A renowned American consultancy firm, Bain, is offering generous financial incentives to new recruits with postgraduate business degrees to delay their start dates until April 2024, as reported by The Wall Street Journal.
The move comes amidst an anticipated economic downturn in the consulting industry, along with the tech and finance sectors that the consultancy firms cater to.
According to media reports, Bain is offering financial incentives of $20,000 to MBA recruits who agree to postpone their start date and spend their time as yoga instructors or go on a safari until next April.
Additionally, the recruits are offered $40,000 to work for charitable organisations, $30,000 to learn a new language or participate in an educational initiative while they wait.
The firm McKinsey has also delayed new starts, and has recently announced plans to eliminate around 2,000 jobs in an effort to save money that can be used for consultant jobs.
Due to the current economic situation in the consulting industry, both Bain and McKinsey are facing a shortage of work and are making adjustments to their hiring plans.
As a result, some of Bain's new hires are seeing their start dates pushed back to as far as April 2024.
Similarly, many of the McKinsey candidates have not yet received any concrete information about their start dates, except for a commitment that they will be given at least two months' notice.
Keith Bevans, Global Head of Consultant Recruiting at Bain, said that delaying start dates for MBA candidates by a year is new for the firm and becomes more important during an economic downturn.
"We try to encourage more people to start earlier when times are busy," Bevans told the Business Insider.
While Blair Ciesil, Partner and Global Leader of Talent Attraction at McKinsey, emphasised the importance of recruiting diverse talent to accelerate sustainable, inclusive growth with their clients.
In North America, McKinsey is set to welcome new colleagues from July through February, with most of them joining in 2023. The firm has already communicated the start dates to all of these new joiners.
Ciesil states that McKinsey's approach is to match each individual new colleague with a start date that aligns with their preferences and the firm's cycle of projects to ensure that the new hires have the best possible onboarding and development experience.
According to Management Consulted, a resource site for careers in consulting, both Bain and McKinsey offer some of the highest salaries in the consulting industry, with a base salary of $192,000 in 2023.
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