates

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